Hello,
I am planning to make some kick panel enclosures for my car, I have a 2 61/2" speakers to fill them onceI get em built. My first question is that where i'm gonna put em, you have a piece of sheet metal, then behing it the actual fender, an I cut that inner sheet metal out to make for room and clearance? My second question is does anyone have any pcitures of when they were building their kicks? I know I'm suppossed to use cardboard fora parrern for the fiberglass, but I can really imagine a design, and some pics of how some of you did yours would help.
Thanks,
mr_han_solo

 

I Really liked the ones that this guy did on his site

http://www.completeaudio.8m.com/kick_pods.htm

He makes the fabrication look super easy. I wanna give it a try once I get better with glassing. I am a super n00b right now.

 

The way most people build kick panels is to mount the speaker to the new fiberglass piece, not to the metal behind the factory kick panel.

The easiest way to do custom kicks is to cut out wood rings to mount the speakers to, position them properly on the kick panel, then stretch fleece around the whole thing. Soak the fleece with 2-part polyurethane or resin, then finish things up with a little bondo to smooth it out.

Follow the directions above and it's really not a difficult process. There are 2 things that make it much more difficult as your skill levels progress.

The first is getting an OEM type of look if that's what your after. Wrapping the whole kick in fleece then painting/carpeting/whatever the finished product kind of makes it look like a big ugly blob that doesn't match the rest of your interior. It takes some creativity to get a stock-ish type of look.

Secondly, is getting the aiming and airspace requirements right. Proper aiming of the speakers is critical to get good results from both front seats. If your image is off a little bit and you compensate by changing the position of 1 driver, it can have a negative effect from the other position. It takes a lot of experimentation to get it right. You've also got to be conscious of the airspace of the kick panel. Most high Q woofers in commercially available component sets need a ton of airspace, so you can usually get better sound by cutting the back of the kick panel so that it can vent into the metal area behind the plastic kicks.

Do a search and you should come up with pictures of Rezn8r's kicks as well as mine. His and mine look very different, so it will give you a good idea of what different styles and driver positions you may want to consider.

 

Hey Jim, do you think that letting them vent will cause major rattles back there? What frequencies are you going to allow your kicks to play?

 

Hey Jim, can you give me some pointers on properly aiming the speakers? I may try making my own and I know that I emialed you about yours but I think I can do this myself if I just know in which direction the speakers are suppose to face? I am most likely going to be running a set a Polk 6.5" if that matters on the direction. also, how do I know how much space is needed. If I let the speaker use the square hole in the kick area then how far away should the magnet be from the metal? I want to try and keep as much foot room as possible, if possible.

 

Dont let the magnet touch the metal on the car cuz you will get teh nastyest vibrations....



to aim them set them up one at a time with teh help of a friend or two... have one person sitting like normal in the seat and you holding the speak at the floor.... with a laser pointer aim the speak at the guys head....

make your ring and have dowels b4 you try to aim it tho that way all you have to do is hot glue them together when you get teh aim correct






BTW: COVER ANYTHING YOU DONT WANT RESIN TO GET ON>>>> ITS VERY PERMANENT AND SUCKS.... I HAVE A SPOT ON MY REAR FENDER DUE TO IT... AND WHERE LONG SLEEVES CUZ IF YOU LEAN ON FG IT ITCHES TO THE THIRD DEGREE

 

sounds like too much work

Q-Logic here I come!

or maybe Jim will start selling his someday?

I might snag a set from him, then the CDT HD-62s... components are so hard to decide on--especially when you can't audition them.

 

Kinda off topic, but thise CDT HD speaks are awesome, they are my personal favorites, I love their smooth and fairly neutral sound, and their tweets blend nicely without sounding shrill. (Although its very subjective) I highly recommend those Speakers!

 

Bob, thanks for the tip. I see one problem though, if the goal is to aim the speaker in a direct line of sight to the listeners face then the angle that the drivers speaker must be at will be almost on its side so that it can face up to the driver.

 

Aiming the speakers is a trial and error process. There's no way you're going to aim the woofer enough that you're on-axis and still have any foot room left. What I do is cut out speaker rings to mount the drivers to, and position them where I want them with metal plumber's strapping. Then I can install them and move them around until I get the best imaging possible. Once I accomplish that, I use MDF pieces to firmly attach the rings in that position so that they're strong enough to hold up while I stretch fleece over them and soak it in resin.

 

ah, so really the only reason that you would face them directly across from each other, (perpendicular to the length of the car,) is to save legroom? Or do you think that the off-axis sound is just as good?

In the Altima rental I'm driving right now, the speakers are in the door, and the imaging sounds great. There are tweeters in the a-pillars that are perpendicular as well... not a single speaker aimed at your ears. I rather like it..

If you could theoretically aim the speakers perfectly at the driver, would they then sound much better?

 

Whether off-axis is "just as good" or not really depends on the drivers. In most cases, no, off axis isn't as good. Especially with commercially available component speakers that cross over to the tweeter at too high of a frequency. But... you're not going to be 100% on axis in both front seats anyway, nor are you going to have equal path lengths from your seated position, and both of these issues can be worked around to an extent by proper driver aiming.

 

is the best way to aim to the 'center' of the front seat area... head-level?

 

The "best way" depends on the specific application and the specific drivers used with a specific crossover. There's no hard and fast rule here. It's a game of experimentation. Aiming the drivers toward the center of the car is probably a good generic starting point that will work well with most drivers. In my case, I've found that I get a better balance (at the expense of perhaps a flatter frequency response) by not aiming the woofers up very far. The reason is, by aiming the drivers up toward the center of the car, the drivers closer to you are more off axis than the woofers farther from you. While this can help pull the image back toward the farther drivers, it does it inconsistantly with frequency. I found that by having the drivers towed in a little, but not towed up, the degrees off axis were more similar between the two sides, and gave me a more stable soundstage that didn't shift with frequency.

 

i meant aim the drivers at the person sitting adjacent to you ie: the drivers side speak is aimed at the passenger and visa versa