Hey guys! I found the coolest place to mount my audio amplifiers for my stereo!

In your Sportie under the back seat there is a hollow body cavity where there are 2 layers of metal... the top layer bumps up to create a shelf for the rear seat to rest on, while the lower layer stays lower down... It's hard to explain but check out the pics:





I did bend the lower layer down a bit with a sledge to make the available space a little deeper.

I mounted the amps using aluminum bracketry I made myself and sheet metal screws. I sealed any holes and screws with RTV silicone adhesive (it wouldn't do to go through a deep puddle and have my amplifiers fill up with water!).

The nice thing about this is that when I need the cargo space, I can disconnect my subwoofer and move it, and there are NO amplifiers anywhere taking up space, I have the whole rear cargo area and there is nothing under the front seats either.

I used to have my subwoofer amp under my passenger seat but people were always kicking it and breaking the RCA plugs. Now that I have 3 amps, 1 for tweets, 1 for the 6.5" drivers in front, and 1 for the sub, it just was going to be too crazy... I would have had an amp under each seat and then another amp in the back. I didn't want to deal with that much loss of space and functionality, and having to worry about keeping people's muddy feet off of them.

Anyways, just an idea for you audio folks, if you can fit your amps in that space like I did, it's kind of nice! Also, a thief would NEVER think to look in there.

I should mention that because the seat rests on this surface that I cut holes in, it was necessary to re-cover the holes with something for the seat to rest on. I used expanded steel (like Dave's grill) and painted it black (also like Dave's grill). I bolted it down and it makes a sturdy enough covering for those 3 holes.

It looks like a mess in these pics... I should post pics of the finished product, it looks cool. The carpet goes over the mesh and then the seat goes down over that. I am thinking of cutting the carpet tabs that go under the seat mounting bolts and putting velcro on there so I can peel back the carpet easier to access the amps if I need to adjust something on them (can't see why I wouldn't though, I can adjust everything from my deck since I am running all-active crossovers in the deck).

That's great and it looks cool. But I would be a little concerned that the amps might overheat and shutdown due to lack of good airflow over the heatsinks.

Very intersting..... Although I am also concerned about over heating.

What I did to solve the cargo space problem was to mount my sub and amp on a frame that sets in the back. When I need full capacity I just unhook the power and audio cables and lift the entire sub/amp assembly out and put it in the garage.

Cool idea though......

yup, been thinking of a way to make that a tool box or hi-lift holder, just haven't come up with anything that would look clean.

I thought a lot about the heat issue. However, my sub amp barely gets warm when I drive it hard. The mid amp is the same way, and the tweeter amp stays cold to the touch. I will just have to see if it becomes a problem. So far I have played my music for 3 hours straight very loud with no problems. We'll have to see in the summertime if there is any problem with heat. I don't think there will be. The amps I have run pretty cool.

Oh just FYI, a lot of amplifiers will get ruined if you mount them on the subwoofer box itself... The constant vibration will kill the toroidal transformers in the power supply. Many amps have thin windings with thin layer of laquer on them and the vibration will cause the insulation to rub off, shorting out the windings in the stages of the transformer, causing the amp to fail and sometimes shorting out the deck as well. I just repaired an amp that this happened to because a friend of mine had it mounted on his box with his 12" subwoofer.

My sugesstion would be add some exhaust fans to the side, point out to the doors. If it gets too warm you open the doors and let the fan do its job.

yeah, like computer fans or something.

Yeah.... It isn't mounted on the sub, they just share a frame so it is easy to pull them out. The configuration has been working for a few years now so I guess we'll see but you have a good point if you have tons of money wrappped up into your system ( which I do not )

Later,

Mark

As a former installer in the mobile electronics industry, I will tell you that an amplifier mounted to an enclosure is NOT a problem provided that the amp is securely mounted to the enclosure, and the enclosure securely mounted ni the vehicle. Car amplifers are made to handle vibration, if vibration were a problem every amp would suffer from general vibration be it from driving down the road/trail, or loud subwoofers. That being said, I like the location you found, i have been trying to find a locatin for my amplifer. I can't tell from your photos, but what does it look like for me to get an amplifer that is 29" long in there? Maybe if I can't get the amplifer in ther I could open up the front edge and mount my changer, how deep is the area in question, maybe I can form up a fiberglass enclosure for my subs, and use some other amps mounted in place of the rear speakers, I'm not using them anyway, but there is not enough height for my subs.

Well, I don't want to turn this into an argument, but it's not that simple. I'm not an installer, but I repair broken amplifiers, so I will tell you that vibration absolutely can and does ruin amps. This is true not only in my own experience, but also in the experience of the man who I learned amp repair from, who runs the web site http://www.bcae1.com. Maybe mounting the sub enclosure decreased the risk of damage. For example that the most recent amp I repaired was mounted VERY securely to the enclosure, but the enclosure was a box that sits in the trunk and isn't bolted down. The transformer windings were damaged from vibration and shorted. This also fried his DVD brain.



Not ALL amplifiers will be damaged by these vibrations. Some have larger, stronger wire windings in the transformer with thicker insulation and can withstand this easily. Other amps, like all the Hifonics amps I have seen, will be destroyed quickly by mounting them to your subwoofer. Also if you look at home audio subwoofers, they always have the amp mounted on the subwoofer. However, if you took one apart you would see that the transformers they are are not the same wire-wound toroidals that car audio amps use. Basically the way they are built, they can handle it better.

It's also obvious that most subwoofer enclosures vibrate more than your car body does. If you whole car was vibrating like that all the time you would not be very happy with it and all kinds of things would break faster. I'm sure some enclosures vibrate more than others.

Anyways, whether the amp can handle being mounted to the sub enclosure depends completely on the build quality and the parts used in the amp. For example you will never see Rockford Fosgate Punch amps ruined because of vibration; they have very thick wire and insulation in their transformers. However, many many amps out there do not, and can be ruined. This is not to say that Punch amps are better, just that the TYPE of parts used happen to withstand vibration more than those used in the Hifonics Brutus amps, for example. For this reason it is safer to just not mount the amp on the sub enclosure unless you already know for sure it can handle it.



I think there is enough length, I just don't know how tall your amp is or how wide.