http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2379818

It looks very good.

I'm not interested in the sub part of the install as I don't have enough money to blow on the custom work, but would an amp hold up underneath there? I'd think it'd overheat. It would be good to get it out of the way and underneath there..

 

I think it might overheat. Which is BAD BAD BAD.

Try putting the amp underneath a seat.

 

What did the installer recommend? Usually at places like Circuit City or Best Buy they're good about advice for where to put things.

 

Oh....I don't know. I had the same settup in my 240 wagon where I had my amp in the compartment where the third seat would have been. In the summers when it got super hot it would over heat...I fixed it with a computer tower fan. Without a fan that setup might over heat. Though that amp has thermal overheat protection so the thing would just shut off at a certain temp...that would get frustrating.

The thing the bothers me is why does that system have a Cap on it...or 4 ga. wire? there's no way he's over the amp out put of his alternator with a 250 Watt amp....that's just plain silly. If anything he's drawing more amps just to charge the stupid thing.

That's what I hate about Circut City and Best Buy...No one needs a Capacitor for something like that. I had a guy tell me that I needed three farads worth of capacitors to run my system the way I've got it...pfft. I guess a guy needs to make commission somehow eh?

 

Sadly they don't make commission.....my guy at Circuit City gave me the whole story no push towards anything......oh well....let us know how it goes.....

 

I was asking for the sub's amp which would be better if it was near it. .

an amp underneath the front seats would get kicked a lot wouldn't it? and one underneath the rear seats would definately overheat.

I was thinking of putting one of the amps in the glove box. air conditioned!

 

You know...anyway you look at it, if you're going to put subs in your trunk you're going to end up with a stretch of wire "too long for optimum sound quality." Unless you relocate the battery. IMO, it's better to have a shorter power line than shorter speaker wire (plus, it's cheaper). In truth, as long as you keep the power and speaker wires separate you won't notice the difference in location of the amp anyway...unless you're compitition. Those guys have ears like.....really...good...hearing things.....

Re: the glove box......is it air conditioned year round? Just how big of an amp are you planning on here and how big is that glove box? You may be pushing critical mass on that idea. Whatever the size of the amp multiply it by two because you'll need that much room for the wire hook ups. Especially if you try hooking up anything bigger than 8 gauge....it doesn't bend and you shouldn't coil it. On the other hand....if you were planning on keeping that air on year round and are going to do some cutting in your glove box that sett up could be pretty sweet!

Easily fixed with a length of 2x4. Just use it as a kicker plate. If you wanted to put it under the back seat (is there even enough room to fit one under there?) it may or may not overheat....depends on the size of the amp and how hard you push it. My amps would over heat...My grandmothers amps would not.

...did he end up selling you a capacitor?

 

The battery is located in the bottom left hand corner of the tailgate, so the power wire won't be very long at all for the sub's amp but will be longer if i'm going to mount the speaker's amp underneath a seat.

Glovebox is air conned year round but is controlled by the temperature in the cabin, so if its a hot day its cranked but if its cold then there isn't that much of a need for it. It sounds like something i'd rather leave and just put the amp under the seat. Wouldn't want to overrheat it!

I don't know what size amp I need or even want. I was thinking 300w? I really need someone to design the system for me, but the problem is that I don't have a firm amount I can or can't spend because my money isn't a sure thing being a student.

Am I right in saying that for two sets of components with a 300w amp, that the power would be divided by 8 and each "speaker" would get 37.5 watts? Is that considered loud? Then an amp andsub that are, and can handle, 300w? Would that match up?

 

Not entirely. The tiny components are going to come with their own crossover amps (or at least they should...don't buy them otherwise) so you won't be hooking them up to any aditional amps. If you're planning on amping the other four speakers of your component system, the numbers you need to be looking at are the RMS watt ratings...not the max. When you say 300 watt amp the 300 is actually the max rating which really doesn't apply to anything...it's a theoretical number that no system would reach. Most amp manufactorers have the wattage broken down per channel in their advertisments and it varies depending on how you choose to wire up speakers to the amp. However...in theory, going back to your equation up top, you would only take the amp rating divided by 4.

37.5 watts wouldn't be loud persay....instead it would have the potential to be loud. For a reagular speaker I'd say 15 watts has more than enough potential to be loud...it doesn't take much to power a speaker.

Here's a really good explanation of what to look for in a component system by the way. The subs this article refers to are actually the speakers that come with the component system.

This Link is a wonderful explanation of when you should or should not use amplifacation and just how acurate manufactorer's power ratings are. It's a good read even if you're not interested in building a system!

 

Really? Is that typical for that car or did you relocate on your own? that's awesome in anycase. I wouldn't worry about the amp under the seats...If you're coming from the trunk you won't have as much twisting and rerouting as you would if the battery were located under the hood. I bet it'll still be shorter than 8'.

Just out of curiousity, why don't you want to put both amps in your trunk?