I picked up a JL 250/1 amp and a 10W3v2 sub with 4080 box to add a little bass to my stock Bose system. I didn't want to lose too much space or mount the amp to the rear seats, and I couldn't stuff the new amp on top of the Bose amp due to some new goodies in the 2006.

My solution was to cut a plate that would let me mount the amp inside the spare tire. I laser cut the plate out of masonite. I understand that this is a poor mounting location from a cooling perspective for the amp, but at least there are some conductive pathways through the board and trunk floor. I've run the amp hard for a few days and there doesn't appear to be any overheating issues so I'm quite happy with it.

As usual I tapped in to the rear differential speaker inputs going to the Bose amp to drive the input to the JL using a custom RCA connector. I ran 4 gauge power wire back from the battery. After a little tweaking of the gains and cutoff frequencies, it sounds great! Honestly I wasn't expecting it to sound as good as it does. The bass is very clean and tight and can go louder than I need. Anyway, on with the pics!

 

Looks great. I too, would be concerned with heat. Amps really never should be mounted upside down, as heat rises, and there is nowhere for the heat to escape unless there is some sort of fan. Not to mention there really isn't an outlet for the heat in that situation. I hope everything works out for you, but if the amp starts clipping in warm temps or after extended use, you will know why.

 

Looks good.. maybe to prevent the overheating you could drill some vent holes in the cover?

 

Nice and Clean. Congrats

 

The JL heat sink can be mounted upside down, that's why all the devices are mounted to that finned edge.

But the wheel acts as a heat trap.

I'd add a fan.

 

Great install!!!

I havea couple questions:
1) Did you need a LOC (line out converter)?
2) How did you make your "custom RCA connector?"
3) Where did you buy the 4080 box and how much?

 

Thats a good idea, but I would add two fans, 1 inlet at one end of the amp, and one outlet at the other end of the amp so convection will push air accross the amp to cool it much better. This is easy to do using a relay, and tapping into your acc wire for the signal and tapping constant 12v from your amp power wire.

 

Actually, convection has nothing to do with it.

Convection is the effect of hot air rising. If you have convection on a heat sink, you don't NEED fans.

But all you need is moving air. I seriously doubt that you need two fans to move air through. Remember if it moves too fast, no heat transfer occurs. The air has to be near the fins long enough to get warmer

 

yup. JL amps get freakin hot.

 

Actually, convection is the transfer of heat to a surrounding fluid (air in this case). Moving air increases convective heat transfer: the higher the air speed over the fins, the better. The idea of a necessary maximum speed to "allow the air to get warmer" is completely incorrect. Standing still-air convection is just a special case of convection with no forced relative fluid speed.

1) Nope, the JL amp accepts the differential signals.
2) I cut off the end of an RCA connector and soldered on my own two conductor cable.
3) I bought it from 4080 on here directly, it was about $275 shipped IIRC.

The issue with adding fans is that there are no openings from the inside of the spare tire to the trunk air (it's blocked by the trunk mat). Simply mixing air inside the spare tire wouldn't have much of an effect. Basically if the amp overheats, I'll just have to move it somewhere else. But so far so good with some pretty hot days.

Did I mention that this thing bumps hard?

 

WOW, looks great. Great idea on amp placement IMO. I'm looking for the same "add a little bass to my stock Bose system" with out taking up to much room, etc.

This thread was real helpful for me to see the details. Thanks alot.

What is your total cost on the materials/equipment? (not incld the "masonite").

And where did you buy you stuff?

Thnx again.

 

Thanks, glad it helped! I got the JL hardware on ebay (~$250 for the amp and $150 for the sub IIRC). The wire was about $50 from knukonceptz.com. The box was $275.

 

Also:

1) I dont see your remote wire connected, where is that coming from? Bose amp?

2) And your custom rca are the input signal to the amp right? Will any RCA's do? I've never seen this done before.

3) What are your amp settings? Amp LP filter: mode-slope? filter freq.? Bass control: infrasonci filter? LF boost? input Voltage low-high? signal sensing off-on? From: http://mobile.jlaudio.com/products_a...php?amp_id=251

4) The signal input wires you connected to was B4 the bose amp right? Can you explain which ones they are or where to find the correct ones to connect to?

5) Sorry dude, whats IIRC?

Really appreciate any and all the help.

 

damn, i don't think i've ever thought of mounting the amp there. wait, i gotta check to see it mine will fit. can u mount any amp upsidedown? if it has a built in fan will it be ok? right now, mine is under the plactic cover, sitting ontop the stock bose amp, is way to hot in there?

 

This might be a silly question, but how did you route the power and ground wires to the battery? I see they are headed towards the rear of the trunk and then go underneath the plastic jack holder, just wondering where they go from there.....

Thanks, and nice install!