As some of you might remember, I used to have a pair of 15"s mounted on the rear deck - known as "Infinite Baffle". There are some key advantages of this design, however, I wanted to get 100% of the musical energy coming from where it's supposed to - infront of the listeners! This meant finding about 0.8 cubic feet for the enclosure, and a shallow subwoofer that could easily be hidden - "stealth". I wouldn't have a subwoofer sticking out, decreasing the footwell area. There are several shallow subwoofers - some sounding better than others, and I've selected the Altomobile Falstaff 12".

Audi was kind enough to fill in the cavity where the pedals are in the European version with foam on the US model. The floor is also filled in with about 3 inches of foam or more. I've removed ALL this foam, applied sound dampening materials (Dynamat), moved the wires, and started fiberglassing...







This is the bottom/back of the enclosure - conforming to the floor and firewall/wheel well surfaces. Position the baffle (surface the subwoofer will be mounted to), and remove these pieces from the car. Stretch fleece over the baffle and attach to the hardened fiberglass to complete the enclosure. Be sure to add dynamat and foam to the top of the enclosure - as it will vibrate with the bass, and if your heels are resting on the floor, they'll tell your brain that the music's coming from the floor - NOT what you want...













The carpet's been cut, and I'm currently making the grille to fit over the subwoofer. It looks totally stock, and sounds EXCELLENT! More to come...

 

Looking good - can't wait to see the finished product. Are you still going to run subs in the deck as well? If so, won't the 12" up front and the subs in the deck cancel each other out?

 

I'm no longet using the pair of 15"s; just th 5 speakers up front. The kickpanels and custom dash are pretty wild too! ;-)

 

Eww - show me the kickpanels. Would you be willing to make an extra set?

 

These are a pair of ULTRA high performance 7"s with some equally impressive tweeters. I've got line-of-sight to both domes when seated. They're mounted to 1.5" thick Finnish birch (from Finnland - yes, it matters). Behind the midbass is a Deflex-pad. The lower 1/2 of the dash is currently being fabricated. It's a wooden skeleton-frame covered in metal speaker mesh, then wrapped in grille cloth. It's the same shape as the factory dash, but acoustically transparent.

 

Crazy man. Can't wait to see it finished. Did you have to move all the wires in the kickpanel back towards the firewall, or were they already like that?

 

I had to move a TON of wires...and it sucked. Audi (like many others) use plastic phenolic connections that take up a ton of space - so I cut and spliced them out of the vehicle. I should point out that I didn't do any of this crap for the tutorial I wrote, nor the 2nd generation kickpanels that got me 2nd place in sound quality at last year's USACi World Finals...

 

Here are some in-work, and 95% done pictures. I'll post some more later. I think the amplifier install is pretty trick - if I do say so myself...

 

Here's the amplifier's mounted to the rear deck. The tops of the amplifiers are visible through the rear window. The two amplifiers are mounted to a board using a piano hinge, that allows me to swing them down into the trunk for servicing / adjusting. Note the two fans to blow cool air from the trunk onto the heatsinks. Oh..and the red cold-cathode lights for the bling factor...








The 5F CAP mounted to the OEM Bose amplifier bracket:



Sanding...sanding...sanding the new rear deck:


I'm sure I have some finished pics...I'll look for them - or take some now....

 

Hey man thats a very clean install...did you paint the wood panels or use someting else?