Teh Official "Dude Where's My Forum?" Thread, Brought to you by the minds of Box, and her fiancée, Lorelei Options

[Bitter]

It's snowing, I had 3 hours of sleep, my hands are all screwed up from getting rotten gas on them last night, raw, cracked, chapped, and I REALLY want to go try to fit my 6x9's in the Mazda front doors cause it would be AWESOME to have component speakers up front for my road trip I might be taking cause 8 hours in the car I'm going to need some extra hard jamming tunes.

But also I only had 3 hours of sleep and my hands are jacked up so I wonder if maybe I shouldn't screw with stuff, ya know?

This post has been edited by Bitter: Dec 10, 2016 - 5:14 PM

[Box]

If you have some avocado, coconut, or olive oil that should help them. Especially the avocado or coconut.

If it weren't for the hands I'd say go for it but I'm used to being sleep deprived.

[Bitter]

I tried to measure the depth through the grill and it looks like I might have room for one or the other but not both the adapter and spacer. I'll figure it out later. I don't feel confident in my ability to maintain focus and I've got an appointment tomorrow for new glasses.

[Box]

Probably best to wait for another day then. This is where having a 3D printer would come in handy then you could make an adapter and spacer all in one to the exact size needed.

[Bitter]

yea no kidding.

[Box]

Maybe one of these days I'll have one along with a 5-axis CNC machine. That's ok I probably should go through the effort of removing a door panel and seeing what's what in person before deciding definitively on speakers myself.

[njccmd2002]

Eastwood undercoating

[Box]

Looking good, now you'll never have to worry about the pans rusting.

[Box]

Car still smells orangey, it kind of faded some around the fourth day and has seemed to kind of plateaued. Lasts longer than anything else that's ever been sprayed, but I think that's to do with it being natural oils and all the cloth in the car is able to hold onto it. Think I might grab some of the citrus blend and the cinnamon clover or apple cinnamon to use next.

In non olfactory news thinking might get an amp to replace the factory amp that's maybe 25-50W a channel if that to go with the new Bazooka woofers. I found the tube that uses the replacement woofer and from what I've found based on that, since they give no specs on the replacements, they're 200W RMS @ 2 ohms with a frequency response of 30-250 Hz and a sensitivity of 100 db. Found a discontinued Pioneer with a lot of refurbs available for cheap that should do the job: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pioneer-GM-A5602-9...Ul2&vxp=mtr Only thing is not sure if it'll fit into the factory location in the quarter panel, I guess worst case it'll go under the passenger seat. Then would have 400W RMS of subwoofer right behind me in stereo which should be more than enough for me, since the Bazookas on the factory amp with their much higher sensitivity and being 2 ohms instead of 3 ohms is actually probably enough but I want the control and flexibility granted by running them off the sub channels on the stereo out to the amp and then to them.

So driving home the other day I noticed something had started rattling from the dash area, I think the stupid pad has started falling apart under the cover somehow... So I ordered a sample of some Vvivid suede vinyl to see how it is in person before committing to buying a roll: http://www.ebay.com/itm/291600571150?_trks...K%3AMEBIDX%3AIT Since if I have to take the stupid pad out again to put back together or replace with a fabricated pad the cover isn't going back on. Yeah it's kind of a waste but if I have to fabricate a new pad the cover will come in handy as a template which would be worth what it cost alone. After looking into lots of options I think some 1/8" thick high density closed cell foam cut out to shape and then covered with the vinyl on the top side and then some double sided tape or velcro on the bottom to hold it in place will be the way to go. I thought about using ABS or polycarbonate sheeting cut and moulded into shape, or using aluminum sheet metal or maybe even some composite like Dibond cut and formed to shape then covering it with microsuede fabric or could use the vinyl. Then all of those are a lot of work and expense where the high density foam is neither and for the given application is actually probably a more ideal material anyway with NVH and heat etc... Plus I was thinking with the suede vinyl I could cover the top portion of the actual dash and cut it in a way it'll look a lot nicer than the cover since there won't be that "step" from the dash to the vinyl like there is with the cover.

This post has been edited by Box: Dec 13, 2016 - 10:01 PM

[Bitter]

Mildly epic high beams installed, not sure how well they actually work on road but holy hell they're intensely unpleasant to look into and pretty much invisible till they're flipped on. I need to figure out the maths to boost the LED driver output just a little bit and warranty one since it's a totally different color than the other one, but that has to wait till I'm back home. Sucks too cause I took the time to install a weatherpak style connector with proper crimps and heat shrink and hot glue and everything 100% sealed correctly and one is a pink-ish tint. It's like they came from totally different batches. Sucks! I think I might mount the single super boosted spot beam in the back window for assholes with high beams behind me on a momentary push button. It's incredibly bright and blinding and ought to get the point across real fast or get them to move over and pass. It's like getting hit with a camera flash honestly, I looked directly into it and my night vision was boned for about 5 minutes afterward. The 7" pods have almost the same light output as the single boosted 4" but run cooler since it's spread over twice the LED's. If I can boost the output about 50% I think they'll still run cool enough to be OK for long duration use and I'll get a nice bump in brightness from painful to very painful. Should be effective at getting the 'slower cars keep right' message across too, the single boosted pod worked pretty good for that, just a flick and most people moved over real fast.

