Looking for Reg Cab Sub/Amp Advice

The audio bug has bitten and I'm torn in which direction to take with adding a sub/amp combo to my truck. Warning: this may get geeky!

I have:
1 - 12" Eclipse Aluminum Cone - Single 6 ohm Voice Coil (yeah I know)
2 - 10" Kicker Comp VR - Dual 2 ohm Voice Coils

I Want:
Ultimately, I want tight, hard hitting bass that is clean and crisp with decent low frequency handling. I'm not looking to set off car alarms. Just a powerful punch to add the first step in my SQ goal. Ideally, I would like to have a single sub with the amp mounted beneath the drivers seat. Leaving the center and passenger side storage available. I don't want to remove the cargo tray either. The lower I can keep the height of the box the better. The more 'stealth', 'sleek' and 'clean' the better.

I Need:
• An amp
• Build a box.

I realize there's plenty of other stuff (LOC, wires, etc), but those are minor in comparison.

Now, I have built a lot of boxes. Several before I knew what I was doing (poor construction techniques and no concern of air volume) and a whole lot more after. Seemed like I turned into the box builder in my old car audio group of friends. If I wasn't doing it myself, I was helping them, but I loved it either way. Please don't misunderstand, I'm not saying I'm great or trying to brag in anyway, but I can satisfy my picky a*s, so I'm happy.

My thoughts are to construct a typical sealed, wedge truck box with an 'extension' that fits into the cargo tray. If you look at the outside, it would look like there's a truck wedge box sitting on top of the cargo tray. I would like to figure out how to secure the box using the mounting point of the tray that the box will cover. It shouldn't be too difficult. There are some hooks of some sort on the back wall, I'm going to keep the box below these and no wider than the seat, if I can. The constraints will limit the air volume available, but the 12 has a sealed box volume of 0.5-1.0 cu ft. The 10s, I'm not sure about (they too are pretty old), but I can assure you it needs to be larger than the 12. Eventually, the box will be finished with carpet to match the interior and if forward or rear(?) firing, it will have a grill, of some sort.

The Amp:
See My Choices

My Choices:
As I mentioned, way up there, I have three subs. A pair of, dare I say decent, 10s and an old, yet beast of a 12. I can give some details if anyones interested... its a sad story really. lol.

My first thought:
• Buy an amp for the 6 ohm 12 and build a box for it.

Then after considering the price of the amp I will need for the odd 6 ohm sub in a small box (=more power) and the construction limitations caused by this monster sub I'm thinking I might:
• Buy an amp for one of the 10s and build a box for it. This box would probably need to be larger than the 12 due to the volume requirements. Which would hurt the Wants listed above. Also, this sub may not deliver the punch I'm looking for by itself.

As an outside, tiny chance, a third option:
• Buy a new 2 ohm dvc 12 (maybe a 10), an amp and build a box for the new sub. This would be nice, but maybe not economically smart or even viable. I know it would be difficult for me to find a sub/amp combo that I could afford and could be happy with that was better then what I could do now. Truth be told, I could just build a box and go. I do have a couple or three amps laying around the house some where, but they aren't worthy... well one maybe if I go with the single 10 I already have. That's worst case though cause that amp was old when I bought it and has been punished over the years.



Okay. Clearly I can get wordy (mentioned in another thread). Thanks for sticking with me, if you skipped ahead, , but I don't blame you.

So what do you think. What would you do? Remember small budget. Any questions, to help advise, let me know.

Thanks in advance.

Im going with a Skar Audio SK800.1 amp and pair of sundown audio E10's. Now I'm not looking to rattle windows either just add some nice clean cheap low end. I'm doing this pretty resonable the amp was $150.00 bucks NIB off ebay and the subs I will be going straight to the manufacturer and it looks like they will be about $100.00 a piece. One day if I want more I will probably get another 800.1 and strap them together again pretty resonable to add power. Hope its a little food for thought.

Check THIS thread out

I played around with a bunch of different ideas for enclosures.

I don't know what kind of CuFt you'd need for the the 12", but you can make a nice down-fire box pretty easy to fit behind just the driver (or pass) seat. You'd have to get somewhat creative to fit a 12" woofer in there, but I bet there's room if you really wanted to try!

Personally, I'd build a box behind both seats, and make your own 'tray' to go between them and run the kickers!

I wanted to leave the middle / behind the pass seat alone, because I use that storage all the time, hence my design (see linked thread above).

