Amp Placement

[86ccord]

well i just got my kenwood amp yesterday, and i was wondering where is a good place to put it so it wont over heat or get messed up.... anyone have any ideas.. pictures would be nice also..


Thanks.

[lostforawhile]

sedan or hatch?

[86ccord]

sedan or hatch?

OH! i forgot to mention it.. its a sedan..

[2ndGenGuy]

Back of the back seat works pretty good. I also helped a friend of mine mount an amp on the bottom side of the rear deck in his car. Never had any heat issues even being upside down. Also, building a panel and putting it on the side towards the taillights in the trunk works great also.

[86ccord]

alright.. hey btw i read some wheres.. that if you put an amp upside down its "supposed" to mess it up some way.. is that true?

[Lil Mike]

alright.. hey btw i read some wheres.. that if you put an amp upside down its "supposed" to mess it up some way.. is that true?

i have heard that if you set it up upside down the heat gets trapped and it overheats and ive heard of people mounting them sideways that dont have the vents facing up and they overheat.

right now i have my amp under my seat but im not sure if i really like it like that.

[AccordB20A]

well i dont believe mounting it upside down will hurt it because the heat sink is supposed to get rid of the heat. i broke my amp by having it on the sub box, vibration metal fatigued off the pins of one of the rectifiers.

[86ccord]

hmm.. allright.. well i think im either going to put it on the back of my seat and just when im ridin ill fold the seat forward so it wont get hot.. or ill just build a nice lil platform for it to sit on.. idk..


anyone have any other ideas? pics? im open!

[BITESIZE]

Bolt that thing to something that will not make it stealable. I could rip it off that back seat with ease. Bolt that damn thing to a 1" piece of particle board. Make it a bitch to steal. :)

[86ccord]

Bolt that thing to something that will not make it stealable. I could rip it off that back seat with ease. Bolt that damn thing to a 1" piece of particle board. Make it a bitch to steal. :)

OH! alright im glad you brought that to my attention, thanks.. lol i didnt eeven think about that.. but yeah..

[ghettogeddy]

he might be able to steal it but if there in a hurry they wont even see it on there lol my car was stolen they took my sub and face plate but left both my aps that were mounted to my back seat

here is a couple pics of my setup
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b397/ghettogeddy/acd64cd8.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b397/ghettogeddy/a867e781.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b397/ghettogeddy/5a3f10d8.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b397/ghettogeddy/101_0495.jpg

[Bass Man]

My Hifonics doesn't overheat, and I run it at 1 ohm (1.3 after impedence rise) all the time! Before I got my 3g, I had it mounted under my seat in my Pathfinder and it stayed right around 100 degrees.

Kenwood and Audiobahn get really hot since they are A/Bclass. As for mounting your amp, you could put a piece of wood under the carpet, and screw that wood down to the seat in many places, and when you mount your amp, try to find tamper-proof screws and tamper-proof bit.

When I build myself another box, I'm gonna make an MDF floor in place of the carpet, then flush mount my amp in the middle of the trunk.

[86ccord]

oh, that looks real nice... i think imma just put mine on the back seat untill i get done with some other things for my car then ill make a nice plat form.. idk..


pics please!!

thanks everyone for your help!

[2ndGenGuy]

Here's an install I did in a friend's Civic. Built the floor and carpeted it and all.

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h256/jgturk/brians%20trunk/DSCN0656.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h256/jgturk/brians%20trunk/DSCN0653.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h256/jgturk/brians%20trunk/DSCN0658.jpg

[Bass Man]

I made an amp rack for back of a Hummer H3 with really thick poster board(I don't know the name of the stuff, but it is purferated on one side, and shiney on the other). I just traced the back seat onto some carboard, then used a table router to cut it out, then wrapped it with enclosure carpet! The guy loved it!

[86ccord]

haha sounds good.. well i think i have an idea on what i want...

wow that one you did in the civic looks raw.. but im going ot try to stay as light as i can.

btw what is a light sub, that sounds reallly good?

[ghettogeddy]

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b397/ghettogeddy/DSCF0674.jpg

thats my old setup

[Bass Man]

If you just want a little beat behind the seat, Infinity is a pretty good all-alrounder. Cheap, light, and requires little airspace.

[Bass Man]

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b397/ghettogeddy/DSCF0674.jpg

thats my old setup

Spiffy!

Is that a floating amprack made out of a shopping cart??

[ghettogeddy]

Spiffy!

Is that a floating amprack made out of a shopping cart??

no i bent 1/2 aluminum tubbing and mounted them to the box
my dad does custom canvas and that includes making new structures so i just used some of his left over tubbing

[ghettogeddy]

If you just want a little beat behind the seat, Infinity is a pretty good all-alrounder. Cheap, light, and requires little airspace.

i got a 1052w off ebay for 13 bucks and all it needed was a lil soldering lol 100 buck sub for 13 shipped lol

[86ccord]

dang.. ebay is almost to real to be true..

[Bass Man]

i got a 1052w off ebay for 13 bucks and all it needed was a lil soldering lol 100 buck sub for 13 shipped lol

Yep! Usually they have broken tensil leads that in no way effect the voice coil or motor structure.

