Sub broke my clear corners...wtf!
 

:laugh: Has this happend to any1 be4? Its obviously a 5th gen.
The sub shook the rear clear corners to the point were on day I noticed the bulbs inside were toasted due to all the vibration. I pulled the bulbs out and let it be :gotme: A few days later I pull into the parking lot only to realize my clear corner had been flappin in the wind all the way to work :banghead:

It looks like the plastic was pretty much worn out, im pretty sure the vibration from the sub caused this :laugh:
I didnt have my stockers on hand so I g-rigged it to say it place. I busted out a tub of Permatex Clear Silicone :ben: and went at it. Now both my rear clear corners are in a way molded to the car.
In a way its a positive, one thing is I no longer have "illegal" polarg lights (I have gotten a ticket be4) another thing is they no longer vibrate like mad. One less rattle to worry about.

Now if I could only figure out how to keep my bumper from shaking...

gotta love the brahma. yeah i need 2 stop that bumper from sounding like its gonna fall off. and that damn rear deck......

Ive been working on the rear deck for the past week man. The entire rear half of my cars interior is stripped down. I got about 2 layers of SecondSkin STFU-80 on the top part of the rear deck. Its time consuming to say the least. Cutting out the small peices and forming them to fit perfectly w/o blockinf off certain holes ect...
It seems to have reduced the rattle from the rear deck by about 90% when listening to music at sane levels for my setup that means no louder then the volume on 40-46 and the sub level at 40%

Once you crank it the Brahma just moves a rediculous amount of air, its literally impossible to stop the rattles when its cranked. I cant even push the sub all the way. The most ill go 95% of the time is volume...55-58 and the sub level at 65%
At that point I consider it "stupid loud" I dont even want to find out what it can do past that point :grinno: Funny thing is max volume is 80 :)

I dont know what else to do, I have at some points 5 layers of STFU-80 on my trunk lid itself. I still have to apply one final layer. Im also going to get some of the liquid stuff for the placed I cant reach in the trunk lid (licese plate area)

I still have 3.5 sheets of STFU-80 left over as well as another 40ft of damplifier v2. I intend on using all of it in the coming weeks. I want to atleast cut out the rattle at the sane level of listening. I dont like to hear rattles when im playing music when SQ is what im after. IF I turn it up, hell my face feels like its shaking so I dont really mind it then :D

yeah powerful system there. when you added the second skin? did it make your bass actually "sound better" or did it just remove rattles so it made it sound better. they claim it makes the bass louder and such, but im not sure if i want to sound deaden my whole trunk or just the rear deck.

To be honest, yeah it kinda did. By reducing the audible rattle, the bass definitely sounds more clean.

That can be explained though. The rear deck is the worst rattle point on the max that we can hear inside the car. Even after I applied it I turned it up to about 50% at volume level 50 just to get a decent amount of flex so I know which area's are the worst. That way I would apply two layers to those areas and only one to the others.
Is it worth it, id have to say yes. If your going to go through with it, I dont think you'd need any more then 1 sheet (8cu.ft) of STFU-80 for the rear deck lid area. If you want to really do a # on it, then id suggest two sheets, but your going to have a little left over.
Not every point need to be dampened though, try knocking on certain areas. It will be obvious if it will cause audible noise when the subs are on. about 90% of the rear deck lid needs to be covered. The center area isnt too bad, but the outer ends needed two layers.
One more thing Im definitely going to go over is the black surround near the opening for the trunk from the inside of the car. If you pull your back seats down and remove the panel you'll see what im talking about. That thing sounds hollow as hell & Im going to go over it with just one layer of v2 just for good measure.
After all this is done with, Im planning I getting a rattle pad and tossing that under the rear deck lid. That combined with two layers of STFU-80 should about do the trick.
Damn this is long...

Alright, now the trunk. The worst rattle seems to come from the lid itself. The stupid thing is I cant get the sound deadner on the areas that need it the most. Like the license plate are from inside. On thing that ANT said to try is get some carpet padding (alternative to expanding foam :rolleyes: ) and shove it through all the small holes near the base of the lid (closest to the rear window) so it could expand and put pressure on it. It needs to be cut in small pieces. About 4ft of padding is more then enough.
The one last trick im going to try is the liquid stuff. Its the only way Ill be able to reach certain areas like behind the license plate area. The only other place id say dampen is the rear deck from the bottom. One later should do just fine.
The rear quarter panels seem pretty solid & I dont think the need anything. If I decide to do it though, im going with the liquid stuff.

