Finally finished, the mag has moved into its real home. Lots of Pics!!

[jdc753]

Well after all the questions and learning and reading I have finally finished (well about 90%) the mags new home inside my truck.

I had been eying the new center consoles that come in the 08 trucks and bought one back in november or so I think with the plans of cutting it up and doing whatever it took to get the mag inside of it. I started actually making progress on it sometime around May or April and just finished last night around 11pm.

Well onto the goods. The box is of fiberglass/mdf construction and is approximately 0.93ft^3 in internal volume before sub displacement and has 7" of mounting depth. I was a bit worried about fiberglass and it sounding hollow or getting bumped around by the sub. This is my first fiberglass enclosure and for the mag, I really wanted to make it right.

After mentioning this with a friend he brought up the idea of adding lead shot to the fiberglass to bring up the mass of the enclosure. Sounded like a good idea, and with only 1 layer around most of the flat portions of the enclosure I was able to add a good 5-7lbs to the overall structure. The final product weighs within 3lbs of the MDF box it replaces and although my lack in master fiberglass skills or patience it sounds great and shockingly no rattles from the console even with loose items inside.

Well onto the goods, Pictures...

This is what I started with after some deconstruction


Trying to see just how possible this is going to be lol, console panels laid over the old MDF box (1.03ft^3 with 5" legs screwed to the sides)


Well at least the sub fits in there, this is a plus lol


Working somewhat backwards, I knew I wanted to keep some storage and utility to the console. So I cut down the upper interior portion by about 2" and added some 1/4" MDF to make a new interior floor and sides.

This is good enough to keep the factory coin tray/divider if I wish to use it, and with some speaker carpet looks better than factory inside.

Now this is what I had left to work with


After cutting the top panel out of 3/4" mdf I figured I wanted a middle tier/brace, plus I wanted something that looked cool lol. The main job this piece does is stretch the cloth out to really conform to the odd shape inside the console.


All pieced together and with some extra cleats to staple the cloth to so I can get around the cupholders and such inside the console.






Now where things start to get ugly...


I believe I ended up with about 7-8 layers in total all around the enclosure, mostly with criss-crossed 2" wide strips of matt.


After about layer 6 I added in the "secret weapon" to the mix. There is only 1 layer on most of the flat portions of the enclosure but it added a good 5-7lbs.


Here is the final product sitting next to the box it is replacing. These two are within 3lbs of each other with the fiberglass box weighing in at just under 24lbs


Here is an idea of how it all works inside the console. Top storage box and bottom sub box before the plastics are all buttoned up.


This little hole in the plastics is going to get filled and dressed up nicely with some black speaker carpet and this little speaker terminal.


And here we go, in the truck and sounding good




Perfect height in my opinion and it is going to get bolted to the truck with the factory rails mounted to the bottom of the box and I guess a baffle of sorts that will direct all output from the speaker towards front of the console instead of letting it leak out from all sides, will add a bit more control in overall tuning the sub into the system with it having more of a single point source.

So there it is, still a little rough around the edges but that should get finished up this weekend. I hope I made a good home for your baby Nick.

[Electrodynamic]

That looks freaking awesome!!! Thanks for the step-by-step pics too! Man, I can't get over how stock that looks once it's installed. Nice job!

[jdc753]

Originally Posted by Electrodynamic

That looks freaking awesome!!! Thanks for the step-by-step pics too! Man, I can't get over how stock that looks once it's installed. Nice job!

Thanks Nick. That was the overall goal and with the way the mag blends, no one will ever know its there, until I show/tell them of course.

[soydeedo]

That's pretty impressive, man. Great work. =)

[jdc753]

Originally Posted by soydeedo

That's pretty impressive, man. Great work. =)

Thanks


I gotta upload a couple of more pictures. I had to add some spacers to mate the box to the factory console brackets. The brackets when bolted into the truck are only 8" apart, so some 3/4" MDF sandwiched together to give me a 1.5" spacer made it work good. Its a bit taller than normal, but certainly not too tall in my opinion. Plus I carpeted it and it looks sexy

[hobie1dog]

super great job....you're giving me bad ideas now.