Two For One—A Go Fast TJ and J10 Build

Went to see some friends in Bend, OR this weekend. Did some exploring yesterday with the jeep and it was a pretty good shake down run. Everything worked great, the new rear sway bar is pretty nice and the bypasses in the front made for a pretty cushy ride. Did about 50 miles of old forest roads in 8 hours with a lot of stops along the way. Found some pretty awesome lakes and camp spots for the future.

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Went to see some friends in Bend, OR this weekend. Did some exploring yesterday with the jeep and it was a pretty good shake down run. Everything worked great, the new rear sway bar is pretty nice and the bypasses in the front made for a pretty cushy ride. Did about 50 miles of old forest roads in 8 hours with a lot of stops along the way. Found some pretty awesome lakes and camp spots for the future.

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Very cool trip, Trev. Those stripped trees remind me of St. Helens.
 
Well it finally happened, I got sucked back into car audio stuff.

My buddy had a 12w6 sub laying around not being used and he made me a great deal on it.

After all what harm could it do to just throw the sub in the back, quick and easy. Well, it can do a lot of harm to my wallet...

Got the sub setup for a semi quick process to pull it in and out if I need to haul stuff or put the back seat in. Also had a pioneer DEH-80PRS laying around that I bought a few years ago. Ended up swapping that in and redoing my wiring setup. I had 5.25 components in the dash location, tweeters on the dash, 6.25 components in the sound bar and their tweeters mounted down near my feet (dumb).

I ditched the passive crossovers, the 6.25s in the sound bar and am just running the 5.25s and their tweeters in an active setup with the sub and my 5 channel amp.

Also picked up an Audiofrog UMI-1 microphone kit and got it setup with room EQ Wizard on my laptop, but haven't gotten very far on tuning yet. Having a lot of fun with it though.

The sub surround blew out after a week lol. I bought a new surround and repaired that yesterday. Gonna get it put back in on Monday. It's in a ported box now, the box size is pretty close to JL's specs for a sealed box. Gonna try to plug up the port and make it a sealed box, since that will be better for doing some tests and trying to measure where my effective cabin gain kicks in.

Picked up a cheap RF 500x1D mono amp for the sub to replace the cheap underpowered one my buddy had on it. 4 cinch straps to make sure it stays in place at the dunes lol
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New head unit
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New sub surround with the sealer still drying.
 
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I've been thinking a lot about how I want to sound deaden the jeep.

Nick at https://resonixsoundsolutions.com/shop/

has been a tremendous help answering all of my questions and giving me some ideas.

The first place I want to start is addressing the hard top. I am planning on making a headliner for the hard top with his brand new Fibre Mats. It's going to have 100% coverage and I think it will help a lot with absorbing incoming outside noise, reducing reflections inside the cabin, providing thermal insulation and hopefully look pretty good.

Currently I'm planning on a layer of some type of fabric that will be the visible layer on the inside, not exactly sure what yet. Then a layer of the fibre mat 45, a layer of either MLV or 1/64" lead sheet as a noise barrier, a layer of fibre mat 25, to decouple the noise barrier from the hardtop, then a final layer on the backside of the same visible fabric or something else. I'd like to have the fibre mats and noise barrier encapsulated into one assembly.

The inside of the hardtop will be getting nearly 100% coverage of Resonix CLD squares.

What I'm still trying to figure out, and hoping some of you can help me brainstorm, is the best way to attach the headliner assembly to the hardtop. The headliner assembly with the noise barrier will be about 40lbs spread out over the roof and I need a way to secure it so I don't ever have to worry about it falling down while doing the high speed off roading I like so much.

My ideas so far in no particular order.
1. Line the entire inside of the hardtop with Velcro, and the entire back side of the headliner with Velcro. The Velcro would have to attach to the backside of the CLD squares.

I'm not sure how long this setup would last, I'd worry about the Velcro adhesive losing it's strength and the noise barrier having too much room to move around inside.

