At this point, probably won't do much else with it until next weekend. Wait and see if anyone else has done something differently. Probably will play with the pillar mount a bit, try to open the hole up in the trim to do a partial sink, then get creative with the mounting. My rough measurements makes me think I can get the tweeter to drop in nearly half, which I think would give me a fairly clean look if I do some paint work. At this point it'll be doors or pillars. Can't do anything with the sub box since it's going to be under the middle seat and totally hidden from view.

It was close to 50 today, so good day to start messing with the system. Only 30's and snow tomorrow, so tomorrow will probably only tinker in the garage a bit with the seat and start making a gameplan for the box. Thought I had an idea of what I was going to do, but some custom jobs I'd found on the net don't quite match up with what I got. Should get a better idea tomorrow. Just want to get my 1.0 square foot for the sealed box. I personally don't care about seat comfort for the middle seat. Never had anyone sit there, never plan on having anyone site there, so any cushion I put back in will only be to get the seat to match the original form so it looks original.

 

Pretty ugly huh, lol.

The old Kappa design was more dome shaped but stuck out just as bad. I was looking at grinding out some of the trim and doing the partial sink but like I said I didn't feel it was worth it. Problem for you is that you already have the pillars with the pods. Remember, you dig into the trim and it doesn't work ... you gotta buy new trim .

Your high frequency drivers go up front so uh-uh to the rear door. You can also sink them into your kick panels. Might seem an odd place but it gives you the best separation (closest you're going to get to equal distances between your ears and the tweeters), but even there I've added another set in some installs up high to raise the image some.

I wouldn't recommend the dash, especially sinking them. We Ram owners have enough trouble with dash board covers without asking for trouble.

Since I put both my drivers in the door I located my crossover in there as well.

Our weather is supposed to turn to crap here as well starting tomorrow and unfortunately I have the rear end of my second ride torn apart that needs to get re-assembled today or I have no transportation at all, lol, so my truck stays gutted for a while. What I wouldn't give for a garage!

I'm searching through all my picture folders to see if I have anything that might help you, I swear I took more than what I can find.

Keep us updated!

 

Um, you make your women sit waaaayyyy over to the right?

 

lol...yeah. I always have the center console down, we both like using it as an armrest. Only time it's up is if we have one of our dogs with us and want them up front, but normally they both stick to the back. We're not having kids so it shouldn't ever be a big deal.

Not worried about trashing the trim, can always junk yard pick some more. Tweeters are ugly, it's like they made them to stand out. Couldn't find any covers, but the paint trick should help a ton.

 

I don't know what your budget is but .....

Have you seen this? If this is what you're going to do anyway.


http://mobile.jlaudio.com/products_s...hp?fit_id=1436

 

Budget is to do everything for under a grand. Probably have about $800 into wires, amp, and speakers so far. Head unit is going to be an Alpine iDA-x100 or the newest version of that deck. Leaning towards the x100, which is last years model, but it's got more black in it, so it shouldn't stick out as much. Think the head unit is going to be a wash though, currently the deck is on clearance at Best Buy for $250. Picked up the iDA-x001 last year at this time for $90, they are still going for about 130-150 on ebay. Just going to wait for the clearance price to drop a bit more and pick one up. Sold an amp I had for a previous project I never installed, and I'll throw my current deck on ebay shortly, should bring my final costs in around $900.

I've seen those stealth boxes, but they are going for $300-$500. Once I started looking into them, researched the reviews (which are overwhelmingly positive), convinced I can build one. I bought my Kappa 10" sub for under 100, won't take more then $25 in mdf to build it. I've seen other links on other sites where guys have done it them self. Hoping to look at their designs a bit, plan on doing some things different, and if it all goes well, posting a DIY here so anyone with a circular saw and jig saw can build one.

 

Just to update...

Definitely going to try to mount the tweeters in the original pillar locations. Found a back up set of pillars on craigslist for $10, so if I screw up mine trying to do it, no big deal.

Also took the center seat apart and gutted it. Rough dimensions of a box at this point if I just built a rectangle the size of the original metal framing would be about .53' for the sub, within the guidelines for the Kappa 10", but I want to get it closer to 1.0. Going to build some practice boxes out of scrap wood next weekend to get some dimensions figured out. Just want to make sure, whatever I do, that the center console is as solid as factory when I reassemble. Boxes I've seen online make me wonder if they'd be prone to loosening up over time. I'm sure JL Audios is using something other then MDF to secure it.

 

I love seeing people just tearing into things and learning by doing

What DOES Infinity recommend as box size for this driver? I was trying to get to their site but it's having problems ...

And $10 for a set of used A pillar trim? I paid $90 for used that are now sitting in my storage closet

 

I mounted mine inside the door panel right over my speakers. I didn't want to do all the work to mount them in the factory location when I wouldn't like how they looked and I wasn't sure where else to mount them. Best spot for sound? No, but it still sounds good and you don't see them so it looks fine too.

 

Infinity wants .53-1.0 for sealed box size. I was thinking 1.0 because I'm a newb, but after reading ideal is .75 ( plus/minus 30 percent ) with polyfill...makes it easier. After lots of staring at the seat bracket, think I have an idea. If I weld new metal 'caps' on the ends I can cut out the tubes in the bracket. With other mods to the bracket I have figured out dimensions for a .65 box that will slide into the existing seat bracket, and have the face of the sub 2" from the floor. Then I can utilize all factory bolt locations for seat mounting and console. The homeade boxes I've seen to date have the center console secured with bolts through the mdf of the box. I don't like that design and worry long term it would mess up the box. Also think I have a shot of keeping everything level acrossthe front seat, something I haven't seen any homeade or aftermarket box do yet.

We'll see.

HTM, saw pics of your tweeters on another thread while I was searching stereo threads. Keeping that idea in the back of my mind, but really hoping I can get the factory pods to work.