Another good sub to look for on Ebay is the Alpine Type E... They usually go for less than $20 (for an $80 sub) and have the same problem. I've seen 2 12" Type E's absolutly rock in a Mustang. About 2 years ago, I thought about getting a group of those deffective Type E's for like $200 for 15, but I didn't have any money back then... I could have made a crazy profit.

[MessyHonda]

i miss my subs....i could not mount the amp on the back seat because i have a rear sturt bar

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v650/Messybone/LX-i/DSCF2570Medium.jpg

[lostforawhile]

ok so use the bar as a point for mounting the sub rack to. use those rubber insulated cable clamps to mount the tubing to the bar, then anchor it down at the other end. the strut bar is an excellent mount starting point.

[oscwrestler]

is it a good idea to mount an amp to a sub box?

[Bass Man]

It's a very common practice among our well know "audio technicians", but I preach day to day never to mount your amp on the box.

Reasons I've come up with:

Even if you build the most sturdy enclosure you can, the wood WILL vibrate, and vibration inside of your amplifier WILL shorten the life of that amp. If it starts virbrating, the resistors and capasitor inside will move apart from the board and ware the wire between them thin, thus shorting out that peice of the board.

Another reason is simple theft!
Think about how easy it is for a theif to break your window, pop your trunk, pull the box out and cut your wires, and run!! That is a 10 second job!

[86ccord]

True very true.. i put my amp finnally on a piece of wood and bolted it to my car lol same with the sub so if some one really wants it.. they will have to work.. lol

[Civic Accord Honda]

i still need to save up like $300 and get me a sub and amp sick of no bass lolol

[lostforawhile]

It's a very common practice among our well know "audio technicians", but I preach day to day never to mount your amp on the box.

Reasons I've come up with:

Even if you build the most sturdy enclosure you can, the wood WILL vibrate, and vibration inside of your amplifier WILL shorten the life of that amp. If it starts virbrating, the resistors and capasitor inside will move apart from the board and ware the wire between them thin, thus shorting out that peice of the board.

Another reason is simple theft!
Think about how easy it is for a theif to break your window, pop your trunk, pull the box out and cut your wires, and run!! That is a 10 second job!
yea the bazooka tubes with the built in amps fail all the time,gee lets put the amp inside of the tube and shake it to death!! i have a ten inch one,pulled out the internal amp and run it on a seperate good amp with a crossover network. sounds ten times better.

[Sabz5150]

Under the passenger seat. Out of sight, out of mind. Also puts the controls closer to your hands for tuning purposes.

[Bass Man]

On the note of bass tubes. I bought 2 like 4 years ago right after I got my amp... These have the Roadmaster 6 1/2" "subs" with an external inline passive X-over...
They works well with my amp because they were svc 4ohm subs and I had 2 in parrellel, seeing 2 ohms at the amp and 250 to each sub.

A month later I bought a 500watt RMS DVC4ohm 12" "competition" sub and put that Passive X-over in front of the sub... Some of may see where this is going...
At that time, I had 500watts RMS going through a passive X-over... Needless to say, it melted and almost caught the car on fire!

[ghettogeddy]

On the note of bass tubes. I bought 2 like 4 years ago right after I got my amp... These have the Roadmaster 6 1/2" "subs" with an external inline passive X-over...
They works well with my amp because they were svc 4ohm subs and I had 2 in parrellel, seeing 2 ohms at the amp and 250 to each sub.

A month later I bought a 500watt RMS DVC4ohm 12" "competition" sub and put that Passive X-over in front of the sub... Some of may see where this is going...
At that time, I had 500watts RMS going through a passive X-over... Needless to say, it melted and almost caught the car on fire!

thats how you learn lol

[AccordB20A]

True very true.. i put my amp finnally on a piece of wood and bolted it to my car lol same with the sub so if some one really wants it.. they will have to work.. lol

my sub box wont come out of the car unless you remove both the sub from the box and the rear wiper from the car lol

[MessyHonda]

Under the passenger seat. Out of sight, out of mind. Also puts the controls closer to your hands for tuning purposes.



how small is your amp...i would place it there but i dont think it would be a good place for ventalation

[Lil Mike]

how small is your amp...i would place it there but i dont think it would be a good place for ventalation

i have my amp underneath my seat and it seems to be fine, hasnt had any problems yet

[Bass Man]

Certain amps I would never advise putting under the seats... Even my Hifonics gets "warm" under my seat, and it usually stays around 80 degrees in the open, and the hottest it has gotten was about 110 degrees.

From my experience, Audiobahn gets pretty hot at 2 ohms in the open (about 100 degrees) and Pioneer is another amp that gets hot easy, just for examples... (I love pioneer, but not their amps.

[Sabz5150]

Certain amps I would never advise putting under the seats... Even my Hifonics gets "warm" under my seat, and it usually stays around 80 degrees in the open, and the hottest it has gotten was about 110 degrees.

From my experience, Audiobahn gets pretty hot at 2 ohms in the open (about 100 degrees) and Pioneer is another amp that gets hot easy, just for examples... (I love pioneer, but not their amps.

Well if you stuff a huge amp driving a pair of monster subs under there, expect your passengers to burst into flames. Now, a nice little 4 channel for the fronts/rears, can't go wrong.

I'm more of an 'everything in moderation' kind of audio guy :)