making bazooka look better

[lostforawhile]

has anyone tried painting a bazooka tube with that plastic bumper paint? the black stuff. mine works fine but it looks terrible. i can't tell if the tube is plastic or composite or what the heck it's made from. these do sound good in the hatches by the way, this was a self powered one but i opened it up and ran wires right to the terminals on the speaker. i'm using an external amp with a remote cross over network. the amp in these things is a postage stamp size piece of junk. what a laugh. the sub can handle a lot more power then what that tiny amp can produce. the only difference between a powered one and a non powered one is the powered one is two ohm and the non powered one is four. the trick in the hatch is to make sure you modify the hatch covers so they don't shake. other then that it sounds good in there. anyway didn't mean to get off topic.

[lostforawhile]

ok i went ahead and painted it,it looks much better, when the paint dries i'll put it back together. i used a standard dupont automotive paint with a flex agent.
tube sanded down and ready for paint

this is for a laugh,this is supposed to power a ten inch sub,this is why i use an external amp.

always wear your mask when spraying automotive paint

finished and rolled back inside,sorry the pic is grainy my camera sucks big time

[lostforawhile]

I think I'm going to make a nice upholstered piece to go on the terminal end,that way it will match the hatch upholstery. just thought of that, has anyone else had anyluck with the bazooka in the hatch? i ran the external amp and cross over so i could set the frequency the way i wanted. this is a ten inch bazooka el,that has been converted to an external amp. I actually upholstered the hatch cover and made upholstered inserts for the bottom side,also aluminum bracing,this killed all the resonance of the factory piece. It's just very heavy now.

[88Accord-DX]

Nevermind. Leave you alone....

Outta Control

[lostforawhile]

yea i mostly listen to rock and stuff,it has a nice sound, i can vary the level, if i want to shake the windows i can.

[88accordhb]

maybe you need clearcoat?? if it looks too plasticy.

[lostforawhile]

well the tube is made from some kind of plastic,i added a flex agent, just like when you paint bumpers, my dumb camera makes it look worse then it is anyway,if you run a good cross over network these sound pretty good,they have a bad rep due to the boomers not knowing how to hook them up right and the self powerered ones amp cross over frequency was set to make them sound that way. if you only use them to run the lowest frequencies they sound really good. you really need a lot of crossover control to make them sound right in a particular car.

[88accordhb]

dude lostforawhile, youre always tryin to find something to do. lol

[lostforawhile]

yea i've got about another 500 projects to finish on before it's done,mostly small ones and some big ones. it looked like crap with the new carpet in the hatch so i had to do something. I really don't post in audio much, i've got a good system but i don't talk about it much.

[3rdgenhatchDX]

looks great how many watts are you hitting?
RMS? Peak?
and how much $ was it before you modded it?

[lostforawhile]

I'm running about 200 watts rms, i keep the level turned down most of the time,i'm running an older sony amp,so i'm using one channel for the sub. it's wired for a second tube if i ever want to drop one in but i think 400 watts is a bit much for my old self. I'm running the sub from a boss crossover/eq setup. the system is set up for a second four channel amp,but i haven't gotten around to putting it in. the tube was actually given to me, the amp in it was bad,nothing wrong with the driver though. i'm not running bridged because the amp wouldn't be stable for long into 2 ohms. I could put in a cooling system and all but it's not worth the hassle.