Phoenix Gold Phorum

I have decided to suck it up and redo the trunk in my daily driver. The sub box cuts into the room the family needs for long trips. I am going to raise the floor slightly, mount the sub in the spare tire well and mount my amp recessed in the floor. I am probably going to be using an Outlaw. The M100 section will be Bridged @ 4 Ohms, M50 will just be run 2 channels at 4 Ohms.

I have been playing with 2 ideas, one is do a plexiglass cover, The other is to make a removable cover when I have items in the trunk ( I am leaning towards this)

So what do I do about cooling? I assume I will need fans. How much room do I leave around the amp for clearance. I am not quite sure how to excute a removeable cover, ie one that will stay in place.

Do you have a roughter? I have pics of an install that would be right up your alley.

I find that you always need to put stuff in the trunk when you least expect it. A removable cover, that you leave at home, might not help much if you find you need to throw some stuff in the back later (e.g. helping a friend move something). I would probably suggest the semi-permanent route for that instead. Then again, it could still be totally removable...you'd just leave it in more often than not. I would probably mount it with some sort of friction mount, so that you can simply pop it on or off with a bit of pressure.

The best way I have seen to cool MS amps is to build a "heat tunnel", where you blow a fan along the fins from one end to the other. You could do a push-pull setup to get a lot of airflow going.

I would think 4- 3" high output 12v fans would do the trick. 2-pushin and 2-pullin. But I guess it really depends on yer climate too. The GREAT northwest doesn't get too hot. If yer in the south like Tex or AZ where it gets HOT then you might need bigger/more fans.

gkitching wrote:Do you have a roughter? I have pics of an install that would be right up your alley.

No roughter, but I have a router

dgoodhue wrote:

gkitching wrote:Do you have a roughter? I have pics of an install that would be right up your alley.

No roughter, but I have a router

Yea! That thingy


I started by making the amp/processor rack and sub baffle as one piece. This is what I sealed to the tire well area. Then a top plate for the plexi windows. I used the router to recess the window cut-outs so the plexi was flush with the panel surface.


Then used blocks to raise the mounting surface so all wiring could be concelled underneath.


Using the raised floor I mounted push/pull fans.


A test fit with equipment.


Then vinyl and plexi for the top plate.


Then fab'd an overall cover. First cutout the openings then recessed the area so I could drop in a metal grill




Then siliconed the area to eliminate vibrations.


Finished pics with and without the cover.



The customer was a good 250lbs + and could sit in the hatch without any problems. You couldn't tell anything was in there.

His paint job was pretty sweet too.

greg....i hate it when you post installs.....

brings me crashing back down to earth every time i feel good about mine

That looks real kleen........

Stealth-o-rama!!!

Wow that install looks really great.

Bfowler wrote:greg....i hate it when you post installs.....

brings me crashing back down to earth every time i feel good about mine

Nah dude. You should be extremely proud that you can do such good work yourself. And not have to pay someone like me to do it! I've followed your posts and your attention to detail is over the top! I figured you would enjoy this car as it was done in the XS series. He won an IASCA & USAC world championship in '99' with that set-up using Zeropoint speakers 4, 6 & tweet.

Figured this would give dgoodhue some good ideas.

awe shucks, killer installer and a gentlemen. that is a kick ass install though....all the black gear just looks right.

is that a pair of xs2500's?

It's a 2500 and a 4300, Bass Cube and of coarse the EQ232. Hidden from view in these pics is a rack mount 3-way X-over.

Dave can adapt this for just what you're looking to do. As a matter of fact you wouldn't need to do the whole vinyl/plexi piece. That part is just for show. The top cover would do the same functionally. But the idea of making the amp rack and speaker baffle together with raised walls to put a top over is something that can easily be done in most any trunk/hatch.

I asked about the router because I used one to make all the cutouts. I used the walls of each compartment and a rabbit bit to dictate the size of the windows. Then went back with a recess bit set to the same depth of the plexi 's thickness to create the grooves for an insert. The inserts could be plexi or just a cover panel. Could be any shape too. The router eliminates all the guess work.

I got the measuring stick out and the realized the Outlaw is one big amp. It going easily fit between the rear strut towers, but their isn't going to ton of room on each side.

How much vertical clearance should I be giving M series amp for breathing room in an enclose box (with fans)? The amp is about 2" tall.

Also I pretty much plan to keep the sub covered all the time. I was thinking I might want use a metal grill (support) over the opening of the sub with trunk liner carpet over that, other wise I would probably have to use another material and that might really reduce the subs output (as of right now it going to be a RSD10 with 500 watts going to it.) Does that sound like a reasonable compromise?

I would say a minimum of 3" total so you have 1" clearence over the amp. But depending on the size of the fans, you may need to go taller. ie 4" fan, 4" wall.

The trunk liner idea is what I did in that VW. I just carpetted the whole piece. Worked fine.