Back in late 1985 after the race season was over I decided to make some mod sto the car. I needed to stiffen the entire rear so I removed the rear seat, cut out the back deck welded some bracing along the rear axle hump and welded a piece of .125 plate steel in. I had to put a loop around the bottom of the rear window tied into the frame because the back deck sheet steel wasn't thick enough.. Now I.m looking at this perfectly flat 5' wide 42" tall surface that looked cool and boring at the same time. About 2 weeks later I'm at a surplus and damaged freight auction and this crushed set of JBL
speakers comes up for sale. I immediately think that if I put a really loud system in the car I could actually hear it above the engine noise. After getting the specs for the speakers I make the correct size chambers out of fiberglass for the 12" woofer and 5" midrange. Since the tweeter was a compression horn it could just bolt right in. I mount the speakers to the fiberglass boxes and them mount the boxes with Dzus fasteners to the steel plate. Now how to power it?
I start looking at amps and am shocked at the price of what I wanted. After making my pitch to a few car stereo places I find one who will provide all the equipment up front but I have to pay for labor. Once the system is proven to work as expected then they will cover everything after that. 3 Kenwood amps (100, 50 & 25) and an electronic crossover go in, a 6 gauge wire runs from the battery, which was already mounted in the trunk, powers everything with a cassette head unit. You gotta remember the Major label releases on CD only started in the fall of 84 and weren't the dominant format yet. I got upgraded to a CD player about a year later,
Put up or shut up time. Will 175 watts per channel be enough to hear the music over the noise of a 464 CI engine with pretty close to straight pipes? Brothers in Arms goes in. song 2 selected VOLUME CRANKED and engine reved to 3500 RPM. And we wait. I'm sure Sting was singing his heart out but until the drums kicked in you wouldn't know it.The rest of the demos went well but Monet For Nothing at insane volume still brings a chill.
I still have that Kenwood 100wpc amp in a box in the garage.
) #1 is a 2’fer TBT! Happy Halloween!