sea-scooby

On Sunday Fishonabike, Tre36 and myself installed dual 8" subs into Fish's 2004 Forester X. The entire process took about 8 hours to complete (including 1 hour lunch break), and the results were amazing. Really tight clean bass that you not only heard but felt. The best part is there was not a single rattle inside the car either! Tre36 had a great solution to eliminate the rattles that common occur in the upper panel that surrounds the hatch windows. I will definitely incorporate it in future installs.

For the left side (driverside) please see my previous write up: Install: 8" sub in stock location

This will mainly cover the right side (passenger side).

Start off by removing the foam floor trays, the tie down bolts/anchors (4 total), the upper seatbelt bolt and finally the upper window trim. The window trim piece has 3 screws holding it in place along with a ton of clips. A few good tugs and it pops off rather easily. What you are left with should look like this:



To remove the pocket and upholstry you will need to:
1) remove the 2 push clips located behind the tie downs
2) pop the 2 hidden clips near the hatch opening
3) remove the 3 upper clips. These clips break easy, but you will not need to reuse the two holding the pocket. Break away!
4) fold back the upholstry, disconnect the v12 outlet and unscrew the gold screws holding on the pocket. Save the screws as these will be used to hold your grill in place.
5) After the pocket is removed, you will see a single black screw holding the front trim in place. Leave this on for now.

-Note- You do not need to remove the entire upholstry piece. Just fold it back out of your way. You will need to use it to find you speaker location in a bit...



Cut away the OEM foam rubber to expose the cavity.



Each side of the compartment is full of wires, the fuel filler and various plastic boxes. Wrap all these things in foam before applying the mat. It will make it much easier to access them in the future if needed.

Use cardboard and shape a lower baffle. I used 3/4" MDF. It should rest on the top of the vent and lineup with the screw holes in the sheetmetal. It is apox. 10" long and the width varies from 5" wide in the front to just under 3" toward the back.



Next I stuffed all the areas I wanted to seal up with an egg carton style foam. It is less messy to work with than spray foam, and it gives a decent base for the mat to stick to. DON'T FORGET TO RUN YOUR SPEAKER WIRE!

Now screw the lower baffle into place and mat the entire area to seal it up. The more airtight you can get it the better. Multiple layers of overlapping mat work great.



Use a piece of cardboard and make a template of the opening. This will become your speaker baffle. I used 3/4" MDF for this.

Cut out your baffle and set it in place. Fold the upholstry piece back into place and trace the opening onto your baffle. Remove the baffle and center your sub opening cutout around the opening you traced. This will keep the speaker located in the deepest part of the fender and it allows the cone to be directly behind the grill.

Cut your speaker opening, screw the baffle into place and seal it up using wood glue (between 2 wood pieces) and cover the entire inside and outside with more mat.



Cover your newly matted baffle with ensolite, then wire up and install your speaker.



Keep the rattles away!

(Special thanks to Tre36)
While you have the upper plastic panel removed, take a few minutes and trim the window with Raammat and ensolite. It helps keep the panel from rattling and it rather simple to do...



Time to make a grill.

1) Remove the single black screw holding on the pocket trim.
2) Cut a piece of grill material a few inches larger than the trim piece.
3) Cut out and hot glue your grill cloth onto the grill so it looks like this:



4) Screw the trim piece back onto the upholstry with the single black screw.
5) Mount the new grill to the trim piece from behind the upholstry. Screw it into place using the gold screws and the same mounting holes that held the pocket in place.



oh so pretty...



12v Outlet

The most interesting thing to deal with was the 12v outlet. The outlet is about 3" deep, so it needed some decent clearance to fit it. Since the entire pocket area was sealed up, we could not install it in the upholstry. Here is the solution we came up with.

The rightside floor foam had a spot that faces the fender that looked very promising.



We used a 1/2" drill bit, made a hole and it was a perfect fit. The depth cleared without any issues and it is still rather easy to get to.




All Finished!

After replacing all the panels, screws and bolts, it was time to admire the work while we crank some tunes!

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05 Forester XTi Premium M/T (PRE tuned VF39)(his)
05 Forester X A/T (hers)
My Journal page

MannyLegacy

Cool Lookin forward to the write up. =D

DsJ

WTG

looking forward to some pic's and write up

sea-scooby

Between Fish and I we have a ton of pix, and I know he is eager to show off!

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05 Forester XTi Premium M/T (PRE tuned VF39)(his)
05 Forester X A/T (hers)
My Journal page

Legacy

Subscribes.... I'd like to do a version of this using 10's with grills.

babs

Anyone ever figure out if you can squeeze a 12" in there? Maybe a shallow-mount like that MB Quart I was checking out?

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08 Si Sedan 6spd, 07 XT Ltd AT UrbanGray

Benrock05201

Still no pics?

Ben

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2005 FXTi black/black.

sea-scooby

Ben-
I had softball last night, and the wife took the camera to work with her this morning. The pix are still on it, D'oh. Fish should be putting his pix up anytime now. His pix show everythign we did, but on this thread I'm going to focus on the passenger side install.

Babs-
If you look at the measurements from my first write up, a shallow mount 12" sub will fit on the driverside, but as I found at Sunday, it would be a VERY tight fit on the passenger side. The passenger side also does not have as much available airspace. With all the wires, the fuel filler and other misc items it is a much tighter compartment.

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05 Forester XTi Premium M/T (PRE tuned VF39)(his)
05 Forester X A/T (hers)
My Journal page

Fishonabike

I was going to post them last night but had other stuff going on. I will see if I have time to post them a bit later today.

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'04 FX 5MT

www.teamascension.org

Fishonabike

Sea-Scooby will be doing the full write up, but here are the pics I have from the installation. I'm very happy with the finished product and how it sounds.

(Big thanks to Sea-Scooby for the time, tools, and knowledge! Oh and special thanks to Doug! lol I mean Tre36!)

The pics are pretty self explanatory I think:








Inside the left pocket
























12v outlet relocation

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'04 FX 5MT

www.teamascension.org

Fishonabike

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'04 FX 5MT

www.teamascension.org

BAC5.2

Holy cow, that's a clean install!

I can't wait until the writeup is done! That sounds like a really killer setup!

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The Aggressive™ -- You don't know about it.

1998 Forester S - Big brakes, Big Tires, 5-gears.

DsJ

Thats very nice.

I love to see someone do quality work and not just hack an slash

Well done

Buddur

That's awesome! I really like what you did with the cigarette lighter, relocating it that is. Can't wait to read the writeup.

In case your ears are still ringing from all the bass... I LOVE WHAT YOU DID AND CAN'T WAIT TO READ THE WRITEUP.

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2006 2.5X AT N/A
Well Strung Bluegrass Band

toddlamp

Wow, that's awesome. I would do the same but I want to install an I/C water spray tank on the passenger side so i'll only be able to do the one on the driver's side. Do you think there is enough space?

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06XT MT CGM Blouch TD05-18g 8cm equipped