I can't lose the utility of my Element by mounting amps on the floor or attached to the rear seats. Then I saw an Alpine CES Ridgeline with the amps mounted to the backs of the FRONT Seats! I am more than willing to lose the pockets back there! :) How would that be for a mounting location? Would the heat from the amps possibly have an adverse affect on anything? Would the seats warm up too much? Would some sort of heat shield be necessary?

I have been running this through my head and putting it down on paper and this is what I am thinking.

1 JL Audio 300/4 on the passenger seat for the front and rear speakers. Have the heatsinks pointed towards the passenger side with the wires towards the center. On the drivers seat I would mount 1 JL Audio 250/1 for the JL Audio 10w6v2 sub I am hoping to build inside a custom enclosure where the factory sub is located. :shock: I know, hoping it will fit.

Building a 3/4" frame into the seat to mount the amps shouldn't be too tough, I think the hardest part will be allowing the wire enough freedom to still use the seat folded forward and fully reclined. I think so long as I leave slack under the seats I should be ok. I would want to recess the amps as much as possible without interfering with the comfort of the seats and the operation of the airbags.

The amps are
300/4: 13.4"x9.25"x2.36"
250/1: 10.25"x9.25"x2.36"

How does this type of install sound? Should it be doable? I think if I take my time I should be able to do this and have it look pretty darn good. :)

Next I need to figure out which speakers to get. I want Boston's but don't want to spend the money on them right now. lol Not sure how JL Audio speakers sound, but I like their subs very much...

Going to stick with the factory radio for now and change it out at a later date since I want to get some use out of my PIE adapter for my Sirius radio. :)

Larry, The only thing Id worry about in regards to the back of the front seats is that if you are loading things into the cargo space (assuming rear seats folder up or removed) is you could still wind up pushing things into the AMPs, since theyd still be exposed.

I still think the best best it to lose the spare tire and put it there.

larry let me know how this goes. I'm very interested in what your are thinking. I too do not want to loose the spare and the utility of my element.

Though you may have found a way to get heated seats :).

I would only make sure that the frabric does not harden with direct heat applied. I know some frabrics do get hard with direct heat applications and could crack.

The fabric wouldn't be an issue as I would cut the fabric and staple it or adhere it to the wood frame I would construct for the amps. I would cover the frame in some sort of black material that closely matches the backs of the seats.

I would never lose the spare to install a stereo unless the vehicle was strictly a stereo competition vehicle. I drive 20k+/year and have had flats so I don't want to risk being without a spare. But that is just me. Besides if I wwere to do that I would lose the use of the floor because I don't believe you can place the amps beneath the floor without any source of air circulating.

As for loading something into the E and smashing the amps, wouldn't be a worry either.

This isn't something I will be able to start until the Spring. Maybe we'll have a nice mild winter and I can get the amps and sub in March and begin the install in April... :)

It is supposed to be warm (40's) this weekend, going to remove the stock sub and see if I can fit the sub in an enclosure this weekend. Will post pics of my attampt. lol

I like this, Larry.

I would have to take a seat apart to make sure it would work. Assuming a rigid mount, I'd only feel comfortable if my amp board was attached directly to the metal of the seat back itself.

I'll give you another mounting method. We'll call it Amp In A Bag. Instead of mounted on a board, how about your amps are in some kind of netting and they are sown onto the back of the seat? The mounting could be lighter, less invasive to the seat itself and move more easily as the seat moved. There would be no amp board. The weight of the amp would be transferred by the netting to the top of the seat. At other points the netting would be tacked to the seat to keep it from swaying too much. It might be easier to avoid the airbag with this kind of mount.

Just an idea.

I do like this idea of attaching them to the seats.

I would only want to mount the wood to the metal frame. I know the amps have to be attached rigid to the wood and to the seat.

I can't imagine putting the amps and hanging them from the seat in netted bags. I wouldn't trust the bags to not break and drop the amps.

I'll take the seats apart this weekend and snap pictures to show the metal frame and see if this is doable.

How about under the front seats mounting? I installed a 14.25 X 9.25 X 2.1" amplifier to the floor under the passenger seat. You need to trim out some of the plastic flooring and cutoff plus plug the heater tube. You end up with a out of site mount with room for cooling.

Whay not just put them under the fron seats? They both fit. Thats what I did, works great, and the seats still move like stock.

Under the front seats would be my 3rd option from what I have seen as far as amp locations.

Mounted on the backs of the front seats.
Mounted above the rear storage bins.
Under the front seats.I don't like the idea of putting them under the front seats for a variety of reason.

Don't want to hack up the heater ducts.
Don't want to put holes through the floor if I can avoid it.
Don't want to block off the heaters
Don't like the idea of the amps being on the floor.Appreciate the suggestions though.

^ You didn't say that about my idea of mounting the amps in basketball nets. :roll:

;-)

Larry, my winter/spring projects include adding two more amps to my car. I will be building two vertical trays, covered in fiberglass and probably finished in textured paint, that will mount in the far back, one on each side. I will have to cut away much of the side panels to allow them to poke through, but I imagine the side panels as shrouds that will go on around the trays. Certainly the side panels would go back on after the trays were mounted in place. The lower parts of the side panels, where the storage areas are, would remain intact. Most of the upper half would disappear, being replaced by the trays. The trays will be mounted securely to the body using wood and metal. One amp would mount inside each tray.