For the max, I say liquid is the way to go. Especially with the doors, there is no way I can get it all in there. With a paint brush however, things should be much easier. I still got quite some work to do be4 could say the car is properly dampened. I want to be able to turn it up to 50 at 50% w/o hearing rattle.

So far im about 40% done with this project and here is the progress thus far.
As 1st Id put on a certain song that I know would rattle at a certain volume at 40% sub level. It would start to rattle at 28 be4, now I could turn it up to 40 w/o any rattle at the same volume. At 42 it starts, by the time it hits 50 it gets violent. Its an improvement, but I got a long way to go.

Damn this is waaaaay to long.

it almost seems like in your case its hopeless. your system is too powerful. did you take off t he rear deck, or just apply it while its still on. id like to take out those seat belt tethers too. when it gets cold outside the deck rattles on volume 18/62 on my h/u. my old t-bird never did this crap. o well.

thats what that 2.25" xmax will do to you! its gonna take a lot of work to defeat that.

As funny as that sounds, your right. Its overkill at its best :laugh:
The rear deck is off, everything is off except the back rest for the seat. You have to remove the bottom of the rear seat, then the side peices. After that you need to pop off the plastic covers carefullly from that point on you can fold your seats down and pull out the 4-10mm bolts holding it in.

Actually, I got some pics of the whole setup as well as current pics of my SS project. Ill upload them in a bit, you'll see what im talking about.

nghtfthlngknvs: I dont think its possible to tame this thing. So far what I got on is doing a good job. When I crank it though, its just not possible. Its getting closer to being controlled at sane levels though. It mostly depends on the songs.
Some songs I put on I hear no rattle at all. Like Biggy-Juicy, I can turn the volume upto 55 and crank the sub to 100% and get no rattle. That song doesnt have deep bass, but its punches a lot. So it doesnt really shake things up. I think it might even have something to do with my burning a low-bitrate song :gotme: I still havnt tried it with the real cd.
Another example is the song My Block (remix) by 2pac. That song has gutwreching lows. Everything shakes, from the car to your nose. On that song I can crank it to about 50 on the h/u but the sub level cant be any higher then 35-40% If I go higher it can be a bit too much.

Ill have the pics up soon...

looking forward to those pix... especially of the rear deck. did u take out the seat belt tethers?

The belts are still intact. I just flipped the rear deck down. Its still in the car, I didn feel like messing with the belts just yet.
One more thing I should point out. Grounds dont work too well when ground contact point is covered in paint :rolleyes: I found about 4-5 jacked up grounds, removed the 10mm bolts and sanded the paint off those spots and reconnected the ground. I cant stand it when I see sh!t like that :banghead:

Alright, got the pics uploaded. Thank you Optimus310 for hosting :thumbsup:

If you click on the pics once, you get a "normal" size pic. If you click on the normal size pic, it becomes a high res pic thats pretty much life size :D
Obviously 56k warning! for the high res pics.

Click

Im still not done with the sound deadner, but this is what it looks like right now.
It really helped a lot, especially compared to how it sounded w/o it.

Here is one I like...
http://gallery.azmaximas.org/albums/...0647.sized.jpg

that thing is a beast. what size is that box? takes up alot of space it seems.

That setup is crazy. One of the cleanest installs I've seen on here. Very impresive. You must have a lot of headaches with that sub.

It does, quite a bit actually. Let me see if I can remember the specs...

Width : 40"
Height : 16"
Depth : 20"

I think those #'s are pretty accurate, if not its close.
Its as big of a box you can possibly fit into a trunk of a 5th gen that you can outside the trunk. We barley got it in. A ported box for a big sub takes up quite a bit of room, if I opted for a 12 I wouldnt have needed more then 2ft of airspace compared to 3.5 plus the port area.

WOW.....we need to park our cars together, and blast them, and see how many car windows we can break !....:naughty:

Windows I dont know about, but car alarms on the other had... :laugh:

Thanks. Headaches it can cause, after I pulled into my driveway tonight, it took me a good 5min to shake off the weird feeling you get after blasting it. That thing can really beat on you, every time I crank it im amazed at the output of this thing. Its nuts!

that truly is the greatest sub ever. i envy you more and more every day. i love how clean the box looks too. nice work all around man!

