i audio noob that is a proud owner of a new sport.... I am thinking of mounting 1 or 2 low profile 12's in my spare compartment and have a few questions... 1. how would i get the signal/power to the compartment.... 2. would this space work (given that i would have a new compartment cover custom made for this)... and 3. is a new head unit mandatory for higher quality low ends or just an amp and crossover?..... has anyone thought of this or has tried this approach.... any thoughts are welcome.....

 

actually this has been done alot. People do the subs in the sparetire well all the time. One of the neat things is the fact that you can retain ALL of your trunk space. At the expense of a spare of course. I'd do it if i didn't get soo many flats. LOL. One of the options is to cut holes in your base board that you presently have and raise the current board that you have up so to hide the subs, otherwise mounting a sub flush would look good too.

You can use whats called a Line level converter. aka. Hi/Lo adaptor to convert a signal to lowlevel for the amp and retain factory headunit. Or there are a few companies that make devices that intergrate your factory headunit so you can have an excellent sounding system that would normally come from a $400 high end headunit. Rockford makes one called the 3sixty.1 and JL makes a "cleansweep" there are lots of them thats just two examples. If your going for the flush mount look so people can see the sub my suggestion is a larger sub, like 12" Alpine type R or such. So as to use the entire well as a box. If your mounting under the board use someting like two shallow 8" or 10" and cut the board to be like a grill then recover it so you can't see the holes. Sort of like a grill.
Here are some hardcore sparetire well installs
AUDIO OBSESSIONS
theres quite a few install ideas there

 

Welcome Orlando Fit owner,
You could do a raised floor and your sub enclosure would be under that along with your amplifiers on each side of the sub covered by this large raised floor panel. Utilizing heavy duty grille material from Select Products - Car Audio Installation Materials you could protect everything. Use the heaviest made for subwoofers.

Here's an example from one of my other cars:

 

thats one way to do it.

 

thanks alot for the advice guys.... i will be home in a few days (drive a semi cross country) and will start the enclosure, altho i may cheat a lil and head to a sound shop for a few live ideas......

 

Something similar to reference:
https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/fit-...heel-well.html

 

DOOD radar is that ur subi? or is it just a pic of a car for reference? Cuz um you know if for some reason you would ever decide that maybe ud like to get rid of one of those amps, or both holla at ya boy. =D PS. where the heck do you get all of your audio equipment. And what job do you have to support your habit? cuz i'm actually the manager of an audio shop and i still don't have the dough to support my habit lol.

 

I am planning on doing this. I should have pics next week heh.

 

Zapco amps are for sale. Comp 6.0x is rated 2x150 or 600 mono-2 ohm stable. The real power is 225x2 and 720 mono at 4 ohms. I was running mine at 4 ohms for tighter sounding damping factor. The other is Comp 2.5x, 75w x 4. Send me a PM if your interested. I replaced them with another brand. The car is my every day Subaru Outback with JL 10W6's. Spare tire is kept under the amp rack........getting a flat tire in Maine while looking to photograph Moose......Priceless!

 

here is what I did last year.. not a pro job by any means.. I'm too lazy to merge all the post into 1..

I've started on my sub project... 8" sub in spare tire.. I did this before with my wrx spare, and it worked awesome, but 16" spare tire was able to hold a 10" and the fit's donut is only big enough for an 8" sub, so it probably won't be as good.. but I've searched high and low, and can't find a suitable place to put a sub besides the spare without giving up interior space. I really want to reuse my 10", but it just doesn't fit in the spare tire.
This is how it looked in my wrx..

anyhoot.. here's some progress pics and informal instructions.
1. Put a Jar cap over the center bore of the rim, and tape up any sharp edges on the rim like weld points etc. (any negative angles that prevents the mold from coming out) You'll have to remove the oem butterfly nut that holds down the spare and replace it with a low profile bracket to provide the space needed for the sub. this can be easily fabricated using a flat bar with a hole in the middle, and a bolt to hold the spare in place.
2. Cover the entire spare tire in heavy duty tin foil, use masking tape to hold everything in place. Ensure that all joins are covered in tape, otherwise, the glass resin will leak and you'll have a hard time getting the mold out of the spare.. AFter covering in foil, wax liberally using liquid wax, this will be the release agent so the foil doesn't stick to the resin. ( it still sticks, but peels off easily afterwards, without waxing, it'll be stuck on pretty good.

