[Pete]

I just bought an S2000 and it has a 10" sub in an enclosure built into the floor of the trunk. The
previous owner banged up the steel grill that went over the sub, so it's pretty much useless now.
Since I've got an exposed sub lying face up in my trunk, I have to avoid actually _using_ my trunk
most things, lest I puncture or tear the sub.

Seeing this as an opportunity, I purchased a piece of 3/16"-thick acrylic. Using a quickie program
I wrote, I designed a hole pattern that I think I can get the guys up in the Mechanical Engineering
school at Georgia Tech to punch into it for me with their CAD-controlled drill press. The holes
will spell out S2000 accross the center and will be evenly spaced in concentric circles surrounding
that.

My question is this: What's a good guideline for the minimum total amount of airflow I need to
allow through the holes? Given equivalent total area, is one size of hole better than another? The
total diameter of the sub is actually 10 7/8", including the rubber long-throw surround around the
cone. So the airspace above the speaker is approximately 92.9 square inches. The hole patterns
I've come up with are comprised of about 1,000 - 3,000 1/8" and/or 1/4" holes. Adding up the area
of each hole, the total area left uncovered by this new "grill" will be at most about 40 square
inches (~ 40%), and my favorite design only leaves a total of about 11.1 square inches (~ 12%)
uncovered.

The original steel grill has 2mm holes spaced 1mm apart. According to my calculations, this
configuration yields about 40.3% air space, or about 37.4 square inches in this case. This gives me
a little hope that maybe my configurations aren't too restrictive. The main things I'm concerned
about are (1) decreased volume, (2) extra strain on the voice coil, and (3) change in resonant
pitch.

Of course, I'm assuming that once I've got this thing fastened down that the speaker won't vibrate
up against it. If that proves untrue, I'll have to put some spacers underneath it. If so, I guess
that'll probably take care of my airflow, right?