:laugh: Thanks for the compliment man. Not too many people understand what that sub is. I dont like to say its the greatest period, but I can confidently say its definetly in the top 5 out of all the subs out on the market today. To me, personally I like the way it sounds best. Its all about ones own personal preference ;)
You should do youself a favor and just get one man (maybe two if your crazy :D ) I know its expensive but like ive said be4, I have not once regreted paying the somewhat hefty pricetag for the sub. Its worth every penny IMO.
I would love to try two of these, but I doubt the car can handle that much force. Its too much as is...

yea i definately will when i get the cash. and really it's not that much compared to the JL W7 which is relly the only other sub that comes close to the perfect balance between spl and sq that the brahma has and the brahma costs 1/2 what the W7 does and can run well with less power if it needs to. until i heard the brahma my top subs were the old orion HCCAs, but they lacked major in sq. i would put anyone else on this board's sub against that brahma and would bet against them every time. another note about the brahma is that it has crazy thermal power handling so the coils can't be burned easily so it should stand teh test of time. god i want one of those babies. i would love to dump my 2 $35 MTX T61244A recones for one of those brahmas i just don't have the cash right now...

The JL 13W7 is a superior sub compared to many. The Brahma is one of few that can stand next to it though as far as SPL & SQ are concerned. The JL is supposed to be the better one of the two, but ive even seen guys that own the 13W7 say they prefer the sound of the Brahma so :gotme:
The OG HCCA's are great subs, as are the H2's. They were loud as hell but your right, they never did it for me in SQ either.
As for not burning the VC's, well even the bull isnt incinible. Ill tell you this much, DO NOT play the song THXWoofer Cooker by Boston Acuoustics. It does what its named pretty well.
Last person that tried it on their kickers, the V/C seperated. It hits about 30hz and stays there for quiet some time.
The Brahma took it just fine, but Im not playing that again. I wouldnt risk it again though :grinno:

Adire has another crazy sub out, I think this one even topps the Brahma series!
Ever heard of theTumult...
Take your time & do it right man. If its worth doing at all, do it right the 1st time. I started planning on my setup about this time last year. After all the research, ect... Im glad I got what I did. I finally got it all done (mostly) this january. Thats about 10months of planning & research.
It took time, but damnit I did it right :ben:

that woofer cooker would blow my subs to bits! :P just a note about the tumult, it is just a variation of the brahma designed specifically for home use. I wouldnt mind having one of those in my living room either. when i get the money, i'm gonna go all out and do everything right. brahma MKII(assuming that's still adire's best) and JL XR 3-way components up front. might be a while though. I'm most likely not going to have the max by then either so box design will be the last thing i do. i am still torn if i should get the 4 JL 12 or 10W0s for my trunk. i like that idea because i wouldn't have to buy all new amplifiers for the subs.

Yeah, the Tumult is more of a home speaker but its still a crazy design. I dont think its made to "hit" hard, but it should be able to play in the low 20's with ease.
The Brahma mkII 15 is still the best Adire has to offer as far as car speakers go. As far as the 4 12's v.s 4 10's...well I honestly have never done a multiple sub setup like that so I wouldnt know which way to go on that. The 10's will obviously require less airspace, so base your decision upon how much space your willing to give up. If you dont care, then just go with the 12's :D

go with the 4 10's. or why not just get 1 or 2 nicer subs? do you have a hook up on the w0's?

dude...like months ago you and me were simply talkin about this stuff.....now you big pimp...congrats on the setup......good luck sealing it up.

actually i didn't word that very well.. i am debating between 4 W0 subs or 2 12W3v2 since those both work well with the amps i have. i would choose 4 12s over 10s any day if i could fit them.

Thanks a lot Marco :thumbsup: you helped out quite a bit as well. As for as the rattling issue, so far its doing pretty damn well. On the interior you cant really hear much rattle at all & I have yet to start on the doors. You'll be getting an email from me soon. Ive been a little busy :D

ahhh. ok cuz i was gonna recommend some v2 12's. and to hitman: remember how i was saying the maxima is not meant for systems in another thread....
well i hooked up my system in my bros car(my old beater) a 94 t-bird and man did it pound, it hurt my ears on volume 24/40. and there was no real rattling noticeable. man i wish my car was like that.

I know what you mean, I guess my setup kinda works around that though :P I wish I could hear my setup in an SUV :eek: You'd hear me from a mile away :laugh:
Oh and one last surprize guys, this shocked the hell out of me when I found out. My amp, well its not putting out 1600w. Its only at 425w/rms
The #'s got all mixed up, ect... but bottom line is the sub does all this...with barley any power. Its at about 26% of its rated power. he he...

the #'s got mixed up, is this a joke? what amp do you have running at what ohm?

