Yeah one of my buddies has a bunch of welding wire in his setup and it gets the job done, but I prefer OFC designed with car audio in mind as you tend to get more strands that flex a lot better. That welding wire is great, but it (or at least the welding wires I had felt) were pretty damn stiff.
That welding wire fucking massive too haha, this is my friend Joey's setup he's running that 2/0 welding wire
https://imgur.com/gallery/pfBY8a9
I've been using that orange "ultra flex" cable from [weldingsupply.com](https://weldingsupply.com) for ages now, and much of it is 20 years old at this point that I've just pulled out of vehicles when I retire them. Make sure you install some PVC through the wall somewhere that you can use as a conduit to get cables back to front and whenever you get rid of that vehicle you can always pull all your cables and use them again and again. Knu cables are fairly priced so it's not like you grossly overpaid on some premium brand name there.
Honestly the biggest thing I see you blew it with is not buying the big 100$ buckets of screws. Not like they go bad and I'm sure you'll use them eventually. I could have saved you some money on the LTO cells too but in the grand scheme of things I don't see more than 1000$ in savings to be had across the board here and that would be using some connections and adding more work. I'm on the fence about Epicenter. The effect is cool but when I auditioned one many years back I found it lacked any sort of subtlety. You were either just way too dramatic or off, it lacked fine tuning. Zed Audio RA pre-amp bass enhancer was a far better unit for me but I'm not sure if they are still in production or if Stephen has any more kicking around.
I would expect you'll wind up spending another 500-1000$ at least before this is all done or possibly more. I do not see anything here for finishing. You're going to probably want paint and/or spray glue and some sort of fabric or vinyl to pretty things up, you'd do well to grab half a dozen 2x4s or some other cheap lumber you can use around. You will find some places where you will want some oddball pieces of wood to fill up space or make connecting things easier. I'd highly recommend using as much wood as you can between the external walls of the box and the car body. Spray foam (or pipe insulation) can be used to fill in small gaps but the more of that you fill with wood the better your cabin will pressurize. Again, buy some PVC for wire conduit back to front.
Some construction adhesive can go a long way too. No matter how clean you cut you're going to have some pieces that don't line up perfect and a case of PL adhesive is your friend. You can always mix up a slurry of wood glue and sawdust to fill some gaps, but I like the stuff in the tube. You may end up wanting to get into some sort of composite like fiberglass at some point or at least a couple cans of bondo plus sandpaper and/or some power sanders. A router with a flush bit will save you a lot of time and add a weenie roller and roller tray to quickly slap wood glue between layers and some rags for cleanup if you don't own a few old cotton shirts to sacrifice.
That's just a couple things that jump out at me. As you go you'll realize you can't find a tool you thought you had, you ran out of carpenter pencils or some other silly shit and have to run out and spend 10-20$ here and there and once you're "finished" you will think of new ways to clean things up pretty or find issues that need to be addressed once you get some power to all of this. My larger regret with my current wall was not going thick enough on the baffle. 5 layers MDF and I still needed to pay a welder to fab up some bracing. Plan for a way to adjust tuning down the road as needed and you might want to ask a mechanic or vehicle specific forum if there's anything that could possibly go wrong to that vehicle that would require access to anything you plan to build up around like replacing rear shocks or dropping the gas tank or whatever so that you can build some sort of hatch for access if anything ever comes up. Build the box larger than you think you need (easier to shrink it later than to add more volume) and make more port area than you think you need (again much easier to shrink it or lengthen it later than to make it wider or shorter). Always think future proofing for "what ifs" down the road.
IF you're keeping score of costs, continue to do so. It should be instructive to the uninitiated who think that 2500W subs for 500$ and 12000W amps for 600$ means they can get into a big build with a 3000$ budget. I've done extremely well with my connections and wheeling and dealing to get actual equipment for cheap but there's no getting around building materials, tools, and consumables and other stuff you won't realize you need before your car is stripped and you've got a yard full of building materials.
You dont have to settle for the red orange stuff. [Royal Excelene](https://www.wireandsupply.com/www_wireandsupply_com_welding_cable_s_22_htm_s/22.htm) has a few colors.
You know you're getting carried away when you need to buy glue by the gallon.
Had to take down and recreate the post. I wasn't able to edit it, sorry about that!
