Welcome, I have seen a lot of questions on how to build kicks latley. So I thought I would post some pictures and maybe some tricks that may help. None of these Items were my idea. People have been building kicks for years. I picked up a little here and there by reading magazines and talking to installers over the years. So please dont think im claiming to have invented the wheel.Enjoy

Start by cleaning the area so the tape will stick. I prefer to remove carpet and apply tape directly to the floor. Apply tape to a large area to help keep excess resin from getting on anything. I learned this the hard way as usual.

I prefer to use fleese instead of mat or weave. The fleese is cheap and holds lots of resin. I use a hot glue gun to secure it in place before applying resin. Next I mix the resin in a plastic cup and apply it with a cheap 2"wide paint brush. I prefer to let the resin cure for 7 days so it will hold its shape well. After a day or so it will be dry to the touch. I generally just lay the carpet back in place and drive the car for a week. I have run into problems with parts not being fully cured when i pulled them out. If it changes shape when you pull it out Start over.
The Fiberglass resin I prefer is called finishing resin. There are generally two types. Casting and finishing. The finishing resin is much thicker and tends to stay were you put it better. Rather than all rolling down hill. What a mess!

While your lower portion is curing. You can work on the baffle that your driver will mount to. I use a router and a circle cutting tool to cut out the baffles. You can also use a less expensive jig saw to do this but the finish quality is lower.

I next use a thin fiberglass material I found at my local hardware store to make the thin raised portion of the baffle were the grill will sit. This material is normally used for shower walls,. Its fiberglass so your resin will stick well to it. You can pretty much use any thin flexible material as long as resin will stick to it.

This picture shows the finished baffle with the Focal 5" mid.

Driver angles

Getting the angles correct the first time will save you time and money. Most of us learn the hard way and end up building 2 or three pairs of kicks.

I have spoken to may competitors that say they have spent as much as 30 days playing with angles alone. So dont feel bad if it takes a few days of playing to find out what works for your vehicle.

#1
The first thing to know is that you need a good competition CD that has both spoken technical tracks and musical tracks with soundstage maps. I use the Iasca competition CD. A soundstage map is a chart that shows were each instrument and voice should be located on the stage. Its very helpfull.

#2
Place your baffle that has your mid screwed in place on top of your back half of your kick panel that we made earlier. Angle the baffle so it points at the opposite side window area.Do this for both the drivers side and the passengers side kicks.

#3
The next step is to play a phase track off of the competition CD.
The phase track has a spoken female voice that says" My voice is in phase",then says " My voice is out of phase". With two people in the car you need to decide if the center image is better when she says "my voice is in phase" or when she says" my voice is out of phase".
If the center is better when she says "my voice is out of phase" then you will need to swap the phase of one of your mids. Just swap the + and - on one of the mids. I generally try the drivers side first. If the center image is better from both seating positions when she says"my voice is in phase than you dont need to change anything. After you swap the phase of one of your mids, you can then go back and listen to the phase track again. This time it should image best when she says" my voice is in phase. Your mids are now in phase with each other.

#4
For driver angling I like to use a cheap laser pointer. The one i use is a pen style laser pointer. The bottom is flat so I just lay a flat piece of wood across the speaker baffle and set the laster pen on top of the wood. This gives me an idea of were I am pointing the speakers. While listening to different angles I like to listen to the left,center,right spoken technical track and the seven drum beats. On the seven drum beats pay close attention to the 1st,4th and 7th drum beats. The 1st and 7th are your stage width. You want these to be pillar to pillar atleast. The 4th will be your center. Its also a good idea to listen to the musical tracks for imaging and staging also on the Iasca disk. Use the soundstage maps so you know were the instuments and vocals should be on the stage. Be carefull not to end up with a narrow stage. Its easy to get good center focus with a narrow stage. Sometimes you have to give up some center focus to get decent stage width. Also dont forget to try no angles at all. In some cars having the speakers flush with the stock kick may work.

Just take your time and hopefully you have a good friend that is willing to sit in the car with you and help you out. It takes time to get it right. When you get it right, place pieces of tape on the interior were the laser pointer is pointing at and then cut pieces of wood to secure the baffle at the correct angle. You can later use the laser pointer to check and see how close you got the angle to your desired postion. It may change a little after finishing the kick but it should stay close to the piece of tape.

Take your finished baffle and secure it in place on top of the cured lower portion. I used pieces of wood and hot glue. Just make sure it is strong enough to hold up when you stretch fleese over it later.

Carefully remove the lower portion and the secured baffle from the car together. Trim the outer portion of your resin soaked fleese to obtain the shape you desire.
Stretch another piece of fleese over the top of the baffle and hot glue it to the edges of the lower section.

Soak the fleese with resin. Let it cure for a few days.

Scuff up your cured resin soaked part so Body filler will stick to it.


I thin down the base material part of the bondo until i can apply it with a wide paint brush. I use alcohol.

Apply the bondo. I also use a spray bottle of alcohol to spray a small amount of alcohol on the bondo after its applied. Its seems to help smooth out the paint brush lines.



Get out the sand paper and sand that baby smooth. How smooth depends on what you are covering it with. carpet, Paint, Vinyl .


I use a router and a flush cut or copying bit to router out the face.

Because its my daily driver I chose carpet.


Finished product.
I will build the grill's when I get time. Got work to do on my comp car first.
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Building the grill's. You will need to router out another circle the same size as the baffle we built before.
Then you will need to use a different router bit to router out a step in the wood ring were the metal grill material will sit.
Cut out the metal grill material so it will fit into the notched out area you just routered out.
I just use a tin snip set to cut out the metal grill material.
I then glue the metal grill material in place and then paint the wood ring black before I cover it with grill cloth. The reason I paint the wood black is so you dont see the wood through the grill cloth.
Finished drivers side kick with out grill.
Finished drivers side kick with grill.
Finiahed passengers side kick with out grill
Finished passengers side kick with grill
I will try to post some pictures of the different router cutters I used soon.
Building coax drivers.

First remove the phase cone. Take a punch and hammer and knock out the phase cone through the hole at the rear of the speaker magnet.

The mid, tweeter and removed phase cone.

Grind the top of the phase cone flat or at the angle you want to mount the tweeter at.

Drill two holes for the wiring to run along the inside of the phase cone. Then Glue the tweeter to the phase cone with the wiring in place.

Put the phase cone back in place and you are done.