Bonemaro's '73 Ghia

[Bonemaro]

Yes it was. I took the speakers out prior to taking this picture. I thought maybe he cut the holes, but it's good it I can 86 the entire thing.

[Marc]

To conform with the letter of the law requiring seat belts for every passenger, US-market `Ghias shipped with no rear seat in `73/`74 - it was replaced with carpeted plywood panels at the factory; the seat from an earlier car (`70-`72 anyway, maybe older as well) will fit if desired. They also got around the 5-mph front-bumper regulation by adding a big steel tube behind the front facebar that protected it from deformation at the expense of bending the front beam. As the cars got heavier over the years they really weren't capable of carrying 4 adults anyway without exceeding their 2645 lb GVWR anyway, unless they were all skinny and had no luggage
Here's what the rear "seat" area should look like with the security panel "up"...I don't recall if there's anything like you've got showing with it down, but it's probably homemade as mountainkowboy says. The way that it's mounted to the shelf should be a clue, German hardware has a different look to it than stuff from Lowe's:
http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/760345.jpg

Here's a picture of a `74 that's supposedly just been restored (although apparently not faithfully to US-spec, since it has a rear seat and no front headrests) and it doesn't have any panel there:
http://www.jngcreations.com/wp-content/ ... ghia_3.jpg

[Bonemaro]

Maybe I'll just put a pair of 15'a back there!!!!!!!!!!



:mrgreen:

[helowrench]

Once upon a time, before I did the math, i built a box and put 2 15s back there. Then dropped 10s into the horizontal, sealed individually with a 6" passive radiator in place of the kick panel.
Achieved 132db.

Realistically though, the interior volume measurement tells you that 10s alone are enough. Not enough volume to set up a wave below 46hz or so.

[Bonemaro]

Yeah, I was just joking. If anything, I'd go with a single 10 and probably a nice set of 6.5 Infinity separates up front. In all honesty, I was wondering what kind of system the Ghia's electrical could handle in the first place.

[Steve Arndt]

Once upon a time, before I did the math, i built a box and put 2 15s back there. Then dropped 10s into the horizontal, sealed individually with a 6" passive radiator in place of the kick panel.
Achieved 132db.

Realistically though, the interior volume measurement tells you that 10s alone are enough. Not enough volume to set up a wave below 46hz or so.

My old bug had its peak SPL at 46 Hz. Coincidence?
Coustic brand SPL meter, two sealed 12s, 149 DB Drag legal.

[Bonemaro]

Nice. Prior to the Camaro and Nissan, I competed 501+ IACSA pro class with a Z-24. We never concentrated on SPL too much (prior to sound Q plus rules).

[helowrench]

My old bug had its peak SPL at 46 Hz. Coincidence?
Coustic brand SPL meter, two sealed 12s, 149 DB Drag legal.

What we found was that it measured higher spl outside the car by a fairly significant amount like 2-4db iirc.
did the digging and found that the interior volume defines the lowest (largest) wave that will set up in that volume.
So the freq waves lower than 46 would actually set up outside, and increase the db.
weird having a car that is loudest 4-6ft outside, and has best sound quality at 10-15ft.

Bonemaro, that ghia was an exercise in adolescent stupidity, overcome by limited amounts of brilliance.
Properly undertaken, we could have achived better results with much less effort.
We had a rewound alternator, and a seperated segregated high cap battery with 2.5f of capacitance to handle transients (in1990 caps were unheard of), due to all of the power being pushed.
the 15s were dual voice coil (4ohm coils) all four coils run parralell for a 1 ohm load.
the amp was stable to .5ohm, was rated at 60wrms at 8ohm, so we were pushing roughly 480w rms at the 1 ohm load. That does not include the 10s the 6s up front, or the 1" horns.
even with the upgraded alt and the spare batt, you could not run the sound system very long before it just died.
It was still nothing compared to the Rabbit that came behind it. It had a nasty habit of chucking the hatch glass 10ft away from the car.

[mountainkowboy]

I used to build cars for audio comp back in the day...........remember Car Audio Nationals by Alpine? Am I dating myself? I prefer 8's or 6.5's for there speed and relatively small cu' needed. 5th order box is may favorite design.......it will make progressive jazz come alive!! Also used to play with reverse wave cross talk canceling "polk audio" style in the cars too, along with rear channel delay/freq shunting for a "surround like" sound in the car.

LOL........MAN.....that was light years ago!!

[mountainkowboy]

In all honesty, I was wondering what kind of system the Ghia's electrical could handle in the first place.

Put an alternator in it and parallel/isolate a second battery.......a small one for just the audio system if your gunna go BIG, a couple of caps for the amps.....................and you should be good.

[helowrench]

I used to build cars for audio comp back in the day...........remember Car Audio Nationals by Alpine? Am I dating myself? I prefer 8's or 6.5's for there speed and relatively small cu' needed. 5th order box is may favorite design.......it will make progressive jazz come alive!! Also used to play with reverse wave cross talk canceling "polk audio" style in the cars too, along with rear channel delay/freq shunting for a "surround like" sound in the car.

LOL........MAN.....that was light years ago!!

when I was playing with it, sealed and ported were the only choices.

[Bonemaro]

I'm a forth order man myself... I have a Streetwires 1F cap laying around here somewhere.

[Bonemaro]

Stripped...

[Bonemaro]

Here's my next question...

This car has some rust. I do plan to blast the entire exterior, fix and paint. This, however, will probably not be done for a few years. Do you think...

A - Don't worry about the rust now and deal with it when you blast.

B - Grind down the rusty spots and just hit it with a rattle can of primer for now.

C - Perform POR-15 treatment on it now to prevent further rusting.

I'm not sure if it'll continue to rust over the next few years sitting in my garage.

[helowrench]

C or some sort of conversion coation.