Building A Sound-off Car

[Burger]

Hi all, what would it take to create a car for sound-off competitions?

I mean those crazy things that you see at car shows with heaps of speakers and subs and the like.

I've wanted to make one for a while, but other than the sounds gear, what else is needed?

I'm a little bit (Although not completely) clueless in this area, so any help would be useful.

Cheers

[Ben C34]

A sweet song

[XKLABA]

Lots of batteries, lots of capacitors and very deep pockets

[Burger]

How deep pockets?

[junkie]

buy the right car first (panelvan, wagon, van, etc) then turn it into a giant sub enclosure. remove flex from all panels, seal everything up, with a shitload of expanding foam, sound deadener, bog and plywood...

then, fill it with the biggest subs possible, a crapload of high power amps with the right amount of power for the subs, good dozen of deep cycle batteries to provide the current, and don't forget all the zero gauge cabling

[junkie]

here is an example

[Burger]

I get that you would need that stuff, I was more wondering about the electrical side of things. Surely you couldn't just shove all that gear in there without doing any sort of electrical work.

[Burger]

Similar to what I was thinking:

[junkie]

electrical is pretty much the same as any other audio setup, just at a bigger scale. you would at least need several batteries wired in parallel, some fat 0 gauge cabling between the batteries and the amps, upgraded alternator, properly rated fuses, a set of amps capable of driving all the speakers and subs you plan to install and maybe some capacitors as well.

i haven't done a setup like that myself, my most complex build was just a standard head unit/splits/pair of coax/two amps and a sub so wouldn't call myself an expert

Edited November 18, 2015 by junkie

[Burger]

electrical is pretty much the same as any other audio setup, just at a bigger scale. you would at least need several batteries wired in parallel, some fat 0 gauge cabling between the batteries and the amps, upgraded alternator, properly rated fuses, a set of amps capable of driving all the speakers and subs you plan to install and maybe some capacitors as well.

i haven't done a setup like that myself, my most complex build was just a standard head unit/splits/pair of coax/two amps and a sub so wouldn't call myself an expert

Fair enough, what do you think the ballpark would be for all gear, excluding the car. Like 3-5k?

[GH05T]

yeah............. per sub.

[Ben C34]

Sell drugs.

[Burger]

Sell drugs.

Never thought of that one.

[junkie]

3-5k will build a decent oem replacement system with some good quality gear

but sound off, that's a whole different story. amps and subs cost a lot when pushing those kinds of power and decibel levels. plus, you would be up against some cars that have had six figures spent on the installs, so its a case of go hard or go home

[Burger]

3-5k will build a decent oem replacement system with some good quality gear

but sound off, that's a whole different story. amps and subs cost a lot when pushing those kinds of power and decibel levels. plus, you would be up against some cars that have had six figures spent on the installs, so its a case of go hard or go home

I was only really thinking of it as a way to spend some time messing around, as an excuse to enter into shows and such. Not a completely nuts thing. Time to reconsider I think....

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

a wagon and not a coupe..

then a bunch of subs, slot ported individually and tuned using a SPL meter to see what resonate frequency the sub will peak at... each cabin is different.

I used to be into this shit 1.5 decades ago.

[Burger]

I wouldn't want any other wagon but a Stagea. And I don't want to ruin a Stagea with stupid audio gear.

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

you could punch over 145dB in a Stagea with a pair of nice ported 12" and still have enough room to have a root in the back.

[Burger]

you could punch over 145dB in a Stagea with a pair of nice ported 12" and still have enough room to have a root in the back.

12" in the back you say?

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

Fire it backwards to load it up (know as superpositioning) which will give you about a 3dB gain - approximately double the "loudness" and with careful port tuning you could pull another 2~3dB from the cabin gain.

I did 146dB with a single 12" Solobaric being fed 1.5kW back in the days however I had a 140L or so box.

I reckon a single 12" DD Subwoofer with about 1kW going to it will push you past 145dB easily in a ported box and if you feed it more it will make even more power.. downside is these subs don't go low and need huge boxes.

http://www.ddaudio.com/products/mobile-audio/woofers/dd9500

Question is, what is your goal and what is your budget?

You can go loud on a budget but you'll need at least a decent subwoofer/driver... get a pair of Jaycar monoblocks and strap them together