My 1996 Jeep Cherokee. This is her in the most current form. In the rear passenger window you can see the front of the subwoofer enclosure, and from where the truck is open you can see the back of the enclosure.
This is the back half. This is where my amplifiers are and the half of my battery bank.
This is my passenger door, all the art is hand drawn on plywood. There are 4 door speakers that I build to fit on the door. The missing smaller hole on top is for a tweeter that has not been installed yet.
This is taken at Slamology, a car audio competition that takes place in Indiana. This is one of the largest car audio competitions in the country. There was rain in the forecast, and the truck had never experienced rain in its life.
This is a photo from the passenger side into my Jeep. The middle component is made so it can hold my laptop for competition, so people who would like a demo could pick their own music to listen too. In the back corner above my steering wheel is my A-Pillar support, this is beefed up and drawn on to match the theme of the truck.
The roof of my truck. This is the second layer of ¾ inch plywood that I glued to the roof for support. The roof cracked 2 times before the plywood, because of pressure build up and flex.
This is a photo of my driver side door, similar to the passenger door. The doors on my truck have 10 pounds of sound definition material.
My hood is entirely old school comic books that I had blown up and reprinted. After a lot of work, I got a one of a kind, almost paper–mache type hood.
This is a photo of my trucks at home. Left to Right: The left is the truck with the system. The blue truck is an up-and-coming project. The green truck, in pieces, is a donor vehicle where most of the parts that I needed have come from. The red truck is my daily drive.
This is the box that my subwoofers are installed in, the box is 1.5 inches thick. For reference, the box is 44 inches tall and almost 50 inches wide , and 46 inches front to back. This is not pictured in the photo, but after this the box got 5 coats of fiberglass resin and 2 layers of fiberglass sheets.
This is an earlier photo of the inside of my truck. My roof broke a few times and I got the idea to reinforce it with plywood, the car jack is pushing the roof back into place with the plywood. This photo also shows the first coat of paint to the interior.
This is a photo of the finals at Slamology. There were over 200 people competing at this audio event. I was ranked in the ultimate audio class. This ranks me with some of the loudest vehicles in the world. My goals for next year is to compete at the 150 db mark.
This is my 1996 Jeep Cherokee (XJ) Classic. Over the course of three years, I rebuilt her from the ground up. I found this jeep abandoned at the side of a house. It had been sitting for a few years, and needed help. I paid $250 for a truck that wasn’t running, with the original goal of fixing it up and selling it. Although I have four other vehicles just like this, I kept working on this one, and after a few months ended up selling my other truck so I could keep this Jeep. My friends and I are really interested in car audio, and my friends managed to convince me to turn my truck into a full-on competition truck. Originally I didn’t want to, but at this point I had only put $400 into this truck and my friends bet me that their trucks would be louder, so I accepted their challenge and the work began.
That first year saw the most work: rebuilding the motor, the whole underside, and stripping the paint and painting it. Once the whole truck was empty, it was time to build the system. To prepare the truck for the audio system, a lot of reinforcement was needed. I used two pieces of ¾ MDF glued to my ceiling to stop the exterior sheet metal from flexing and ripping away from the audio. My door panels are made of ¾” birch wood, which was used to make them heavier and less prone to breakage. I filled all the small gaps and cracks, and then went on to paint the truck. I used bed liner as paint for the whole exterior of the truck in order to to give the sheet metal a 3rd dimension, so the truck can withstand vibration and resist breaking and ripping. After building 20 to 25 different reinforcement systems, I ended up with the one I have now and am currently working to rebuild it again.
The artwork that is in the truck was done on ¾ inch birch wood that was sanded, primed, and painted. After this process was done, the wood then went to my friend Danielle for the artwork. The drawing was done free-hand with a sharpie, and then I clear coated it for preservation.
Once my reinforcement was built, it was time to move on to the audio system. My audio system is comprised of five major components. The first component is power generation; most people have one stock alternator, but I have two 320 amp Mechmens for a total of 640 amps. I also have over 100 feet of double zero-gauge wire, which is thicker than power line wire. The second component is power storage. This is used to provide power for the burst of energy that you will need when competing. My Jeep has nine full sized M31-class Dekabatteries; that’s 8325 cold, cranking amps, which provide enough to power a 1-watt LED bulb for over 1000 days before dying. The third component of the audio system is the power: the amplified power that moves the subwoofers and door speaker. I have two Hifonics BRX 24001 strapped to .5 ohms. With the subwoofer impedance, its 1 ohm, and I’m getting 4800 watts RMS, 9600 watts peak, to the subwoofers. My door speakers amp is a hifonics BRX 1200.4, my door speakers are getting 1200 watts RMS and 2400 watts peak power. The fourth component is the speakers and the subwoofers. For my door speakers I have eight PRV 6M200’s, four on each door. I also have four ten-inch crescendos mounted behind my head.
Lastly, the big boys: I have four 15-inch DC audio subwoofers. Their magnets weight 29 pounds each, and they weigh 32 pounds in total. They can handle 1400 watts RMS, 2800 at peak: that’s 5600 watts RMS, 11200 watts peak. Over winter break, I hope to be upgrading. I plan on selling my subs for $300 each and I will also be adding four more ten-inch door speakers during winter break as well. The final and most important component of the audio system is the subwoofer enclosure. There are two basic types of enclosures: a sealed box that does not let air out, and a ported box that lets air out. My box is a combination of the two. The subwoofers fire into a sealed box and load into a ported box making the subs more efferent at making noise. My box is a 2:1 ratio, for every one-inch sealed there are two inches ported.
The truck started off at the very beginning with one 12-inch subwoofer on 1000 watts rms. I liked installing it and having that aspect with my music. From there, it slowly transformed into this massive ongoing project of constant tweaking and reinventing the wheel.
Once I had most of the system installed, I saw that I had all this empty space that was waiting to be filled. I wanted something that would be so different from everything else out there, a one-of-a-kind piece. I enlisted the aid of an old friend Danielle DiFransico, who had drawn art on a computer of mine a few years back. I took that same idea and sent my system off piece by piece to be drawn on. The system is all custom made, painted, then drawn on with sharpie. I found all the cartoons and designs that I liked, and she transcribed and filled in the blank space with checker board patterns and random swirls.
There are three different types of sound system competitions: SPL, SQL, and db Drag racing. SPL is Sound Pressure Levels – this is where it’s about all out loudness rated in db’s. SQL is Sound Quality Levels, which is about how loud and clear a sound system is – this is done with a db meter, and the crowd. This is also known as street battle. Lastly, db Drag racing is not what it sounds like – it is about playing a solid continuing note for 30 seconds.
All types of competitions have their own rules and regulations. The most important rule is called sound poetical. Sound poetical is a calculation of your system’s ability to produce sound. It’s based on power, number of amplifiers, number of subwoofer, and size of subwoofers. The number that is produced at the end of the equation, along with properties about the system, determine your “weight class.” A weight class is the people with similar style system that you will compete against.
I got into these type of competitions for many reasons. The main reasons are the challenges that I faced, all the new things I had to learn, and all the great stories and people that it brings me to.