Narrowing Down Choices

As we get closer to actually installing 12-volt components into the Chevelle, we look at speaker and subwoofer choices.

I think that this column is quickly becoming my gripe section. I know I keep complaining about this, but I’m sick of the restoration part of this build-up — I WANT TO GET TO THE 12-VOLT STUFF! I still dig the car and all, it’s just that I’m tired of all the stripping, cleaning, and trying to overcome all of the obstacles that stand between me and my audio system. Let’s face it people, it’s really all about the audio.

With that in mind, I’ve come up with an alternative plan. No, I’m not getting rid of my Chevelle, but this might be a cool idea for some of you out there who are looking to build your own competition audio vehicle. Instead of getting a car like mine and fixing it up (too time consuming), or buying a brand new car to cut up (too expensive), find a clean older car. Now I’m not just talking about any old car, what you should look for is something that’s less desirable to the masses and, thus, cheaper than your average old car. I’m talking about a larger, American car like a Buick or Cadillac. What I’m not talking about is the collectible Buick Grand National, or a pink ’60’s Caddy with huge tail fins — these cars are too pricey. Instead, look for the unlikely candidate that can be picked up for a song. What gave me this idea is my neighbor’s friend who drives by in a minty, four-door, tan Buick from the late ’60’s or early ’70’s. This car is super clean inside and out — it even runs great. He picked that car up as is for $2000. It was just one of those cars that no one wanted to collect or fix up, but it had clean lines, looked GREAT once he lowered it a few inches, and had plenty of room for audio. That car would be one-of-a-kind at any soundoff, and whatever audio you put in it would be totally unexpected — bonus!

Oh well, it was just a thought. Don’t be too hung up on cars that are so old, and don’t turn up your nose at that Skylark the gran’ folks were willing to give you for mowing their lawn. Just keep an eye out for the perfect car that’ll house an audio system — the more unlikely to have a massive audio system, the better.

All right, enough of my meandering. So what about the Chevelle you ask? Well, I’m going to tell you anyway...I just finished the exhaust and gas tank install, as you may remember from last issue. Now I have to move on to the bodywork. With any luck, I’ll be dropping the car off at a reputable body shop soon. Once that’s done, along with some minor tweaking and a set of custom rims, I can finally focus on the 12-volt!

Even though I’m getting close, I just couldn’t wait any longer to dive into my audio system. Besides, like I said from the beginning, you need a plan — and planning is just what I did with a little help from my friends...more specifically, one friend, Eric Holdaway from Speaker Works of Orange,CA. Holdaway has a long and illustrious history in the world of 12-volt competition. He and his family members (brother Pat and father Roger) opened the now infamous Speaker Works in 1979. Since then, they’ve built a fleet of winning competition cars with their most famous being Harry Kimura’s Acura Legend and the Buick Grand National that will always be remembered as the Speaker Works Buick. That car only got one second place trophy — they ripped the system apart the day after that and re-worked it so that it would never place lower than 1st for the remainder of its career.

Being one of, if not the industry’s best, 12-volt tuners, Eric knows how to extract competition-quality sound from just about any vehicle. Considering my Chevelle is proportionally similar to the Buick, designing a system for my car was like walk in the park.

When I walked into Speaker Works that day, I pretty much knew what I wanted, but there were a few choices that I couldn’t decide between and I was sure Eric could help. He started by asking me what type of music I listened to and how loud I like it: “soft,” “loud,” or “I can’t hear you, the music is too loud.” Of course, I told him I preferred the later. He then asked me about the car and what my goals were for it. You faithful readers know about the car as well as the fact that I want a competition-level system that’s fun to demo for the masses and that I can enjoy while I cruise around in my Chevelle. Besides all that, I informed Eric that I had a Pioneer P1-R source unit and that I’ll be obtaining Zapco amps.

After I had filled him in on the facts at hand, I started with my series of questions. First, I wanted to know about subs. I was set on four 12s or two 15s, but I just couldn’t decide. Eric opted for the dual 15s. He says that the trunk is the optimum size for a pair of them running infinite baffle and that he had a massive new USD 15 with triple stack magnet and four voice coils that would be ideal for the install. He also suggested a unique idea — port my infinite baffle enclosure. Now there’s something different, and I’m all about unique and different ideas where 12-volt installation is concerned. Even though I didn’t need an insane amount of power, Eric suggested I allocate a lot of power for my subs to get a competition system that would sound great and be a fun demo. With a single Zapco C2K-9.0XD amp pushing 2000 watts to each, I think I’ve got that covered.

My next questions were critical to the sound quality and imaging of the Chevelle — conventional speakers or horn loaded compression drivers? I’ve heard them both in many systems, and I like them both, but I must say I’m partial to conventional drivers. Of course, it would be harder to achieve true-to-life imaging with the conventional drivers than it would with the horns. And besides, the horns would tuck nicely under the dash of the Chevelle and I have an idea for a grill that follows the contour of the dash for a really stealth install. Of course, Eric is one the innovators of under-dash horns. The Holdaways used them in their award-winning Buick and their company, USD Audio, produces under dash horns dubbed WaveGuides along with conventional speakers for the masses. So, you can guess what setup Eric was leaning towards. Well, after hearing a set of the latest WaveGuides in his demo dually, I was hooked too, and it looks like the Chevelle is goin’ with horns!

Now what about the mid bass? I was all set to make kick panels or bury a set in the floor behind the gas and brake pedals on either side of the transmission tunnel. But Eric had a better idea. He told me to put them in the floor just forward of the front seats, firing up. He claims they’re very hard to localize in this spot and that they blend nicely with the WaveGuides. Okay, I can live with that. It just so happened that I was working on the Chevelle’s exhaust when we had this discussion, so I made sure to have Jason over at B&M leave me as much room as possible in this location when he installed my exhaust. The trick to floor-mounted mid bass woofers is that you need to run the largest woofer that you have air space for — you can’t just stick a 12 in an eighth of a cubic foot and think it will sound good. You first need to build the largest enclosure that will fit, and then figure how much air space you have — this will tell you what size mid bass to run. I have yet to build my mid bass enclosures, that’s my pain, and so I’m not sure what size woofer I can fit. I’m estimating that I’ll be able to fit an 8- or 10-inch unit per side.

So with that, my need for mobile audio has been satisfied — for now. With any luck, I’ll soon be installing some of the above mentioned products and bringing you some hardcore tech — keep an eye out.