[Box]

BLIND ALL THE PEOPLE. I've thought about mounting a rear facing light for the reasons you mentioned above, but with my luck a cop would see it being used. What does work really well though is hold up a sunshade behind you, or if you're really good aim your side mirrors so it goes into their face. Actually I'd still do that but the Firebird came with tinted side views from the factory. I wish there was real estate to mount some additional lights to mine, that's ok I'll get around to the D2S mini conversion one of these days. It was between headlights or sound system and I can hear better than I can see so it seemed like speakers was the most logical next step. Actually night time driving gets a C+ now where it was a big fat F before, then again I'm comparing to my brother's Genesis that uses two H11 HID conversions for low and two H1 bi-xenon HID conversions for low/high... Have I mentioned how much he likes blinding white light? At least he aimed them properly or even on the lowside.

ANYHOW, decided to go with the matching Polk 6.5" component set for the front since for one it'd match the rear but secondly there's a crossover for the driver and tweeter that's like a 3.5" square so it shouldn't be that hard to find a mounting location. Plus it'll allow for the use of an amp down the road so I should desire. http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_112441...1-inspired.html

This post has been edited by Box: Dec 14, 2016 - 2:16 AM

[Bitter]

I'm telling you man, those Hella 4x6 H4 housings are a HUGE upgrade over the Autopal, you'll have A- lighting with them.

[Box]

I actually thought about tossing them in with the speakers on Amazon(ended up being a few dollars cheaper via Prime) but I'm stubborn and set on a D2S HID conversion. I finally got around to measuring things out and there's like maybe a 10mm difference in the housing depth and the cited projector mounting depth requirements, the housing depth being short. Though between making new housing lenses from polycarbonate and maybe widening the opening in the back of the housing it should be fairly easy to find the extra length needed.

This post has been edited by Box: Dec 14, 2016 - 2:00 PM

[Bitter]

10mm is a HUGE gap to cover when it comes to popup lights and minimum depth, are you accounting for the bulb and bulb socket back there too!?

[Bitter]

The clove and cinnamon in the Cinnamon Clove Pure Citrus is pretty weak to my nose, all I smell is lovely orange with a tiny tiny hint of spice. I'm going to do a little into the rear seat upholstery in my Mazda before my trip to try to kill the stale old car seat smell it's got. I had planned to shampoo the rest of it but it's too damn cold to have wet interior fogging up my windows when I'm driving.

[Box]

10mm is an overestimation, it's probably actually closer to 6-8mm but I didn't feel like removing the lamp from the bucket and pulling the bulb out to measure the length from face of the lense to the edge of the housing opening so I guestimated with them in place to see if it was even remotely close first. I didn't bother accounting for the bulb or socket, just the projectors' relation within the actual headlamp housing itself. That's my fault for not being more clear on what I meant exactly. Here's a picture of that one kit using an Infiniti FX projector:


Minis should be even easier so it can be done, which if I'd been thinking I'd have measured between the back of the lamp and the front of the core support with the lights down and up but there's definitely room for the socket and then for the wiring to go through the core support and mount the ballasts to the support.

Good to know on the cinnamon clove, I'll probably go with the citrus blend then which I was leaning towards anyway.

This post has been edited by Box: Dec 14, 2016 - 11:15 PM

[Bitter]

bulb and socket adds another 1/2 inch at least to the rear.

[Box]

Since it takes all of one or two minutes to remove the headlamp surround was going to do that and check, probably snap a picture or two. I remember when I was doing the wiring harness though there was a fair bit of room between the core support and back of the headlamp bucket, I guess since the doors are so long and their relation to the core support in comparison to most other popup lights there's more room than you'd usually have. I also found a good source of some 1/32" thick Lexan to make new lenses to replace the glass, I figure the thinner the better not only from a working and forming it aspect but also distorting the projector output as little as possible.

[Box]

I was right in thinking there was about three inches between the back of the headlamp and the front of the core support, but I wasn't going to swear to it. So really the hardest part of the conversion will be modifying the Autopal lamps to house the projectors and making lenses plus any other modifications to them. Was thinking would paint the inside of the lamps gloss black, then probably do a shroud on the projectors. Anyhow pics with the surround trim removed to show space:

[Bitter]

eehhhhhhhhh it's going to be really tight in there.