2. Make some threaded studs with a flange. Picture a normal hex bolt, instead of a hex, it would have maybe 1.5" diameter round flange that would get glued to the top in a grid pattern. According holes would be put in the headliner for the bolt to protrude through. Make some largish decorative nuts to thread on and compress the headliner to the hardtop in that spot. Maybe use two nuts to double nut it and not worry about it coming loose.

I think this may be the best bet for the roof, though I worry about having holes in the noise barrier even if I can make them a nice tight fit. Would probably use Velcro around the edges and window border of the hard top to keep it secure and prevent it from lifting off the sides.

Would probably do an 8"-12" grid and go for that classic button tuck style look of upholstery.

3. Similar to option 2, but instead of bolts, use male and female snaps, with one half glued to the hard top on a grid pattern. May work as well, but I worry about the snaps having a bit of play when hooked together and causing weird resonances.

4. Use some type of glue or adhesive to permanently mount the headliner to the hardtop. Would probably use a pin style button on a grid pattern, similar to the button on your jeans but bigger, to poke through the entire headliner assembly and give it a finished button tuck look, while also locking all the layers together so they can't shift around inside, but would only require a tiny pinhole at each location so probably less harmful to the noise barrier.

Not sure what type of glue/adhesive would be best, but I could use that for most of the surface area, with some nice HD Velcro around the edges and window borders.

This may be the best option, but the headliner wouldn't be removable. May not be a big deal, wouldn't be too hard to pull the top off if it needed a good cleaning.

I'm open to any other ideas or thoughts as well. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this done before on a TJ, at least not a 40-50lb headliner.

I'm about to place my order for the fibre mats and CLD, about $1k, so I'll have to figure something out one way or the other lol
 
Well I finally made it to the dunes, may have been better off if I hadn't lol.

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@BuildBreakRepeat rode shotgun and did a great job encouraging me to break shit lol, we had a blast.

The dunes in Florence are definitely a lot more gnarly than what I was used to at sand lake in Pacific city. Huge razorbacks, deep witches eye's and lots of big hills.

Started off hitting some whoops and trails around the beach. The bypasses were super cushy and the jeep was soaking up the bumps great.

About 45 minutes in we were heading across some flatter areas to the other end of the dunes. About 100 feet away from where I was going to stop and I sent us off this razorback that we both missed. About 3-4ft tall, dug a nice deep hole. Bent my drag link, and the axle a little more than it already was.

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Definitely some extra camber there lol. We jacked it up to check the unit bearings and ball joints, I'm still running my factory unit bearings with 160k miles on them, and they still seemed nice and tight.

Thought we were done for the day, so we "limped" it back to the parking lot doing 40-50mph. Once we got back the axle didn't look as bad on flat ground, so I tightened up the bypass tubes and we headed back out...

A few hundred yards out of the parking lot we found a nice ramp. Drove over it the first time and then I had a bad idea. Garret got out and I circled back to hit it a little faster. First run was about 30mph, got some air and landed nose first a bit, but not too bad. Circled back again and hit it about 40mph, landed on all four at the same time and it was awesome, didn't bottom out and was super cushy.

Then I decided to go again a little faster. Hit it about 50-55mph and absolutely sent it. Total Ricky Bobby moment flying through the air. Landed pretty hard, one of my new grill snubbers ejected itself lol. Could've used more than 10 psi in the tires too. I definitely cycled the suspension when I setup the new shocks and set bumps accordingly, but between the frame flexing up, the motor shifting down in the mounts and the trans shifting sideways in it's mount it was a bit of a mess. Front axle UCA mount smashed both of the hardlines for the trans and hit the bottom of the motor and smashed a portion of my oil pan flange. The driveshaft hit the neutral safety switch as well, so I had ATF pouring out everywhere.

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Garrett's quick thinking saved our day, he pointed out we needed to haul ass back to town before I had no trans left. Luckily we were close to the parking lot, so we hit the road with a big cloud of white smoke. Eventually made it to town and an AutoZone with the trans barely functioning. Bought some hose, a mini tubing cutter and a new NSS, got it repaired in the parking lot and drove it back home.

