Has anyone replaced their stock sub with an aftermarket 10" sub?

 

yes. use the search tab and you will find different results.

 

are you talking about a free-air sub, like the stock one, or a sub in an enclosure? if you're talking about a free-air sub, i think only an 8" will fit in there, and it was done by drcookie:

http://www.acura-tl.com/forum/showth...threadid=37582

if you're talking about an enclosure, then yea, it's been done TONS of times.

 

dont replace the stock sub with that kicker rmb8... that is a mid bass and not a sub.. you will loose some of the lower freqs.... i would recommend just disconnecting the stock sub and putting a sub in the trunk...

 

I installed a 10" free-air sub in the stock location. I had to widen the hole by about 1/2" but it fit and works great. Check out the link in my sig to see some pics.

 

Rmarin2 how good does the free air sub sound?

A friend put one in his gs400 and he said it sounds like crap.....

 

Mine sounds fine. It doesn't have the same thump as an enclosure, but then its not meant too. It's definitely and improvement over the stock 9" pushing 100W. The Pioneer free-air is a 10" pushing 250W powered by a 300W amp. The only thing I need to do is dynomat the rear deck to cut down on the vibrations.

-Rich

 

How many hours did the project take??

 

Hmmm... I don't exactly remember... If you do a search for my original post I think i mention how long it took. It was definiltey over 2 hours. I took my time cutting the hole.

 

Hey rmarin2,
Do you still remember how to remove the plastic frame surrounding the sub ?
I managed to get my hands on a 10" illusion audio sub but it's too big to fit in the hole and the plastic frame is blocking it as well.

Do you think I could make the hole bigger but still leave the tension bar holder intact ?

Thanks.

Cheers !!!

 

I had to remove the plastic frame because the sub won't fit with it on. You don't have to worry about touching the trunk tension bars when making the hole bigger. They will get a little in the way of your cutting, but you can work around them and still get a clean cut. I used a dremel to cut the hole and it helped in manuvering around the bars. You will definitely have to remove the metal cross-bar that runs across the sub opening. Its the metal bar that is spot welded to the deck. Just drill out the spot welds and it comes right out.

WARNING!!! Before you attempt this let me share some of the things I HAD TO DO to make this work. You may or may not want to do this.

1) Cut the rear deck to expand the hole (obviously irreversible)

2) Remove the metal cross-bar - I believe this piece was meant to add rigidity to the rear deck (can be welded back if you don't cut the hole past the original weld spots)

3) Trim some of the plastic off the stock sub cover and remove the bulbs from the high-mount brake light in order for it to fit over the new sub (not that big of a deal because you can still put the bulbs back and make it functional again). This is a problem if you don't have a spoiler with the LED brake light.

When I cut the hole, the sub didn't sit exactly flush with the rear deck. I did it that way so that I could preserve the original welded points as well as the original screw holes. I used a foam strip that comes with air-conditioners to fill in the gap between the sub and the rear deck and that helps to keep the sub from vibrating. I still need to dynomat the rear deck because it vibrates a lot when I really turn up music with heavy bass. I also had to take out the Navigation unit and put the foam strip around it to keep it from rattling.

I think that covers most of the major points. If you need any more info feel free to ask. I don't want you or anyone to do this and then get mad at me for not giving you all the pro's and con's of this project!!