Fiberglass enclosure / Stereo system

[bugnuts]

Been busting my ass on my ICE setup in my liftback since friday, I started my project with a totally new idea..I have fabricated a sealed fiberglass enclosure that is actually formed inside of the spare tire itself and not just the well were the tire goes, This allows for me to have the spare and a stealth system in the rear storage area, The only loss from doing this is the two small storage bins on each side of the tire and this is not much of a loss anyways. Well here is what I did: first I built a frame around the tire comprised of 1/2" mdf board, Then I covered the tire in aluminum duct tape (This was a mistake and I will get to that later), I needed .70 cubic feet for my sub so I set up everthing with the tape and filled it with styrofoam popcorn (this was a pre-measured amount) the sizing was perfect and I probably could have got .75 cubic feet from it if I tryed, I then started laying in 1.5oz fiberglass matt with the resin (chopped sections about 8" square) and some strips also, I ran the matt up the insides of the mdf frame but not over the top (this is because I mounted a top piece with the 10" sub in it) after two to three layers had set I attempted to remove the fiberglass from the mold (the tire), This is where everthing went bad! It seems that the resin had leaked a bit through the tape and was between the tape and tire, I ended up having to brake the plastic hold down for the tire and remove the fiberglass box and tire together (yeh I felt like a moron!) Well after about an hour of prying the two apart it finally popped out in the form of a perfect cast, I then placed about two more layers of matt and resin down to end up with a thickness of about 3/8", I built some platforms off the side of the box to mount the 3 sony amps and eletronic crossover (ebay,rummage sales, and freebies), I ran everything off of the stock head unit with a line output converter and replaced the front crapass speakers with some clearance sale $20 kenwood 6 1/2" three ways, and the rear crapass speakers with sony 6x9 three ways (which I already had setting around), By the way if you decide to put some 6x9's in the rear side panel of a Yaris LB be prepared to chop some metal..Cause they don't fit! All together I spent about $50 on supplies and about $120 on equipment, This is the budget buster system. Although it is not completely finished I wired everthing up and it sounds amazing! I am not at all new to car stereo systems (about 20 years now) and this is the first time that I have used the stock head unit, And I have to admit that it is not bad at all plus I still mostly have retained my stock appearance and that is the best part, The only thing that gives up the stock appearance is the 6x9's in the rear side panels and I am planning to place them behind the plastic panel with a custom flush fitting grill...but later. Probably the worse part of the whole install was trying to run the main power wire from the engine bay to the rear, I achieved this by using the small rubber grommet that the hood release runs through, I was able to fish the wire along side the innner fender driver side and bring it right up near the battery. I have posted some pics although it is not finished, I still need to mount the amps cover the eclosure with box carpet, mount a grill over the sub and cut the cover that goes over everything (it will be 1/4" mdf cover in carpet also). When everything is finished the hatch area will look stock and function just as before the mod but will only have the 10" grill in the middle + I can lift the whole thing out and get access to my spare if needed.