3. I just used regular bondo brand epoxy resin and woven fiberglass found at CT or wally world. Follow the mixing instructions.. Cut the fiberglass into small 3"x5" strips and triangles. Then just start laying it down and soaking it liberally with resin using a cheapo dollar store brushes). The idea is to get the first layer on first, let it dry, pop it out of the spare tire, and add more layers afterwards.

This is how it looks after 1st layer. I have added another 2 layers on since, build it up to about 1/4" thick (3-4 layesr). ensure you have no holes or leaks. you can test this out by just pouring water into it once it dries. You can also measure the volumn of the enclosure by using water measurement (can't remember the formula right now).
to be continued..

 

I managed to squeeze a few hours to make some progress on the sub box.. I made the mdf top cover, receessed the speaker a little to provide more clearance and sealed the unit shut.

pic of the mdf with 8" cutout. Remember measure 3 times, cut once.. I always forget this rule! this was the 2nd attemp..


Test fit of the speaker in place..

Sealed the top and bottom half using rubberized asphalt, and screws to hold it in place.


next step is to put carpet over this to make it look a little nicer, but not required...

I also managed to get some wiring done for the amp.. It'll be placed under the driver seat.. for some reason, there is more clearance on the driver side than the passenger... I just have to take apart the stock radio to tap the lines, it should be done deal..

 

Took part of the day off today to finsih my project..
Got the carpet on, figured out I put the carpet on backside up, but I don't really care, it's just there to hide some of the ugly mess of the fiberglass. I still have to trim the carpet to match the spare tire size...

Put the amp under the seat.. the radio was a biatch to take out... I must of spent 1 hour trying to undo the clips on the radio without Fing it up... There is so little room here that I had to forgo the base board to support the amp.. I've put some heavy duty velcro under the amp so it sticks onto the carpet and won't slide around. I should paint that lid black cuz it does stick out about 2" so people won't be temped to steal the cheap amp!


The only thing left is to cut a hole in the floorboard to let the speaker through.. the space is so tight that the existing floor board already sits on the spare for support.. so I have to make a cutout for it so the sub protrudes past it.. I'm on a quest now to find a suitable material to fill the cutout with.

The verdict.. it's okay.. definitely not as good as my 10" MTX, but this is a cheapo 8" sub from a bazooka tube. I was also limited by mounting dept, the cheapo sub was 3.5" deep.. anything more than 4" deep won't fit... I really wanted to get the pioneer low profile sub, but it was $250 at future shop.. kinda pricey.. it does the job now, and I'm happy to get some boom boom while on the go and keep the Fit utility mode untouched.

 

Finally finished off the sub completely today, and the car is back to normal.. and looking stock.. I ended up cutting a hole in the stock deck, and then using a thin sheet of metal with lots of holes in it as a grill.. tied it down to the deck using lots of wires...

And finally, with the lid down, you can't even tell if anything was underneath it..

Fin.

 

Looks good. If you could build up (raise) your rear floor a little and get a different sub in there, it would be even better. Say a JL 8W3v3.

 

dang that's sick nasty!!!

 

i bow to your mastery!

 

Man that is a retarted price on the shallow pio sub. I know that if u put that 10" pio in there you would be amazed at the difference. Especially if u have at least 1^3 foot to work off of.

 

nice! +rep

I might do this... it's a great idea!

 

greetings from singapore. this forum has been very informative!

would like to share pics of my sub/amp install in the spare tyre well :

 

Equipments :
- Rainbow CSX-265 comps (front)
- Helix Coaxials (back)
- Steg K401 (4 channel passive setup)
- RF P2D12" with T400.2 in bridge mode
- Alpine 9885

What you see here is customized :
- shelf for amps
- sub box
- false floor

I did this with the aim of retaining most of the boot space and also showing off the sub Hopefully no loose cargo will hit it.
Too bad the installer didnt have grey carpeting