Subs in trunk...firing towards rear or towards front of cabin?
 

So I installed my sub and amp today. Sounds ok, but I think the amp is vastly underpowered for the sub, and I shoulda went with dual 4ohm coils instead of dual 2ohm coils.

Well, just wondering if you guys point your subs towards the rear of the trunk or have them facing forward towards the front of the car? Also, does pretty much everyone's car lights dim when the bass hits hard with a stock wattage alternator? I'm only pushing 150 watts rms on my new alternator, and I'm still getting pretty severe light flickering when the bass hits deep. I have an optima red, though.

mines in the rear facing the trunk and i dont get any blinkage, how many watts is ur amp?

for the most bass i would point the sub to the rear so it can echo off the trunk wall, depending how you wired your sub can also effect your lights dimming, you might wanna invest in a power cap which will help the dimming as well.

thanks guys

the amp is a mono Xtant amp running a fosgate p2 dvc sub with 2ohm voice coils. it's currently wired so that the xtant is putting out 150 watts combined to both coils at 4ohm. My only other option was to wire it up down to 1ohm, but I know the amplifier would fry if I did that.

So right now I'm only putting out 150 watts rms, not that much at all. Then again, I'm weary on my new amplifier since the battery light has been blinking off and on for the past 2 months. I think it may be on its way out already :( Perhaps its time to invest in a 130 watter...I just hope I dont get another brand new dud, as installation costs are a bitch.

hopefully you have a warranty, i really dont think 150 watts should cause a problem, it does sound like an alternator problem

rear

yeah i got mine facing the rear.. i just got the box to the very back of the trunk closest to the seats so i still have easy access to the spare tire. my lights dont flicker while i have the music up and i think you need a bigger amp lol

Most face them to the rear, as well as I. But I have seen a couple setups where people have set it up so when the arm rest is down the sub is right there. Not sure how well that sounds. Oh and for safety reasons, id lock your armrest and your trunk opener thing by your driver seat.

yea lol i was drving one time and i was like "will this actually open.....shit..it opened" then i had to pull into a lot to close it ahahah lock it ftwhaha

In the trunk, facing the rear. I've done multiple setups, frontward and rear facing. You get the best sound facing rear, with the ski-pass pulled down to let the sound/air into the cabin.

i faced them to the rear as well. but i've got two MMATS Pro10's in a sealed box, so i chucked the rear speakers an brownbreaded the rear deck. now it's like a big bandpass that plays everything.

Has an optima yellow and the amp is a Rockford 800.4 from back in like 2002. makes alot more power than your xtant and i don't really have dimming issues. not enough to annoy anyways.

Use a down fire box. You get more bass with less power.

depends on where u want ur sound to project. inside the car or outside.

I have it firing towards the rear as well, I heard its better cause the bass will reflect off the trunk and back into the cabin. It's not that great to underpower your subs though, it could damage them, most companies actually underrate their subs, so its safe to overpower them.

The drivers need to move air, if you point them into the back of the seats, you're gonna choke the subs. Facing them toward the rear allows the drivers to move more air. Facing them into the cabin only works if u take out the backseat or have fold down seats which we don't :annoyed:

bandpass box. . . im firing straight up at the rear deck :p. . . when I was still using conventional woofers, the 1st one pointed back, the 2nd was was pointing diagnolly up/towards the front and the only rason I did that was to make room for the rear strut tower bar, rear firing is fine

I'm running ~ a potential of 1300+ RMS in my 2.2 with no dimming. The two Dual 4ohm Type-R's are powered each by their own M650's which are 600rms @2ohm. Then I also have the rockford 450.4 for the interiors which is something like 65rms/ch @4ohms? I only get a tiny bit of dimming when I am stopped. I do have a cap and however I do feel a loss of power if I have it floored and the bass hits at high volume :what: . My accord used to dim like a motherfucker with the same stuff, but the battery in that is spent for sure.
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this afternoon I'm going to try and hook up one of the voice coils which'll feed it 300 watts rms, which is 50 watts over the sub's rated rms. I heard only hooking up one vc vs. both ends up throwing all the sub parameters off, but at this point I don't care. If it sounds bad, then I'll just sell it and get an image dynamics sub, since I heard they're great subs with great sq. I emailed the person I bought the alternator from on ebay, since it comes with a 5 year warranty. I'm sure I'll get the high output replacement, but I really need to find out how to remove the left radiator fan assembly (couldn't get to the low screws when I tried it) so that I won't have to pay 80 bucks to take it to another shop to install : /

Thanks guys.