All in all it was a good day, I've since replaced the ZJ steering with a currie setup I picked up used, and did a full fluid flush and filter on the trans. It seems to be driving normally which is a big relief.

Definitely drives a bit funny now, but the axle isn't leaking so that's good. Going to try pulling it out and straightening it, then if that goes well I may do a custom bottom truss. Hoping the tubes are the bent part and not the inner C's, not exactly sure how I'd fix that.

Garrett's got all the videos, I'll post them up once he sends them to me, but here's a slow mo version of the big jump.

https://www.screencast.com/t/RWCgh4uuGO1

IMG_20221004_210816~2.jpg
 
Well I finally made it to the dunes, may have been better off if I hadn't lol.

View attachment 365768

@BuildBreakRepeat rode shotgun and did a great job encouraging me to break shit lol, we had a blast.

The dunes in Florence are definitely a lot more gnarly than what I was used to at sand lake in Pacific city. Huge razorbacks, deep witches eye's and lots of big hills.

Started off hitting some whoops and trails around the beach. The bypasses were super cushy and the jeep was soaking up the bumps great.

About 45 minutes in we were heading across some flatter areas to the other end of the dunes. About 100 feet away from where I was going to stop and I sent us off this razorback that we both missed. About 3-4ft tall, dug a nice deep hole. Bent my drag link, and the axle a little more than it already was.

View attachment 365771

View attachment 365772

Definitely some extra camber there lol. We jacked it up to check the unit bearings and ball joints, I'm still running my factory unit bearings with 160k miles on them, and they still seemed nice and tight.

Thought we were done for the day, so we "limped" it back to the parking lot doing 40-50mph. Once we got back the axle didn't look as bad on flat ground, so I tightened up the bypass tubes and we headed back out...

A few hundred yards out of the parking lot we found a nice ramp. Drove over it the first time and then I had a bad idea. Garret got out and I circled back to hit it a little faster. First run was about 30mph, got some air and landed nose first a bit, but not too bad. Circled back again and hit it about 40mph, landed on all four at the same time and it was awesome, didn't bottom out and was super cushy.

Then I decided to go again a little faster. Hit it about 50-55mph and absolutely sent it. Total Ricky Bobby moment flying through the air. Landed pretty hard, one of my new grill snubbers ejected itself lol. Could've used more than 10 psi in the tires too. I definitely cycled the suspension when I setup the new shocks and set bumps accordingly, but between the frame flexing up, the motor shifting down in the mounts and the trans shifting sideways in it's mount it was a bit of a mess. Front axle UCA mount smashed both of the hardlines for the trans and hit the bottom of the motor and smashed a portion of my oil pan flange. The driveshaft hit the neutral safety switch as well, so I had ATF pouring out everywhere.

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Garrett's quick thinking saved our day, he pointed out we needed to haul ass back to town before I had no trans left. Luckily we were close to the parking lot, so we hit the road with a big cloud of white smoke. Eventually made it to town and an AutoZone with the trans barely functioning. Bought some hose, a mini tubing cutter and a new NSS, got it repaired in the parking lot and drove it back home.

All in all it was a good day, I've since replaced the ZJ steering with a currie setup I picked up used, and did a full fluid flush and filter on the trans. It seems to be driving normally which is a big relief.

Definitely drives a bit funny now, but the axle isn't leaking so that's good. Going to try pulling it out and straightening it, then if that goes well I may do a custom bottom truss. Hoping the tubes are the bent part and not the inner C's, not exactly sure how I'd fix that.

Garrett's got all the videos, I'll post them up once he sends them to me, but here's a slow mo version of the big jump.

https://www.screencast.com/t/RWCgh4uuGO1

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Well I finally made it to the dunes, may have been better off if I hadn't lol.

View attachment 365768

@BuildBreakRepeat rode shotgun and did a great job encouraging me to break shit lol, we had a blast.

The dunes in Florence are definitely a lot more gnarly than what I was used to at sand lake in Pacific city. Huge razorbacks, deep witches eye's and lots of big hills.

