I just roll the carpeted mat out and cover the speakers. The grills hold up well and the sound is still good. I had to put a generator back there the other day because I was without power for 10 days because of the Ice Storm we had. Put the mat down and loaded the gen. in the back and drove from Oklahoma City to My home near Tulsa.

 

Those are some pretty nice setups... I'd like to do something in the future with a combo 8" / two 12"s depending on my cargo needs. Def like what you did there GDZ. Your amp wiring job looks top notch.

I guess you folks had pretty good luck finding your own unique shallow mount sub for the 8" port, or else everyone did custom spacers and such. If Mach2's thread isn't exaggerating (and those pics look like he's right-on) then most 8" subs won't fit in the stock enclosure. I'm probably going to go with the Earthquake SWS-8 due to its extremely shallow mounting profile. My local guy says he can get it to me for about 90 bucks.

Now, I've read the threads about the amp wiring... I'm wondering why there are low-level input signals for all 4 component speakers. I suppose the stock amp must modulate the different input signals (regular + low-level) together to create the output signals for the 4 component speakers. Then I wonder what it's blending together to create the subwoofer output. And THEN I wonder why there are two subwoofer outputs... wtf is going on with that crazy scheme they have... did you guys just splice into the rear left / rear right low-level inputs to grab a low-frequency signal for your amps? Assuming yall didn't rewire everything for your systems...

 

I wish I could say I did it myself. Custom Sound did my install. Way too much stuff going on for me. I've done audio stuff way back when but nothing like this. As CH said, I had to use a spacer for my 8", I guess I did do something , we used the same sub only difference is his had a chrome cover special edition. Mine was black , I painted it red.

 

Has anyone measured the mounting depth of the factory 8" sub??

 

How about stock? Anybody try stock?

 

It's about 4 1/8 inches deep.

 

So another 8 inch sub with 4 1/8 inches depth should fit in the stock location? That would be good news, since I also would like to keep a sub in there along with my box. I would like to use the one amp to power both when needed-I believe it goes down to 2 ohms. I could make a plug for the box to go into a socket next to the stock location then just have both sets of speaker wires coming from the amp to both speakers since I am using the amp bridged. I want to try using my head unit's amp first, since it it Pioneer MOSFET. If it is not enough, then I will have to find a good spot for another 4 channel amp. The problem is, I will have to run new wires from the speaker to the radio, then if that doesn't work well, rerun those wires to the back of the car for the other amp. Pretty time consuming

 

damn straight, lee. it seemed to make a lot of sense when i got my low miles hhr to grab the one with the premium sound, but now i'm realizing otherwise

newho, i did order my sub! i'm getting the earthquake sws-8, 150 W RMS 300 Peak. I suspect it will be much nicer than the shallow profile pioneer subs that are out right now. It has an extremely shallow depth of only 2.25 inches. It's also rated to work in boxes with 1/4 cubic ft volume - the stock box looks like it couldn't be more than 1/3 cubic ft. most of the 8's i found recommend a larger volume, more like 1/2 cubic ft.

I'll let everyone know how it sounds once I get it hooked up, it should definitely fit in the factory speaker box w/o any mods needed. I may or may not reccommend it

 

I anxiously await your review, Military. Also, if it is good, let me (us) know where you got it and the price.

 

i saw mtx used to make an 8...