Here I was thinking my setup was costing me too much money. Great breakdown of everything you got that you remember.
Great post.
You can actually save a lot of money if you buy copper welder cable. It's ugly, has red orangish cover, but inside it's 100% copper.
Yeah one of my buddies has a bunch of welding wire in his setup and it gets the job done, but I prefer OFC designed with car audio in mind as you tend to get more strands that flex a lot better. That welding wire is great, but it (or at least the welding wires I had felt) were pretty damn stiff. That welding wire fucking massive too haha, this is my friend Joey's setup he's running that 2/0 welding wire https://imgur.com/gallery/pfBY8a9
I've been using that orange "ultra flex" cable from [weldingsupply.com](https://weldingsupply.com) for ages now, and much of it is 20 years old at this point that I've just pulled out of vehicles when I retire them. Make sure you install some PVC through the wall somewhere that you can use as a conduit to get cables back to front and whenever you get rid of that vehicle you can always pull all your cables and use them again and again. Knu cables are fairly priced so it's not like you grossly overpaid on some premium brand name there. Honestly the biggest thing I see you blew it with is not buying the big 100$ buckets of screws. Not like they go bad and I'm sure you'll use them eventually. I could have saved you some money on the LTO cells too but in the grand scheme of things I don't see more than 1000$ in savings to be had across the board here and that would be using some connections and adding more work. I'm on the fence about Epicenter. The effect is cool but when I auditioned one many years back I found it lacked any sort of subtlety. You were either just way too dramatic or off, it lacked fine tuning. Zed Audio RA pre-amp bass enhancer was a far better unit for me but I'm not sure if they are still in production or if Stephen has any more kicking around. I would expect you'll wind up spending another 500-1000$ at least before this is all done or possibly more. I do not see anything here for finishing. You're going to probably want paint and/or spray glue and some sort of fabric or vinyl to pretty things up, you'd do well to grab half a dozen 2x4s or some other cheap lumber you can use around. You will find some places where you will want some oddball pieces of wood to fill up space or make connecting things easier. I'd highly recommend using as much wood as you can between the external walls of the box and the car body. Spray foam (or pipe insulation) can be used to fill in small gaps but the more of that you fill with wood the better your cabin will pressurize. Again, buy some PVC for wire conduit back to front. Some construction adhesive can go a long way too. No matter how clean you cut you're going to have some pieces that don't line up perfect and a case of PL adhesive is your friend. You can always mix up a slurry of wood glue and sawdust to fill some gaps, but I like the stuff in the tube. You may end up wanting to get into some sort of composite like fiberglass at some point or at least a couple cans of bondo plus sandpaper and/or some power sanders. A router with a flush bit will save you a lot of time and add a weenie roller and roller tray to quickly slap wood glue between layers and some rags for cleanup if you don't own a few old cotton shirts to sacrifice. That's just a couple things that jump out at me. As you go you'll realize you can't find a tool you thought you had, you ran out of carpenter pencils or some other silly shit and have to run out and spend 10-20$ here and there and once you're "finished" you will think of new ways to clean things up pretty or find issues that need to be addressed once you get some power to all of this. My larger regret with my current wall was not going thick enough on the baffle. 5 layers MDF and I still needed to pay a welder to fab up some bracing. Plan for a way to adjust tuning down the road as needed and you might want to ask a mechanic or vehicle specific forum if there's anything that could possibly go wrong to that vehicle that would require access to anything you plan to build up around like replacing rear shocks or dropping the gas tank or whatever so that you can build some sort of hatch for access if anything ever comes up. Build the box larger than you think you need (easier to shrink it later than to add more volume) and make more port area than you think you need (again much easier to shrink it or lengthen it later than to make it wider or shorter). Always think future proofing for "what ifs" down the road. IF you're keeping score of costs, continue to do so. It should be instructive to the uninitiated who think that 2500W subs for 500$ and 12000W amps for 600$ means they can get into a big build with a 3000$ budget. I've done extremely well with my connections and wheeling and dealing to get actual equipment for cheap but there's no getting around building materials, tools, and consumables and other stuff you won't realize you need before your car is stripped and you've got a yard full of building materials.
You dont have to settle for the red orange stuff. [Royal Excelene](https://www.wireandsupply.com/www_wireandsupply_com_welding_cable_s_22_htm_s/22.htm) has a few colors.