Started off hitting some whoops and trails around the beach. The bypasses were super cushy and the jeep was soaking up the bumps great.

About 45 minutes in we were heading across some flatter areas to the other end of the dunes. About 100 feet away from where I was going to stop and I sent us off this razorback that we both missed. About 3-4ft tall, dug a nice deep hole. Bent my drag link, and the axle a little more than it already was.

View attachment 365771

View attachment 365772

Definitely some extra camber there lol. We jacked it up to check the unit bearings and ball joints, I'm still running my factory unit bearings with 160k miles on them, and they still seemed nice and tight.

Thought we were done for the day, so we "limped" it back to the parking lot doing 40-50mph. Once we got back the axle didn't look as bad on flat ground, so I tightened up the bypass tubes and we headed back out...

A few hundred yards out of the parking lot we found a nice ramp. Drove over it the first time and then I had a bad idea. Garret got out and I circled back to hit it a little faster. First run was about 30mph, got some air and landed nose first a bit, but not too bad. Circled back again and hit it about 40mph, landed on all four at the same time and it was awesome, didn't bottom out and was super cushy.

Then I decided to go again a little faster. Hit it about 50-55mph and absolutely sent it. Total Ricky Bobby moment flying through the air. Landed pretty hard, one of my new grill snubbers ejected itself lol. Could've used more than 10 psi in the tires too. I definitely cycled the suspension when I setup the new shocks and set bumps accordingly, but between the frame flexing up, the motor shifting down in the mounts and the trans shifting sideways in it's mount it was a bit of a mess. Front axle UCA mount smashed both of the hardlines for the trans and hit the bottom of the motor and smashed a portion of my oil pan flange. The driveshaft hit the neutral safety switch as well, so I had ATF pouring out everywhere.

View attachment 365776

View attachment 365778

View attachment 365777

View attachment 365781

Garrett's quick thinking saved our day, he pointed out we needed to haul ass back to town before I had no trans left. Luckily we were close to the parking lot, so we hit the road with a big cloud of white smoke. Eventually made it to town and an AutoZone with the trans barely functioning. Bought some hose, a mini tubing cutter and a new NSS, got it repaired in the parking lot and drove it back home.

All in all it was a good day, I've since replaced the ZJ steering with a currie setup I picked up used, and did a full fluid flush and filter on the trans. It seems to be driving normally which is a big relief.

Definitely drives a bit funny now, but the axle isn't leaking so that's good. Going to try pulling it out and straightening it, then if that goes well I may do a custom bottom truss. Hoping the tubes are the bent part and not the inner C's, not exactly sure how I'd fix that.

Garrett's got all the videos, I'll post them up once he sends them to me, but here's a slow mo version of the big jump.

https://www.screencast.com/t/RWCgh4uuGO1

View attachment 365779

 
Not the first adventure that transmission's been on! 😉

I know right, I need to do something different with the lines I guess since I can't seem to get the bumps right.

At least when I jumped it at hammers the mount just kissed the nut enough to loosen it. I guess that was my warning lol
 
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Well I finally made it to the dunes, may have been better off if I hadn't lol.

View attachment 365768

@BuildBreakRepeat rode shotgun and did a great job encouraging me to break shit lol, we had a blast.

The dunes in Florence are definitely a lot more gnarly than what I was used to at sand lake in Pacific city. Huge razorbacks, deep witches eye's and lots of big hills.

Started off hitting some whoops and trails around the beach. The bypasses were super cushy and the jeep was soaking up the bumps great.

About 45 minutes in we were heading across some flatter areas to the other end of the dunes. About 100 feet away from where I was going to stop and I sent us off this razorback that we both missed. About 3-4ft tall, dug a nice deep hole. Bent my drag link, and the axle a little more than it already was.

View attachment 365771

View attachment 365772

Definitely some extra camber there lol. We jacked it up to check the unit bearings and ball joints, I'm still running my factory unit bearings with 160k miles on them, and they still seemed nice and tight.

Thought we were done for the day, so we "limped" it back to the parking lot doing 40-50mph. Once we got back the axle didn't look as bad on flat ground, so I tightened up the bypass tubes and we headed back out...