Just another idea. I'm full of them. :D

Greg, what will the 2 amps be driving? Adding more speakers or just powering them seperately?

I commented on the net idea... :twisted:

You are talking about putting your amps where I said my 2nd choice is for mine. :)

Why can't i live in a nice warm sunny climate so I can work on my E when I get home after work and not have to pray for a semi decent weekend to work on it? :-x:-x:-x

You're beginning to sound like me...it always seems that I come up with audio/electronics install ideas when the weather turns cold. I often ask myself why I don't come up with this stuff during the Spring and Summer months.

(For all those wondering, my house lacks a garage as well)

My house doesn't lack a garage... it just doesn't have room for a car in it! lol Never had a car in the garage the entire time we've lived there. Always wished I had a 2 car garage, I'd be in heaven. Tools on one side and vehicle on the right with a lift. :D

40-50 this weekend with rain saturday. I can take the interior apart in the rain if it is 50*F outside. :)

For the under the seats method only the drivers heater duct will need to be hacked. And only a little peice of it needs to be. It doesnt need to be blocked at all. All I did was use the peice I cut out and remold it to the shape I needed with liquid plastic. The covered it with duct tape.

Also it wouldnt be mounted directly to the floor if you use a 1/4 peice of plywood and cover it with carpet. It looks clean, everything is hidden and to me its the safest place for an amp to be becaus eit will not be touched by anything!

Greg, what will the 2 amps be driving? Adding more speakers or just powering them separately? Both. First, I'm going to add a single 12" Alpine Type R woofer, mounting it in the spare tire well. Like you, I don't want to loose my spare tire, so that will go in my Thule Playpen that I have on the roof. My car will remind me even more of a Land Rover. I've run the figures and using a cubic foot box, I can get pretty flat response from 30 to 60 Hz and I should be able to drive the bejeezus out of it. One of the new amps gets that job. It is 300 watts RMS. The second amp will power the front door midranges. They currently get 75 watts each and I'll up that to 150 watts. That was on Kicker's recommendation. Half of my existing 75x4 amp that powers the front and rears will continue to drive the rears, but the other half will drive the main tweeters and supertweeters (the supertweeters are crossed over passively). Do you think 75 watts will be enough for the tweeters? :roll: :grin:

To route the signal to this clusterf**k, I bought the Alpine PXA-H701 processor, which will be operated by their RUX-C701 controller mounted in the overhead console. This processor is truly scary. It has all the outputs I need: sub, midrange and tweeter outputs, with the front sub on the center channel output, plus rear out. Perfect. I can put the front sub and midranges on band pass crossovers that I can adjust anywhere from 20-20K. The crossover points can be selected in 1/6th octave steps and the crossover can be 6,12,18,24 or 30 dB per octave. The tweeters and sub crossovers will have the same control but will obviously be just single frequencies each, not two. To fine tune things I can either use a 31 band equalizer per speaker or a global 7 band parametric or options in between. I will have to take pains not to find the eq curve I set just before I hit the tree. :grin: This processor will also do time alignment, which was the first thing that attracted me to it. Time alignment, or making sure the sound from all the drivers hits your ears at the same millisecond, works. It will dramatically improve my stereo image.

I have new tweeters for the rears since I robbed those for the fronts. I am really happy with the Kicker RS tweeters in the front instead of their supposedly better SS tweeters. I will probably also add an iPod, using the CD Changer2 input on my Eclipse deck and their iPod adapter.

To mount all of this I'll do 4-6 new fiberglass buildouts. Two are for the rear amp trays. One will redo the dash cosmetics. Mine looks sloppy around the deck. A fourth will be for the controller in the overhead console. Finally, if I get really ambitious, I will redo the front door pods. NOSkweezePSI's door panels have inspired me. Plus I'm going to do these build outs, including the rear trays, not the Supreme Engineer or Skull. I will also do the rear 12" sub box. I will probably have Skull do the final install work as he bends better than I do. My 5 vertebra fusion makes under the dash work next to impossible.

Before any of this is done I'm going to add the second battery (natch!) and along the way I get the pleasure of ripping out and throwing away all of my current power distribution. The 4 and 8 gauge was fine for two amps but is insufficient for 4. It will now be 1/0, 4 and 8 gauge, depending on the runs.

Just to totally pimp out my ride, I have 24 orange LEDs coming with special lenses. I'm going to install recessed orange lighting low around the interior of the car, adding a warm orange glow to the inside I could leave on all the time. It will compliment the orange neon I already have installed under the front seats and dash, although I think I'll need some more neon tubes for the rear sub box. Instead of painting my dash, I'm going to paint the inside of my car with orange light.

I commented on the net idea... :twisted: Rather dismissively, I must say. I thought it was a slam dunk. :grin:

Ok, it stunk.

