Nick the Nurse - RIP

As soon as I knew I was getting a Shogun I joined up on the Pajero Owners Club (www.pocuk.co.uk) - The guys there are really into the Project and I had a lot of interest and help. When it came to fitting the Alts I needed to get a cone filter adaptor to enable the intake to be moved and a member on the forum called Nick the Nurse had one available and let me have it for nothing (well I gave him a few Ciders in return) he also gave me some great advice around the radiator swap I needed to do.

Unfortunately 2 weeks ago Nick died suddenly in his sleep - and his funeral is on tomorrow and due to his enthusiasm for music as well as Project Big Black I was asked if I could attend and take part in his funeral procession - the idea being a convoy of 30+ Pajeros will take a drive  with a Police escort all playing Nicks favourite tunes nice and loud - we have some Pajs with PA systems set up and I will be taking part with the back door open to really make some noise for the guy

A very fitting send off for such a nice guy. In the short period of time I knew him he helped me out no end and as you can see from the forum

http://www.pocuk.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=124

he was a proper nice chap

So if  anyone in the vicinity of Apedale, Staffordshire tomorrow hears a little AC/DC playing very loud - That will be a lot of Pajero Owners saying goodbye to Nick in the way he would have liked

Performance Vauxhall @ Santa Pod

Last weekend was the Performance Vauxhall show at Santa Pod - dB Drag was doing a round of competition there so off we went with Big Black for some competition and A LOT of showing off ;)

Not long after pulling up  Dave 'VD' Wilkins jumped in for a listen

we soon got a crowd of  people around- the speakers in the rear build did the job very well throwing out a lot  of music.
I managed to get 155.8 again on a burpas well as 149.9 inbassrace and won both for the first time me and adam went up head to head in the bass race final

Pure Carma and Some MORE Speakers!

Well after Project Big Black's success of Modified Nationals I was very keen to get the system back out and booming so the following week we headed off to the Pure Carma cruise/drifting show at Arena Essex - Its a regular event on the first Saturday of every month - come check it out and have a go at Proper Droppers with the guys from www.streetbassers.co.uk

I managed to score as follows

Total Average ((((Propper Droppers)))) Score = 154.5dB

Peak = 155.7dB @ 33Hz
40Hz = 154.2dB
33Hz = 155.7dB
25Hz = 154.5dB
20Hz = 152.7dB

A very decent jump from my scores at Modified Nationals!

154.5db @ 25hz!!!

On the way to teh show I also managed to smash my electric window regulator so last week I picked up a replacement and fitted it - a 5 min job but I have the feeling im going to be doing this alot!

I also got round to fitting in the speakers in the rear amp build to give some fill for people checking out the system from behind

Looks and sounds great

The Payoff

Well after 5 months of hard work and the help of a lot of great people Project Big Black is making noise AND A LOT OF IT!!!!!

At around 5pm last Thursday I finished getting Project Big Black ready so me and Lou took it out for a little test





Back in Black is the theme tune for the system and sounds fecking good on it.

Friday we packed up Big Black and headed off to Peterborough for Modified Nationals - about 6 months ago - Adam Rayner and Connects2 asked me if we could be ready for Modified Nationals and foolishly I said yes - on Friday morning I kept that promise and was pretty much the first person at the show!

Me and the wife decided to park up and relax for a bit

We also met up with Adam 'BassBenz' Cope who helped me put Big Black on the Termlab and we got a 154db @ 34hz If I'm honest I was a little disappointed at that but knew there was more to come as the subs loosen up and I dial in the amps.

We then started some heavy HEAVY booming and it wasn't long before Big Black got its first official 'Turn It Down' from the organisers of the show,  Apparently local factories were complaining about the noise - Thats when I knew we had done a good job - in Henry's words 'Don't underestimate the power of the long wave!'

We then moved round to the camping area where we started some more booming but again we had to keep it down until 5pm because I was annoying the factories again but as soon as 5pm rolled around we got back on the booming and I left a happy happy man

Saturday was a rainy day and I did a little tweaking of the system and found a few headunit settings that could have been interfering with my score from Friday so I ran through qualifying and retested my peak and found it at around 30hz!!

155db @ 30hz :) and this wasnt turned up fully so i cranked it up a little more and...

Result - Darren was as happy as me!!!

I then bassraced to 149.9db for a perfect qualifying score - I also popped down to see Marcus and the guys from Streetbassers to lay down my Ground Pounders score.  got 153.5db @ 27hz with the doors sealed up playing Put On which got me my first 1st place of the weekend!
The rest of the day was spent  booming and showing of Big Black - chatting to people about the build and also the blog (hello to all you followers!) I also spent a while going over Big Black with the guys from EMMA- basically going through best practices for a safe presentable system.

Sunday morning was spent booming over at the EMMA stand ready to have my ESPL reading taken - with ESPL you are told a track from the EMMA Test ESPL CD a short while before competition and everyone has to compete using that track - you have 30seconds to get as loud as possible with the doors closed up then again with them sealed - I managed 150.7 db @ 26hz as a peak hehe - Only managed a 4th overall due to a number of technicalities (main reason being fuses are not close enough to the battery).

After the ESPL testing I returned to the dB Drag area and was accosted by Mr Adam Rayner who had been trying to pin me down so he could do a video report on the build - here is that video



After this I ended up going head to head with Ed 'edhick' Hickling in his INSANE Jacked Chevy Bronco running 6 dc sounds 18s and 6 Sundown amps (build thread is HERE on Streetbassers) - Probably the only build in the UK to make Big Black look like Small Black!

I went up against Ed in both the Exterme 3+ final and 149.9 Bassrace final - I only just managed to beat Ed at bassrace as I was test driving a new tune (Great DJ by the Ting Tings with an epicenter )

It was a blinder of a weekend and my final results ended up like this

• 1st Place in db Drag Extreme 3+ class with 155.8db @ 33hz
• 1st Place in Bassrace 149.9 class with 149.9db (this is the class im hoping to become world champion in)
• 1st Place in Ground Pounders with a 153.8db on music at 26hz
• 2nd Place in Proper Droppers with a total average of 153.4 (peaking at 155.4@ 33hz)
• 4th Place in EMMA Enhanced SPL - lost points for the install (fuses are too far from the batteries) but totally ruled in the sound portion doing 150.7db @ 27hz

Thank you to everyone who helped out with the Big Black Build - and also everyone who popped by and said hello at the show - I will be out and about more and more this summer so if you see me at a show grab me and ask for a demo!