A few hundred yards out of the parking lot we found a nice ramp. Drove over it the first time and then I had a bad idea. Garret got out and I circled back to hit it a little faster. First run was about 30mph, got some air and landed nose first a bit, but not too bad. Circled back again and hit it about 40mph, landed on all four at the same time and it was awesome, didn't bottom out and was super cushy.

Then I decided to go again a little faster. Hit it about 50-55mph and absolutely sent it. Total Ricky Bobby moment flying through the air. Landed pretty hard, one of my new grill snubbers ejected itself lol. Could've used more than 10 psi in the tires too. I definitely cycled the suspension when I setup the new shocks and set bumps accordingly, but between the frame flexing up, the motor shifting down in the mounts and the trans shifting sideways in it's mount it was a bit of a mess. Front axle UCA mount smashed both of the hardlines for the trans and hit the bottom of the motor and smashed a portion of my oil pan flange. The driveshaft hit the neutral safety switch as well, so I had ATF pouring out everywhere.

View attachment 365776

View attachment 365778

View attachment 365777

View attachment 365781

Garrett's quick thinking saved our day, he pointed out we needed to haul ass back to town before I had no trans left. Luckily we were close to the parking lot, so we hit the road with a big cloud of white smoke. Eventually made it to town and an AutoZone with the trans barely functioning. Bought some hose, a mini tubing cutter and a new NSS, got it repaired in the parking lot and drove it back home.

All in all it was a good day, I've since replaced the ZJ steering with a currie setup I picked up used, and did a full fluid flush and filter on the trans. It seems to be driving normally which is a big relief.

Definitely drives a bit funny now, but the axle isn't leaking so that's good. Going to try pulling it out and straightening it, then if that goes well I may do a custom bottom truss. Hoping the tubes are the bent part and not the inner C's, not exactly sure how I'd fix that.

Garrett's got all the videos, I'll post them up once he sends them to me, but here's a slow mo version of the big jump.

https://www.screencast.com/t/RWCgh4uuGO1

View attachment 365779

That is bonafide bad ass!
 
Well I finally made it to the dunes, may have been better off if I hadn't lol.

View attachment 365768

@BuildBreakRepeat rode shotgun and did a great job encouraging me to break shit lol, we had a blast.

The dunes in Florence are definitely a lot more gnarly than what I was used to at sand lake in Pacific city. Huge razorbacks, deep witches eye's and lots of big hills.

Started off hitting some whoops and trails around the beach. The bypasses were super cushy and the jeep was soaking up the bumps great.

About 45 minutes in we were heading across some flatter areas to the other end of the dunes. About 100 feet away from where I was going to stop and I sent us off this razorback that we both missed. About 3-4ft tall, dug a nice deep hole. Bent my drag link, and the axle a little more than it already was.

View attachment 365771

View attachment 365772

Definitely some extra camber there lol. We jacked it up to check the unit bearings and ball joints, I'm still running my factory unit bearings with 160k miles on them, and they still seemed nice and tight.

Thought we were done for the day, so we "limped" it back to the parking lot doing 40-50mph. Once we got back the axle didn't look as bad on flat ground, so I tightened up the bypass tubes and we headed back out...

A few hundred yards out of the parking lot we found a nice ramp. Drove over it the first time and then I had a bad idea. Garret got out and I circled back to hit it a little faster. First run was about 30mph, got some air and landed nose first a bit, but not too bad. Circled back again and hit it about 40mph, landed on all four at the same time and it was awesome, didn't bottom out and was super cushy.

Then I decided to go again a little faster. Hit it about 50-55mph and absolutely sent it. Total Ricky Bobby moment flying through the air. Landed pretty hard, one of my new grill snubbers ejected itself lol. Could've used more than 10 psi in the tires too. I definitely cycled the suspension when I setup the new shocks and set bumps accordingly, but between the frame flexing up, the motor shifting down in the mounts and the trans shifting sideways in it's mount it was a bit of a mess. Front axle UCA mount smashed both of the hardlines for the trans and hit the bottom of the motor and smashed a portion of my oil pan flange. The driveshaft hit the neutral safety switch as well, so I had ATF pouring out everywhere.