I used a socket wrench to take out my fans when i rep'd my rad. And hooking up one coil can change the Q of the sub if you put a resistor on the other coil. Some people do it to adjust the sound. As long as your amp is not being pushed to its max, you should not have a problem with giving the sub a little more power. Just don't let it distort.

^^ thanks bro, and nice setup btw :)

do you have a 3.0? My question to you would be, how did you get your wrench down there far enough to get to the radiator screws? even when I could reach down there, there was a crossbar right in front of the screws that wouldn't let me access it with anything longer than like 2 inches : /

any help would be greatly appreciated

thanks

Ah na I have a 2.slow. Not able to get it from underneath if you remove the covers and use a regular closed end wrench? I had to replace my bottom ones when I did it, they were rusted to hell. Just a lot easier for me since I have all that room where there is no horsepower in my engine bay. But I would try going from under.

ahhh, remove the covers. good idea...but i can't remember if it was an actual metal lip of the car or a cover. either way, the shop that did it for me didn't even have to raise the car up to get it out, so i dunno. there's probably a way, just gotta examine it harder tomorrow, and maybe i'll post up pics of the problematic portion I'm talking about

thanks again

Always hook up both voice coils or you will burn out the sub plus you will get more power out of your amp.

^^ I heard that killing a sub with only one voice coil is a myth

in my situation, hooking up only one voice coil will actually put the sub and amp at the correct specs.

cuz my amp is 300x1 @2ohms

and only 150x1 @ 4 ohms

and I accidentally got a sub with dual 2ohm coils, so when i hook up both voice coils I can only wire them at 4ohms, since my amp isn't 1 ohm stable

so hooking up only one voice coil would 'theoretically' put both at a sweet spot...it's just the tss and dynamics of the enclosure that'll now be all thrown off

we'll see...imma try it now and report my findings

Yeah hooking up one coil does not nuke subs indefinitely. I guess it could be argued that if said sub is rated 400rms DVC and you put 400RMS to just one coil.. yes you could overheat that single coil and kill it. But if you have the power split in half to one coil, no you will not kill it. The coils are both physically attached to the same cylindrical piece, just on separate circuits.

hooking up 1 coil will kill the sub, but not for a prolonged time of just running one VC

Well I messed around today and found that my gain on my amp was set way low. So I cranked that up a bit and the sub definitely has enough 'hit' for me, for the time being. Even at 150rms, xtant amps are underrated, and im thinking its somewhere near 200, and the sub is rated for 250.

now I just need to take care of this alternator issue...a new one is being sent to me, so I just need to figure out tomorrow how to get out the old one : /

Switch to Honda DW-1 or Redline D4 ATF, you will notice the more positive shift feel but its not GM shift kit bang shift hard. Add a long tube J-pipe, adds midrange power and throttle response and a TL-S rear anti-roll bar. Those are IMO your best bang for the bucks mods. And if your car is properly maintained, I wouldn't worry about it having 170k miles. I've got 242k on my Accord and other than eating front engine mounts (finally went urethane) it still runs and drives great.

I have always heard that you HAVE to hook up both coils or you will burn one out. I have no proof to back that up though but it sounds like everyone agrees. We are either all right, or all wrong.

I had a 12" sub pointed from driver to passenger side in the trunk, thumped plenty. Feed it enough power and it won't matter, sounds like you are on your way to resolve your alternator issue.