Curious, why did you go with that design? It'* damn close to being a bandpass system...

BonneMeMN,

To be honest I left the design of the box up to the shop. I gave him two requirements, because I travel and "use" the car, I need the box to be moveable, put bags in and out and whatever else I needed to do in the trunk. I also needed access to spare tire, as well. So he felt this design, which is what the minimum requirements for space for the P312D2'* needed fit my criteria.

To be honest, the box sounds great. I know I could get more out of it, with more wattages and probably bigger or different designed box, but it works for me....so far.

But after this SPL compitition, I dunno. Now I am thinking, hmmmm More Power? The speakers can handle 1000 watts each, and I am only giving them 300-350. lol

Well, unfortunately, right now, life limits what I can do with the car, but this SPL comp opened my eyes. I had fun, and may try it again.

congratulations on your win! It makes me happy to see one of my own winning things in our car. I will be calling on you for any tips when its my turn to compete. I gotta be honest. I am very nervous because I will be going up against guys with some hard core set ups and the way the classes are set up now means that a guy with two MTX 9500 15'* with 3000 watts can line up across from me with my two Diamond Audio D3 15'* with 1000 watts but **** it... If I go down, I am taking at least one person with me

briancole23,

I was very nervous too. I learned quite alot from this experience, if I want to persue it or not.

I will give you a few things I learned.

1. turn off ALL systems that pull charge from your battery/alternator
(lights, A/C, etc..)
2. Test with frequencies to find what tone your car is best suited for.
SPL is not a test of who gets the lowest sounding db at the loudest levels, your simply trying get the highest DB that the micraphone best pics up vs. what you can put out. The mic doesn't register to well at sub 40'* htz. Some people at the comp were trying to hit low and loud and they came out in upper 130'*. But after their run, and some help from others, they tried again and hit much better score on 40-50htz range. They were hitting in low 140'* once they changed their approach.
3. If your speakers are in your trunk, the day of the compitition unbolt and remove your back seat and/or remove your rear deck speakers. The idea is to let all the sound pressure into the cabin as possible.
4. If you can find some place that has a good meter system (termpro) that you can go to that will let you test your system before hand. The guy that one the comp, sunday, has a shop and has the same meters for comp at his shop. He told me for $20 I could come in and he would meter me, for $40 he would help tune my system to get the best performance out of it.
5. Test your system in both legal and outlaw (windows up vs. windows down) After the comp, we played abit with my car and we think I could have gotten 3 -5 db more with windows down at another frequency.
6. I am not sure what the type of compitition your going in, but the one I was in, was not DB Drag, I wasn't going side by side with another car. I pulled to staging, they put the meter/mic in my car and I had 30 seconds to get my highest DB. Some people messed up here, they chose to play music tracks, because they felt there system hit well on that. The problem with music tracks, unless your not paused and ready to go, you will waste time for the song to get to that first bass hit. One guy wasted 20 seconds to get through a song intro before his first bass hit. Then he only had less than 10 secs to go from there.

Your best bet is to find your best freq. range and go from there. Try to get High quality CDA or 320K mp3 freqs from 35-50htz, mine were 17 sec. mp3 tracks on my mp3 player. I just started at 35 htz and burped all the way to 45 htz at about 3 secs each. During the competition try not fuss with sub levels and all that, try to preset that stuff, so all you need to worry about is volumes, or unless you have a seperate sub volume ****. 30 sec'* doesn' last long and your busy during.

Also another thing I learned is there are two types of sub-systems, those made for SPL and those made for quality in playing music. SPL setups work better at these comps. My system is set up for music. I think its in the box configuration. Ported/Bandpass etc..

Hope these help.

sounds like you got a good foundation. Some of the things I did already know though but my biggest question has always been... Would I have the gain on my amp higher for competition than I would for everyday listening? Basically will I need to tweek my amp at all? I also think that you were competitng in bass race and I am going to be doing DB drag but I am not sure. I also think that in bass race you can take out your back seat and in DB drag, you cant. I am not sure. I will look up the rules and get back with you on that one. You don't realize that just between the two of us exchanging notes, ideas, questions and stories this could turn into a four or five page thread don't you? I am a car audio addict.

Just in case you were looking for the rules.

Here are the rules to dBDrag according to TermPro.

RULEZ

As far as I am aware, or this past weekend. "Outlaw" was only a reference to windows up vs. down. "STREET/LEGAL" was window UP and "OUTLAW" were windows DOWN.

Have fun reading the RULEZ.

Let me know what you find. I skimmed through them, but gave up. FInd out what class your going to compete in and I guess that will help you.

Wow. Things sure have changed over the years. I used to compete looong ago, when systems were tested and competed for primarily sound quality, and you were required to use the event organizers disc, and their selection of track of music for sound quality as well as DB'*. Ironic these were my older Pontiac days when I did these in an old Grand Am and a Grand Prix. We still have the old Grand Prix. I often wonder how well it would do in today'* competitions since it wasn't designed for SPL.

Anywho...congrats on the 3rd place finish. Best part is you enjoyed yourself. I'll bet there are a few more trophies in your future.


Dan
2000 SSEi

yeah, I used to like the way the SPL classes were based on amp power instead of the new system of cone area. I don't think its very fair but maybe I wouldn't mind if I dumped a bunch of money into my car to make a true SPL vehicle

Oh and I found the rules for our class. We would both be in the street division. My class would be Street Class C. Here is the rule on the back seat.

Street Division Passenger Compartment Restrictions

3-8a Modifications to the passenger compartment are prohibited.



Additional Guidelines:



· The OEM headliner (or an equivalent replacement) must remain in place. Grille cloth, box carpet, etc. may not be attached directly to the sheet metal of the roof in lieu of the headliner.

· The OEM door panels (or an equivalent replacement) must remain in place.

· The OEM carpeting (or an equivalent replacement) must remain in place.

· Cut-throughs in pickup trucks are not permitted.

· Sound damping materials may be used to reduce vibration when installed in accordance with the manufacturer’* recommended installation instructions. The maximum total thickness of sound damping material applied at any given location may not exceed 5/32 inch (4mm). The sound damping application may consist of mat-type material, spray-on material, or a combination of the two. A maximum of 2 layers of mat-type material may be used at any given location, even if the total thickness of the sound damping material(*) is less than 5/32 inch (4mm).

· Expanding foam may be used sparingly throughout the vehicle to seal small openings or reduce vibration, but may not be used to fill voids or other large cavities (such as the dashboard or doors).



3-8b Nothing in the sound system may interfere with the normal use and / or operation of the vehicle.



3-8c Seats may be folded for competition, but may not be removed from the vehicle. Competitors who fold their seats must be able to demonstrate that the installation of the sound system does not interfere with the normal operation of the seats that were folded.

Brian,

At least you know you can't remove the seats.

jeeze, seems like a lot of b/* for comps. I guess over the years many people have tried many different things to their vehichles to gain that extra edge. I am guessing they put all these rules in to try to make it as even field as possible for the classes.

The rules you posted, brian, do not mention window position. So check into that.

HurstGN,

Thanks for the kudos. Its my first and well, no real plans to keep on going. I did have a blast, but my budget on upgrades and all that to keep up in compitition is well, not quite what it should be. I hope to make what I have better for me and in the long run make some slow progress and upgrades and maybe in the distant future try again.

Life sometimes gets in the way of your personal wants and passions, so you do the best you can when you can.