Where to put Subs??

Courior

Courior

Fat ppl r harder 2 kidnap
Hi all.

I used to have in the boot 2 house speakers with built in subs (4 inch/80W). These sounded cool and make a great noise but took up so much room. I put the main speakers in the rear door cards and these are pretty bassy by themselves but lack the grunt of the subs. I want this sound back but i also want my boot space! Where can i put them?? I will make the boxes for them so its just a case of finding where to put them! I was thinking under the seats but when the speakers were in the boot and i had the seats down i lost a lot of bass sound so maybe they have to go in the boot? Another place was in the spare wheel well but dunno if i wanna loose the spare wheel!.

Any ideas or suggestions would be well apprieciated!!

Thanks, Courior
 
well unfortunatly a car is an awfull enviroment to achieve a good bass set up, hence the need for sub's in the first place, believe me stick a 10 inch sub in a small square room and you'll blow the doors off let alone 2 of em. the boot is the most practical place to position the sub unless your looking to remove part of or all of the back seats. also the further away from the drivers seat the better, the bass will sound weaker and you'll end up with a head ache if u stick it to close to ya driving position, U no not all sub's need to be boxed but it would depend on the sub.
 
Bit of intersting info there. Will try running them with no box and see how good they are. that may change the way i look at things. I was thinking to mount them in the very bottom portion of the rear door cards where the rear passengers ankles would be. Under the dash was another idea. then i started going mad and thinking i could cut holes in the bottom of the car and weld some metal boxes on and.......... nah thats not good lol. ill post what i come up with as and when it happens.
 
By "Stealth Boxes" do you mean ones that fit into the sides of the boot? if so then this is no good as it still takes up space in what is a tiny boot! But to update you all (for those who care), I have made boxes out of the original boxes as they were 2 boxes in one, one for the sub and one for the speaker. The speaker part of the box fits perfectly under the seat but is sealed, the sub part is much larger and is ported. I went with the smaller box so it would fit nicely and this has limited the bass output. The box is 100% airtight, Would this be good or bad for a 4 Inch sub? if i make a hole i might ruin it all so wanna be sure before i get the drill out! so Make a hole or not?? cheers people!!!
 
we care

I must admit I'm not sure..about port or not...my gut feeling is that it wont make too much difference in a vehicle thatis vibrating all over the place anyways...if it were me (think carefully before following my lead...lol) I would cut it and then see what it ounds like...and may be you could make a plug so that you could go bk if the sound was bad after porting...but again only plug it if you the sound is awefull.....I reckon adding a bass will be so significant thet the difference between cutting or not will be insignificnt in comparrison

?
 
ahhh i thought your sub was bigger lol miss red your original post, well a 4 inch sub should deffinatly be boxed. asfor making a hole your best off making four, one in each coner on the rear of the box. u can use one bigger hole in the middle but i'm not sure how large you should make these holes, or witch would be more effective with a 4 inch so if i were you i would set up the sub and start by drilling small holes or hole then test it. when you've got it right you should notice the bass has more presance. hope this helps never worked with a 4 inch before so sorry i cant specify the size of the holes you need.
 
Well i made the under seat sub box with the 4" sub and i ported it. It sounds ok considering its run from the HU and its only a 4" sub. I was having another think about stelth boxes in the boot when i lent on the parcel shelf and the boot came down and hit me in the head. there it was!!! my boot hasnt got the protective metal plate on the inside and having a look i noticed there is a perfect amount of room for 2 4inch subs. Im gonna get a plank of wood and use the metal plate as a template then make holes for the subs. Now thats a Stealth set up!
Will this sound good? anyone got this set up?? i reckon it should because its as far away from the driver as poss and there is a lot of volume of air in the boot lid (i have no rear wiper or anything). but im no expert lol.