View attachment 365776

View attachment 365778

View attachment 365777

View attachment 365781

Garrett's quick thinking saved our day, he pointed out we needed to haul ass back to town before I had no trans left. Luckily we were close to the parking lot, so we hit the road with a big cloud of white smoke. Eventually made it to town and an AutoZone with the trans barely functioning. Bought some hose, a mini tubing cutter and a new NSS, got it repaired in the parking lot and drove it back home.

All in all it was a good day, I've since replaced the ZJ steering with a currie setup I picked up used, and did a full fluid flush and filter on the trans. It seems to be driving normally which is a big relief.

Definitely drives a bit funny now, but the axle isn't leaking so that's good. Going to try pulling it out and straightening it, then if that goes well I may do a custom bottom truss. Hoping the tubes are the bent part and not the inner C's, not exactly sure how I'd fix that.

Garrett's got all the videos, I'll post them up once he sends them to me, but here's a slow mo version of the big jump.

https://www.screencast.com/t/RWCgh4uuGO1

View attachment 365779

Also, congrats to the camera man. That was some good work!
 
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I'm definitely going to be adding a lot of valving to the front bypasses. When we first went out I had the bypass tubes all the way open and it was really soft, definitely moreso than the rear 2.5s. The big jump was with the tubes 6 full turns out from fully closed.

I'm thinking I can add a good bit of compression valving and keep the tubes adjusted somewhere in the middle without it being too harsh, I'm not very picky at all, and I'll gain a lot more of a bump zone in the last two inches of my up travel since I didn't really notice much of one this time out.

I probably won't beat on it much until I get the front axle straightened out. I also think I bent my upper bump stops some more, they're angled a bit funny. I'd really like to cut out the entire spring bucket and shock tower and redo it, but that'll be a decent project since I can't seem to find any premade upper spring buckets, so I'll have to make it all. When I do that I'm definitely putting some hydro bumps in place of the factory ones inside the spring.
 
When I do that I'm definitely putting some hydro bumps in place of the factory ones inside the spring.

I've never researched hydro bumps much, is there a benefit of inside vs outside the spring? Packaging is one that comes to mind but I don't know enough to know any other concrete reasons.
 
I've never researched hydro bumps much, is there a benefit of inside vs outside the spring? Packaging is one that comes to mind but I don't know enough to know any other concrete reasons.

I was just going for packaging reasons, probably use a pin top version instead of the more common pinch cans.

Also give it a nice solid pad to hit on the axle, I've seen some small square 3/8" thick plate pads on some of the U4 cars and they're still bent down from the impacts.

I'd want them as close to the frame as possible, not sure where else I'd mount them if not in the spring. Could definitely see it twisting the frame rail if it was mounted too far outboard.

I'd like to do the same in the rear, french a tube can up through the frame and upper spring bucket to get it inside the spring.

I'd probably de-stroke them so only the last 1" is bumpstop in the front, maybe 1.5-2" in the rear
 
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I really need to get back on the truck and get it going so I can fix the TJ.

I've got 2 HP Dana 44 housings, 1 JL Advantek M210 housing, 99-04 SD inner C's and some currie aluminum 99-04SD knuckles. I'd love to build a wider front axle, just not sure I want to try and pull it off while it's still my DD.
 
Well I'm still over here in the car audio rabbit hole, learning a lot though.

Decided to try and make some speaker pods for the 5.25's in the dash. Seems like there are two options for premade stuff, the black plastic ones on all the normal websites, and some 3d printed ones on eBay. The ebay ones were .5" too shallow for my speakers, and I'd imagine the other common ones are as well, and I wasn't gonna spend $90 to find out.

My speakers already didn't fit well with the factory air vent tube running up behind them. I had altered it with a heat gun before, and I tried to do that again but I melted a giant hole in it. Oh well, I never use those vents anyways and the defrosters are a separate smaller tube that I can keep functional, so out they came.