You are talking about putting your amps where I said my 2nd choice is for mine. :) That's why I brought it up. I want to do the ultimate rear amp install. I want to make them look like they are built in back there. Do you want me to be your stalking horse?

I think the E-xtraordinary Car Stereo thread will be revived. :)

How about mounting them to the bottom of the seat? If they can be mounted like that they will be out of sight and you wont have to screw anything into the floor. I thought I saw a post of someone here that has already done this.

John

Ive put mine under ther rear seats. I coverd them with marine grade wood enclosures (left the sides open so the amps could vent). all the wiring is hidden under the cover and have put very heavy stuff on top of them such as my brothers Snap on tool box, my kids bunk beds, a powered wheelchair and they have held up great. I dont think Ive lost any of the cars cargo space or versatility. I also have a cover for my Capacitor if Just in case I need it.

How about mounting them to the bottom of the seat? If they can be mounted like that they will be out of sight and you wont have to screw anything into the floor. I thought I saw a post of someone here that has already done this.

John

That was outpost

I just checked JL's website to see about mounting it upside down. It is not recommended unless you have a minimum of 1" clearance for air circulation and even with that they consider this solution Fair. Since I have not measure under the seats and just eyeballing it, my guess is there is less than 3.5" clearance under there.

Greg, will you be ripping out your 4 and 8 gauge wire entirely, or will you be reusing it? What sort of pricing can you get on that wire? I've never run a bi-amp setup, I don't need to run 2 complete runs of wire for the amps, do I? Can I use a distribution block and branch off for each amp?

Larry, I'll give you all of my distribution/power wires no charge. They are worth nothing to me after I tear them out. Maybe I could resell the distribution blocks and fuse holders but I'd rather give them to you. :)

Yes, you use a distribution block, making only one run from the battery. Make sure you put a big fuse, the size of the fuses on your amps added together, right by the battery. In my case, I used two distribution blocks because I had noise when I did distribution the standard way. By the book, you run a wire from the battery's positive terminal and come up with a common ground point on the vehicle for all of your grounds. Because of alternator and ignition noises, I ran both positive and negative wires from the battery and distributed both of them to the amps, my deck, the changer and all other electrical pieces in my system. That made my system dead quiet.

The one thing you should know is that this will probably be one of the later things I do in my winter/spring project. Here is the order of installation:

1) Add the second battery
2) Create the crossovers and attenuators for the supertweeters
3) Create the two rear amp trays
4) Do the overhead console and deck fascia build outs
5) Build the rear sub box
6) Tear the car apart - this is when you'd get the power stuff
7) Install the new power distribution, two new amps, processor and second sub
8 ) Hide the XM and nav satellite antennas :)
9) Do the front door build outs
10) Add the tweeters for the rear speakers

Realistically, it will be March or April until I get the power wire work done. If my life goes to hell, it will be May. I just have to have everything done a month before a certain weekend in July. I'll need the month to dial the sound in for you all to hear. :)

EDIT: I take that back. If we are going to Missouri, I need to have my stereo ready for y'all to hear. :-P

Greg, that's mighty nice of you! I really wasn't asking for the wire... I figured you can get the wire cheap and I could buy it all from your store.

I won't be able to do any work on mine before April/May because of the weather.

My plans are to keep the stock headunit for now, probably change it out in 2007. Replace the speakers with something else; still not sure in which direction to go with them. :? Fronts will remain seperates but not sure if I want to go coax or seperates in the rear. I will know for sure how the sub will play out whether I can fit the 10" in the stock location in a custom enclosure or not. Since bass is not directional it wouldn't matter if it pointed towards the passenger footwell, right? I don't know if I want to get into having it fire downward like the stealthbox does. I also want to do this on my own and avoid having my old installer do it. lol

Here are the pics (http://pictureposter.allbrand.nu/pictures/larrytt/auditt/Stereo/showall)from the last install her did for me. 2 8" Boston subs pumped out 136.7db. :D I entered the car in a few competitions for both sound quality and db racing. I won sq and placed top 3 for db each time. The funniest thing was when 2 judges and some competitors called me out for cheating! lol They all said there was no way to get 136+db out of only 2 8" subs. So I said to them if they could find a place to fit 10" or 12" subs in my little Audi TT I would bow out and go right to the shop and have them install them in immediately! lol I was running 2x150 into BA 6.5's and 2x150 into the subs all from the xtant x603. Loved that systeml wish I didn't sell it off. :(

http://pictureposter.allbrand.nu/pictures/larrytt/auditt/stereo/custom+encl+fin+05.jpg

I should have checked to see if you had an LX or EX. Anyways I think that a good location for an amp is in the overhead console spot (if you have one). I have an LX so all I have is a bare spot. And I almost abandoned this idea until I saw the DX/LX overhead console upgrade here, and the dual flip down monitor install here. I think it's especially a great place to put a long mutichannel amp like the JL 6450. I remember seeing some installs in the past where amps were mounted upside down with a plexiglass bottom so you could see the amps internals, with setup the amp would be right side up and you'd be looking up underneath the amp.