:grinno: Im dead serious. I got a Directed 1500d, its running at 4ohms. http://directed.com/audio/amps/default.asp Check it out, scroll down & you'll see the specs 4 youself :D

The amp is capable of 1200 at 1ohm...but I dont think Im gonna need it :grinno:
The amp stays ICE COLD were its mounted, and obviously im not lacking in output in any way. Im actually thinking of making an mpeg of how the trunk & rear window flex, its quite funny :laugh:

Im still in disbelief, 425w :rofl:

thats crazy. ive always wanted to get 1 nice 15 and put about 300 watts to it in a big box and see how good it sounds. everyone always claims run the subs close to their rms rating. i dont think thats true, and im sure you can attest to it.

Your right, that is crazy. Im still laughing about it.
I belive I just proved something to every1 on this board. You DO NOT need big power to sound great. Efficiency is the key.
The install (the box) is the key to how it will sound. Yes mine is ported, but its obviously been done right ;)

You could 4x the power you have right now & all you'd gain is 6db. That is 2x louder to a persons ears. That is a very respectable gain, but if your running 1Kw and you want to gain db but adding power, you'd have run 4Kw :eek:

Funny thing is, I still have enough headroom to 4x the power :P but im going to leave it as is. More power isnt going to give much gain, its not really necessary most of the time. Ive just proved that!
So from now on, if the manufacturer says its best to give a sub 1.0ft. Dont follow those #'s. Give it 2ft and about 50% of recommended power (depends, if your sealed or ported) The sub(s) will sound better in a bigger box anyway, youd get a better overall transient response. :thumbsup:

exactly... my pg 10's asked for get this.. .3-.55 per sub not including displacement for sealed. which is very small imo. i give them 1.05 not including displacement in a sealed box. they are 450 rms i give them about 300-325(some say the jbl amps are underrated) and they move some serious air. i think ive finally found grills that will fit the excursion of these subs. i can get 18mm of xmax each way, not bad for a 10! i use no bass boost and my h/u setting for the sub is at flat. gain is about 55-60% id say.it just shows its about install 99%
i had a small box before and hated it. gave nice high bass... but the lows were nowhere compared to a small box. i thougth about porting my box because its in spec but i just dont know how to do that right, its not worth the risk for me.

I think im going to pull t/s parapeters off another site for those subs. Just to see how much headroom you got left :D
I have all my setting on flat as well :D
As far as risk? what exactly do you mean? are you afraid its going to go beyond xmax or what?

These the ones you got?
ftp://208.187.38.55/Phoenix_Gold/man...s%20manual.pdf

It looks like even in a sealed box, with 325 going to each. You still got quite a bit of head room. You could actually give each sub 1.5ft after dispacment and you still would not hit xmax til you got down to 19hz! No music gets that low man. The lowest ive seen any song ever go is 28hz, and that Late Night Tip by 36mafia. Most Bass cd's dont dip below 30hz.

As far as ported goes, I modeled one setup with the 650w driving both subs in a 3.0ft box after sub & port dispacment, port tune set at 30hz.
You could still play down to 24hz w/o going past xmax. The only time you'll find a note that low is if your playing test tones, from 42hz down to 24hz the subs have quite a bit less cone movment then with the sealed. It looks like you'd gain about 7db as well, That means you could get it about 2x louder with a diff box :D

(these are just approximate figures, but you get the idea)

well my box is a prefab(because i refuse to do wood work) and i dont know how to make a port. plus ive been so used to sealed setups im afraid ill lose the punchiness of my 10's.i know if you tune them high it wont, im just not experienced at it. plus id have to buy a decent ssf apparently if i tune it low. its just something to think about. i just wonder how loud they could get ported. wouldnt the sub actually move less if i port them?
according to the manual they need 1.0 not including displacement for ported. it says vd: 2" VI:9.5" im assuming thats what i cut, but where would i cut that? and what hz is that tuned to?

my crappy 56k connection at home here is taking forever. its a PG titanium 10" SVC sub. 450 watts rms. 600max, which is also odd how they rate them.

Take a look at post #35. Its been edited :D

edit: IF you dont want to build your own, you can always click Here
I think some1 gave me another like to a box making site as well, but I cant find it :gotme:

my real system is going to be in the 19998-2000 Crown Vic Police interceptor that i'm going to buy. its hard to find a car more solid than that. unless of coource i can find a 94 caprice 9c1 in perfect condition, but those are becoming harder and harder to find. there is more than enough trunk space for 4 12w0s also. im going to be real sad to leave the max, but when i sell it, the new owner will have one nice car. :)

yeah i know a few box building places i just have no funds for that anytime soon. between buying and installing the system plus the woman and school, funds are non existent right now. is there any way i can just make ports myself?
and if i tuned it to 30hz would i need a ssf?