Thanks ppl!
 
there's no harm in trying it out it should sound fine but it may depend on the subs them selve. its a hassel movin them around to find the best place but sometimes its the only way. soundin good tho
 
Wiring:
Maybe you can get a rubber duct (the same that is used for the rear wash wipe connections)

Weight:
The extra weight of the subs is right at the end of a lever (the boot) and will want to swing down...the boot might not stay open with the stock bootstruts....may be you can rig up a test before you doo all the work

If you CAN get this to work it sounds like a WIKID solution
 
The subs are not heavy at all cause they are just 4 inches. but.. the wood will be!! i was gonna use 1/2 inch mdf.. saying that though the metal plate is pretty heavy and i dont thing the subs and wood will be too much more. i rekon with the metal plate and a rear wiper assembly it will wiegh the same as wood+subs. and i have no rear wiper :) ah well woods cheap might as well try.. good idea with the rubber tubing! the wiring is the last thing on my mind at the mo though. just wanna get it going and have a listen, then ill make it look nice if it sounds good. if it works and sounds good then ill make a guide to converting the boot lid to a dual bass box :)
 
if you'r going to go ahead with this setup then dont forget to guard the subs, you dont want anything you put in your boot to damage them. :)
 
Well spotted Daveeee. ill chop out the original mesh from the speakers and wood glue it on :) sorted lol. dont ya just love modding micras lol
 
you might want to fitt you tailgate with roof insulation. sub boxes are usually made from wood which is soft and absorbs some sound i would think in a mainly metal box ( like a tail gate) it might sound a bit tinny
 
well its been fitted. it was a tight squeeze getting the subs to fit and had to cut some of the metal from inside the boot lid. made the wood (12mm MDF) template and started chopping away. i used 5mm bolts to keep the wood in place as them little standard plastic things just were not gonna do. after bolting the wood very firmly to the boot i got the subs fitted and wired them. put in my competition bass cd and let rip. and WOW!!! it sounds very bassy! the only thing im not sure is to port the wood? will this help? im not sure. i have enough wood to make another one so if i bust this up im not too worried. ill get some pics 2moro :)

Paul: i was thinking about this but had nothing laying around to fit the bill so i went ahead without it. maybe later i will add this but it sounds great for now :)
 
They are from house speakers. I picked them up from gumtree.com for 20 quid and just wired them into the car as rear speakers and left them loose in my boot. but they took up too much room so it was time to cannibilise! they were JVC speakers. has main speaker and tweeter on front and sub in the side. they were red. apart from that i have no idea what model number they were, sorry

PS: also maybe you could take the sub from a 2.1 sound system. might be around 4-5 inch. :)
 
If you want a small sub (4, 6 inch) then ya best bet is to take one from a home cinima sytem. just a simple case of removing the driver from its casing, unless its an active sub. bare in mind tho these may not sound gr8 in ya car. this is only if ya looking to space save, ya better of buying a dedicated car sub as these are better suited to the cars enviroment. and easier to set up.
 
Drop that idea and get a single 8 inch you could box it small enough and it would be fine. Dont use house spekers as they are 8 ohm and will then be producing half the power they could be.
 
i agree, if you want a decent sound system then be praperd to part with some cash, i would say save ya money and go for some good guality subs and amp, it may hurt ya wallet but it's worth it and it will last.
 
i was gonna get an alpine type E or S 8" or 10" then build a stealth box

then build another to mount the amps on for the other sied then hopefully 2 vibe slick amps (one a4 4cahnnel for main speakers and an a1 monoblock)

gonna be ££££ though :(
 
The subs i have are only 6ohm so not too bad. I would of gotten a proper car sub and amp, i even made sure my new HU had a sub pre-out. but i use the car for delivery and just need everyinch of the boot space and a sub is too much work to un wire every time i need to fill the boot. my mate has a civic with the usual chav crap on it and also a proper Mutant car sub. I helped him wire it up and its 500W its just sitting in the middle of his boot. i made sure all the settings were correct and everything and it sounded AMAZING. but that was £140. i spent 25 quid including the wood etc. and it if his was 10/10 mine is easily 7/10 on performance. the rear view mirror shakes pretty hard when its cranked up and i can feel the bass on my back like i can in my mates car, so basically it dont sound as good but bass for £££ its very good!. Dang i gotta get some pics/videos up for you guys to see this, and anyone who is near kingston KT3 area feel free to drop by and have a listen and bring some subs and we can make it for your car also lol!!
Cheers all! :)

Oh and Sammo you were SPOT ON!!! the boot struts cant hold the extra wieght for more than say 30 secs then it slowly gives way.. Would you (or anyone else) know of any struts that are stronger by a fair bit and will fit straight onto the K10? maybe a primera? Skyline (now that would be cool)?
Thanks again for the comments :) gotta love this club!
 
