FTO Drivers Club, Western Australia

[RichardH]

I took an impromptu week off, as work was suddenly (and uncharacteristically) under control and quietish. And you've gotta grab such opportunities when they come up!

So, to make the most of it, I chucked a whole lot of new stuff at the FTO (of course, hehe).

I picked up a cheap (but hopefully not total crap) subwoofer... Jensen 10". Actually, I bought two, but there was stuff-all chance of fitting two in the boot along with a spare tyre and stroller!!!! So I've got a backup driver I guess.

Then I bought a cheap sealed subwoofer enclosure, measured it up, ran some calcs in WinISD, then strengthened and ported it to match the sub driver.

My little alpine amp, which was previously running the front Alpine 6.5" splits, is now bridged and powering the sub. Not huge - 130W rms - but it does the job for a little car.

Then I chucked a generic amp in to power the fronts... 4 x 30W rms, but with each pair bridged. That's more than enough for the fronts, which are rated as coping with 50W rms each. More power than is necessary ain't a bad thing if you don't go crazy with the volume knob! lol

All the old wiring came out, and a single 2G lead now runs from the battery (via 60A fuse) to a distribution block in the back.

To top it all off, it's all removable for track days!

My bank balance is still healthy, as all this was on a low budget, but it's kept me off the streets for a week happily jigsawing, and it sounds far better than the old stuff. The sub's response curve is so smooth compared to the previous sealed Kicker sub thing it's not funny.

I even spent time running a test signal generator on WinISD (sitting in the car with a wireless joystick, making funny tones go higher and lower, hehe), and found some horror rattles in the doors at certain frequencies (85Hz to 89Hz was buzzy as hell).

The icing on the cake was to take the car to Genie today and get a "proper" fabrication of my induction tubing done. It's all nice and clean now - metal instead of hacked about ABS plastic... and it cost less than $100. Still got to try it out with the ol' dyno test, but it's the same size and shape as before, but without a dodgy concertina rubber boot. The removal of those wobbly rubber edges won't hurt, that's for sure!!

Ah, holidays. Of course, now I need to sleep for a week to recover!!!

- Rich

[RichardH]

As well as the above antics, I've removed the tweeters from those built-in locations in the upper dash corners, and moved them into the doors... right at the top front, angled towards the listener. They are now directly above the woofers.

The difference is extraordinarily. I thought those splits were good before, but the sound now is head and shoulders above the previous tweeter positioning. No more dodgy reflections off the windscreen or side window glass.

So if anyone's put in a good quality set of splits with the woofers in the dash corners, bite the bullet and get 'em relocated into the doors!

- Rich

[marke]

How about a picture of the fabricated induction piping?

[RichardH]

Here you go!

The rubber hose adapter bit on the airbox exit is from the original FTO induction piping. I finally sacrificed it at the altar of New Stuff.

The rubber joiner in the middle is a $10 bit from Repco... This is just to absorb vibration and engine motion, so the pipe flexes as required.

The throttle body joiner is ABS plastic... from my collection of truck intake piping (an offcut from prototype piping material).

It all hangs together very well...





The final job is to get the lower pipe fabricated. When I get the time!!

- Rich

[ellusion]

That looks lovely! Keep us updated.