A $2 foam mannequin head from the craft store was about the perfect size, the lady head, not the man's head. I cut that in half and put a couple of notches in it for clearance around the dash bracketry.

Got that to about the right shape, wrapped it in plastic and tin foil and made a mold of it out of Durham's water putty. The mold worked pretty well.

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From there, I met up with a friend I made a long time ago off of the DIYMobileAudio forum that was local to me. He knows his shit and builds some really badass systems. He was nice enough to give me a fiberglass 101 and after a day's work we had this fiberglass speaker pod

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I was even able to cram it into the dash, but just barely. It was a good prototype, pretty close to what I was picturing but I gave up a little bit of volume right here

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So I filled those two spots on with some Bondo and sanded it smooth again

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The shiny pic is after a couple coats of spray can lacquer. The lacquer worked pretty well for making another water putty mold of the new shape, without having to wrap it in foil or plastic so the surface of the mold came out a lot smoother.

Then I got a bit overwhelmed with options. There's some cool liquid plastics with mineral fillers that they describe as having a "stone feel" once cured with a higher density than other plastics, but it was a little spendy at $50 for one or two pods worth.

So I tried actual stone, a 10lb pale of quick set cement. Sealed the water putty mold with some clear epoxy thinned out with acetone, and some heavy machinery way oil on top of that to prevent the concrete from sticking to the mold.

Utter failure... Got stuck in the mold, and cracked if trying to get it out.

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The reason I'm not making more fiberglass pods is because it was fairly labor intensive, the chemicals were really nasty and winter showed up which I guess makes it even more of a pain trying to get the resin to cure and everything. I'm also planning on making at least 4 of these, most likely more, for testing purposes, so finding an easy way to make a lot of them seemed like the best route, though at this point I was having doubts.
 
So I decided to get a little fancier with the molds.

Bought a 25lb bag of plaster of Paris, 4 tubes of 100% silicone, two packs of non-hardening modeling clay, and some mixing buckets.

Mix up a bucket of water and dawn dish soap, squeeze two full tubes of silicone into the bucket. Knead underwater for 5 minutes and the silicone is no longer sticky like it is out of the tube. Take the blob of silicone and mold it over the speaker pod in an even thickness and wait for it to setup.

Mix up 12lbs of plaster, mix it for 30 seconds too long, get it stuck in the mixing buckets, swear like a sailor and wash your hands. Start over...

Mix up 12lbs of plaster with a bit of hustle. Pour into half of a five gallon bucket and push the silicone covered speaker pod into the plaster, hold until it sets. Plaster mother mold is complete.

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Squish the modeling clay into 5/16" thick pieces and line the entire inside of the silicone mold so it is one solid piece of clay inside.

Repeat the silicone process with the final two tubes, and mold it into the inside of the clay with an even wall thickness.

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Make a device to locate the inner silicone mold in the same spot inside the big outer silicone mold every time. Some random bolts and rems of MDF will do.

Pour plaster mold into the inside of the inner silicone mold with some way to attach the locating device to the inner plaster mold. Random wood screws in this case
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The mold is now complete.

I found some stuff online called hydrostone. It's a gypsum cement like plaster of Paris, but it's supposed to be a stronger type with good impact resistance. $15 for an 8lb tub, not bad.

I mixed up some of that, poured it into the silicone mold assembly and two hours later I had this beauty
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Just have to sand the face flat, cut out a 1/2" MDF baffle and try gluing them together with some loctile PL Premium construction adhesive and drill a hole for the speaker wire.

I'm going to measure the volume of the pod later tonight to see what it ended up at, then I'll post a picture of the modeled frequency response of my speaker in this pod that I can do with the WiniSD program on my computer.

So far it seems like it's a decent material for this. Hasn't crumbled on me at all yet. If this works out I'll be pretty stoked, only takes about 15 minutes to mix and pour the pod, then just waiting two hours to demold it. The silicone worked awesome, it just popped right out with no issues. Wish I would've started with this idea from the beginning

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