Hopefully with enough input from you guys and my own research I can make a wise decision on my sub, box, and amp. Well, first a little background on my audio needs/desires/experiences. Currently I have a set of Adire Koda components up front being pushed by an old rockford amp giving them 100RMS each, wow was that money well spent, these things are awesome! I have no rear speakers at all and have a cheap woofer setup in my trunk. One of those Lanzar 900watt "max" 12" hatchback box combos and a Lanzar 600 watt "max" amp pushing it. (was a gift from brother-in-law last Christmas). As far as the bass goes the setup in the trunk is sort of what I am looking for, though I feel that with a little more bump I'll be quite happy. What I was thinking of doing was building a box in the spare tire well to house a single 15" subwoofer and feeding it about 400-500 wats RMS, which is most likely twice the ammount I am currently getting, the Lanzar items have nothing on them to indicate RMS, so I'm only making a guess that I'm getting roughly 300 watts out of the amp. Here is where I am seeking help. I love the Kodas I have and thought about giving Adire subwoofers a shot. The Tempest seems to call to me, the price is right and the ratings are a more than ample. And here are my questions/concerns: * When building a box for the tire well, should you try and angle the woofer towards the rear of the car or point it straight up? My current setup sounds much better when facing the rear. * What type of box best suits the tire well? Ported or sealed? I'm assuming since I'll only be feeding the sub about 400 watts that a sealed box is perferrable. * And is 400 watts enough for this sub or is she a hungry one?
I'll probably push it with a kicker or JBL amp, those can be had for less than 200 bucks, keeping me well within my 500 dollar range for this project. Or would one of you guys suggest an entirely differant approach in picking a sub? Maybe a kicker? maybe a single 12"?
I pulled that sealed tire well off the easy stupid way. I lined the well with poly and took some mdf and cut it about an inch per side all the way around, cut my hole for the sub, drillea a couple holes for the wiring leading to the sub.,about 2 tubes of silicone around the tire well, dropped the whole thing down, and let the silly putty set up and dry. Figured it must have worked, as this left the sub pointing straight up to the trunk lid. Only thing was I had go out buy a new spoiler as the darned thing appaently vibrated loos and off one night while we were rollin down the highway. By the way don't do that to your wifes car she gets very upset when her car starts vibrating apart.
Saying it's really hard to calculate the actual volume, you're better off with sealed in a tire well. The best way to do this is to read up on how to fiberglass. Line that tire well with duct tape and aluminum foil, lay the fiberglass down inside it, and pull it apart. Then, for the sub mount, use MDF for the top to get a flat edge, and bond the fiberglass and MDF to seal the enclosure off. If your sub sounds best facing rear now, by all means do the same with the tire well. You'll get a perfect mold for the enclosure and it will undoubtedly be sealed up, no chance of leaks. Also, put dynamat or a similar material under this enclosure so the sub isn't resonating on the metal of the car, this will kill your SQ and create rattles.
My last 15" sub was installed in the tire well in a similar fashion. Cut a large square of mdf, but the hole for the sub, and the driver needed some height so I make a little square and drilled a whole in that and put it right over the origonal one, worked fine. Now the niftly thing I did with mine was I cut a few 3/4 inch mdf peaces and drilled them to the mounting board, then put the origonal floor on top of it, so it looked like the stock trunk. One thing is though, make sure you put allot of polyfill, your gas tank is usualy right below that and you will get allot of metalic noise from it.