Boot struts are pretty crap, but i think they are worse when the weather is cold. I could do with some uprated ones myself! A stealth shelf and 2 spoilers just dont stay up 5 seconds.

Anyway, with regards to subs. Your gonna need some power to hide lots of the rattles you'l hear from the K10 anyway. I dont recommend running anything off the headunit because it just cant cope with anything other than standard. If you've got an uprated unit, they're only good for 25W anyway.

I remember once someone put hi fi speakers in there car. Obviously they sound better than standard, but you might as well just invest a little in a decent setup and do it properley the first time round.
 
I know what you mean but the rest of the speakers in the car are proper car speakers and when the house speakers were in their original boxes it really did sound amazing, i let some mates listen and let them guess and they all thought it was 200W 8" sub or simalar. just that question of boot space!! ill go take some pics now :)

As promised some pics.. bear in mind that i have not painted it and the wireing is still not in properly but you can get a good feel for it:
http://www.imagehosting.com/out.php/i392627_CIMG0193.JPG http://www.imagehosting.com/out.php/i392626_CIMG0192.JPG http://www.imagehosting.com/out.php/i392625_CIMG0191.JPG

Images exceed forum limits, please do not post oversized graphics
 
That's quite good use of the available space! But i think you should do something like this ;)

xboot1.jpg
or have the subs side by side facing each other. You'l have a bit of space left in the middle for stuff then
 
first of all subs should be close together not far appart, youll get strange standing waves like that. Secondly the boot idea has the posibility to sound quite good if it was done right. The worse way is to point it directly at the boot like arnold. The best way is to poiunt them up in a combining V and reflect it off the back window which on a K10 is very stiff indeed. But this wont work well with a parcel shelf in the way.
 
Interesting... I've tried my subs in every direction now lol... Started like Arnold's, facing the rear, then towards the front of the car, and now they're facing straight up. I found that when they were facing the front you could feel it in your stomach more... I want to try an replace the parcel shelf with a piece of wood and mount my subs there, use the trunk as a box perhaps. I've got some extra wood, I just need to find some time lol... Has anyone else done this? Either way I'll letcha know how it sounds! I guess it also depends on your subs too eh?
 
Ed said:
first of all subs should be close together not far appart, youll get strange standing waves like that. Secondly the boot idea has the posibility to sound quite good if it was done right. The worse way is to point it directly at the boot like arnold. The best way is to poiunt them up in a combining V and reflect it off the back window which on a K10 is very stiff indeed. But this wont work well with a parcel shelf in the way.
Click to expand...

Yeah you've said all that to me before, and i did have plans to change it, but with one ICE trophy under my belt already, i think i'l leave it as it is! Besides, it does still sound excellent, it might be improvable, but im satisfied with it as it stands. You can still feel it pulling the air out your lungs, everything shakes, head goes dizzy etc so it's still more than powerful. I've put false floors and done lots of work in the back to prevent rattles & the car absorbing most of the sound.
 
Courier,

Thanks for getting the pics posted..I've be been waiting for these...no matter how you try to visualise somones description.. a photo will always tell the story better.

Im pleased you went for this and gave it a blast...Some interesting feedback (no pun intended) from the other guys too...some good info to work with...

IMO if whay youve got works well..then stick with it for now whille and enjoy them while you mull over your next move......

NICE Experiment!
 
sammo, no worries. i think i made them a bit big lol. will resize em smaller next time :) if you want i can make a little vid but the sound will never be a true representation of what its like in real life. now i just need to get the wires sorted lol.
 
Davee: there is too much metal work behind all wood to get any more in, and i have recently drilled two 1.5 inch holes to add porting, its helped to smooth out the bass.

My main reason to post is because i need stronger boot struts! can anyone tell me which would fit straight away and give me the added strength?
Cheers!
 

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