im looking at converting my 82 ta into a manual car, but i have a concern.. i bought some kick pannel enclosures a couple years ago and if i were to convert to a manual, would the kick pannel speakers interfere with the clutch pedal?? thanks for the help, oh and if its been asked 40 gizzilion times before, pardon me, i dont really have time to use the search, internet usage is limited where im at.

thanks again!

 

Whether or not it interferes depends on your specific enclosure design, and how fussy you are about foot room. I built my kick panels and swapped to a 5 speed with no complaints. The kicks don't interfere at all with clutch operation, and I just tuck my foot under the clutch pedal instead of to the left while I'm cruising.

 

jim
do you make and sell those kick panels. i have an 83 5 speed and i wanted to put some alpines type r 6.5 with 1 in tweet down there. any help would be great
dion

 

my goal is to start offering them this spring. I'm planning to offer a turn-key component/kick panel combo that's designed from the ground up for that specific application, and I'll probably offer the bare kicks as well.

 

nice
thanks just let me know and i will buy some for sure...

 

Ditto. If you do start selling them (again? didn't you before?), I'm in for a pair.

I as well have a manual, and I was affraid of them hitting. How flush can you make them before ruining the sound?

 

It depends on the specific drivers and how bad it can get before you consider it "ruined". Like everything, it's highly subjective.

One goal that I'm trying to achieve through proper driver selection and proper crossover design is the ability to get good off-axis sound from the woofer. Typically, once you get at and above the frequency where one wavelength equals the diameter of the cone, your off-axis response goes to hell in a hurry. Unfortunately, because of the super-compact tweeters used in car audio component sets, and the manufacturer's desire to use inexpensive crossover networks, you wind up with a crossover frequency centered at 3k, sometimes 3.5 or 4k. The result is a huge gap between 2-3k in off axis response. Since I'm planning to make this as a bolt-in package complete with drivers and kick panels, this frees up the usual constraints and allows me to use a home audio tweeter. The drawback is that it's going to have a much larger faceplate, but once it's hidden behind a cloth grill, who cares. On the other hand, I can use a tweeter that can be crossed over at a much lower frequency, which should greatly improve off axis response, as well as provide the opportunity to use a more rigid cone material in the woofer... something you can't have if you need it to play up to 3k or 4khz.

OR maybe I'll build it and it'll suck. Only time will tell.

 

what kind of woofer are you planning on using?

any bass-reflex, or purely sealed, and what internal volume are we looking at?

 

so then it wont get in the way too much at all?

im using the qform kick pannels that i ordered from crutchfield about 4.5 years ago.

 

Scrap,
I'm not sure specifically on the woofers yet. I'm looking at a couple candidates. I'm going to experiment with enclosure alignment too, but my first plan is to get the kick panel volume as large as possible without interfering with clutch operation (and without looking too stupid) and see where that brings me. If I can squeak out .1 cubic foot, I think I'll be in ok shape.

Luvr,

I haven't actually driven a car with the Q logic panels to say for sure whether they'll get in the way or not, but judging by the forward location of the woofer, I really doubt they will be a problem. Your foot and the clutch pedal should be well behind the woofer, so I don't think it'll have an impact.

 

hey Jim, what about some for us lucky 700R4 owners?

I'd love to have a set of kicks that are actually molded so the woofers point at me... those q-logics are not tilted enough... although they may sound okay.. if you are making custom enclosures, you might as well take advantage of the extra space if you can.

 

A typical 7" woofer has very good off-axis output up to around 2khz. It's no coincidence that I'm trying to find a woofer/tweeter combo that I can cross at 2khz. My point is, if I do my job well enough, there will be no benefit in having the woofer pointing right at you. In fact, because I'm probably going to choose a driver with a very rigid cone, the off-axis sound will likely be better than the on-axis sound. A woofer with a rigid cone that remains pistonic throughout the passband usually results in a very accurate, dynamic sound, but unfortunately there's no free lunch. That type of cone usually sings like a canary a couple octaves above the passband, so it's necessary to impliment a fairly complicated filter to address it. Listening off axis will help to further attenuate that breakup.

 

do you think that the internal volume really matters that much on these kickpanel enclosures? because if it did, wouldn't the automatic tranny owners be able to get some more space out of the kicks? resulting in better sound?

 

Volume matters to a certain point. Since I haven't even decided on what drivers I'm using, what that point is certainly hasn't been established.

Whether it's an auto or a stick, ultimately the kicks can only encroach on your foot area by so much before it gets in the way. If I determine that there is a significant improvement that can be made for the automatic cars, I'll deal with it then.

 

cool

say since this is all hypothetical anyways...

when would you hypothetically, possibly, maybe, sorta start making these things?

 

I'm hoping to start soon, and maybe have something by early summer. I need to get off my *** and finish setting up my testing rig.

 

you think they will cost more, or less than the q-logics?

 

More. A lot more. We're talking about a custom hand made pair of kicks, with specifically selected speakers, and a custom designed and hand made crossover network designed for that specific application. All of that is certainly going to cost a lot more than a cheap set of injection molded plastic kick panels.

 

I had a quote to make some at a local shop for $1000 without the woofers....

cheaper than that, I hope...

 

A grand for bare kick panels? Jesus. I'm in the wrong business.

Trust me, it'll be WAY less than that. Hopefully half that or less, but I can't be sure until I get more involved in the project.

 

yeah if it were $500 or less WITH the woofers/tweets, you'd find a lot of people interested.

 

I used to have qforms. I dont think that there would be any interference, but there will be less foot room. I had them with an auto and took them out because they took up too much room. I had to rest my foot on the brake the whole time I was driving. No use of the dead pedal either. Ended up making my own using the stock BOSE kicks as a template.

 

I usually rest my left foot up against my seat... not all the way to the firewall...