Etroze86 said:

Im going with a Skar Audio SK800.1 amp and pair of sundown audio E10's.

Click to expand...

Ive never heard of those before. I actually been throwing around the idea of a kicker amp.

Big Boi said:

Check THIS thread out

Click to expand...

WhiteExpress said:

I don't know what kind of CuFt you'd need for the the 12", but you can make a nice down-fire box pretty easy to fit behind just the driver (or pass) seat. You'd have to get somewhat creative to fit a 12" woofer in there, but I bet there's room if you really wanted to try!

Personally, I'd build a box behind both seats, and make your own 'tray' to go between them and run the kickers!

I wanted to leave the middle / behind the pass seat alone, because I use that storage all the time, hence my design (see linked thread above).

Click to expand...

Yeah ive been following your thread. Actually, ive posted on it a couple times now. The cu ft for the 12 is between 0.5-1.0. I have a rectangular box for it right now thats 0.75. It was built for my car (4 vehicles ago).

A down fire sub would be ideal, well what you are rocking (w pass side open too) but i worry about the tray. But if i take it out, which id rather not, it could be a viable option.

I do like the idea of building my own tray to add space.

Some more options to ponder.

Thanks for the advise. I was beginning to wonder if i was going to get any love with my book.

I like kickers stuff just really wanted to try things that people didn't have around my area and just reading and seeing what some of these companies are doing with products that aren't costing an arm and a leg is pretty awesome. Companies I've been checking out are Skar audio, Sundown audio, Incriminator Audio and Soundqubed.

typo_joe said:

A down fire sub would be ideal, well what you are rocking (w pass side open too) but i worry about the tray. But if i take it out, which id rather not, it could be a viable option.

Click to expand...

Just last night I cut my tray to fit. basically I just cut the end off that butts up to my enclosure. I thought it was going to bug me, but I'm 100% fine with it.
It's still got plenty of structure because I designed the box to be right at the 'divider'.

WhiteExpress said:

Just last night I cut my tray to fit. basically I just cut the end off that butts up to my enclosure. I thought it was going to bug me, but I'm 100% fine with it.
It's still got plenty of structure because I designed the box to be right at the 'divider'.

Click to expand...

I didn't realize you had a tray. I must have missed that. I think I was just going off the pics and guess you had already taken it out.

You are braver than I. I don't think I'll ever cut my tray because I like to be able to reverse everything I do. That way when I sell, it's a stock truck.

I'm going to draw a scale model in the computer soon (of both the sub and the proposed box). The measurements I have for it right now, I don't think will work in the real world.

Does anyone know what speakers are in the 2013 Express Reg Cabs? I seem to be having troubles pin pointing them. Every car I have ever owned, I would solve this question with a trip to Crutchfield. However, when I do it now, it says the car hasn't been researched. I emailed Crutchfield asking if they had an ETA and the response was that they had it on the list to research, but did not know when it would be available. They suggested I continue to check the site occasionally.

On the way home, I switched the fade from front to rear. The rear speakers are puny sounding and there is little to no bass. All the bass is coming from the doors. Not that I see a problem now, but its just odd to me for some reason. Guess I'm used to the bass coming from the trunk of a car.

I'd like to replace the mids and highs one day. It will probably never happen, but if I had the cash now, it would get done asap. I spent some hours on Crutchfield building dream Shopping Carts. If I had the cash, my system would probably be focal. Maybe not the subs, but the mids and highs for sure. Their top of the line sub (on Crutchfield) is like $2k! That's nuts.

The rear's are actively crossed (aka no bass like you hear).
The doors are some THIN 6x9s with not much room for more and the dash are standard 3.5"
I don't know what's in back, think they were 6x9s as well.

At least that's my 2011, I don't think they changed em for '13 but I could be wrong.

typo_joe said:

I didn't realize you had a tray. I must have missed that. I think I was just going off the pics and guess you had already taken it out.

You are braver than I. I don't think I'll ever cut my tray because I like to be able to reverse everything I do. That way when I sell, it's a stock truck.

I'm going to draw a scale model in the computer soon (of both the sub and the proposed box). The measurements I have for it right now, I don't think will work in the real world.

Does anyone know what speakers are in the 2013 Express Reg Cabs? I seem to be having troubles pin pointing them. Every car I have ever owned, I would solve this question with a trip to Crutchfield. However, when I do it now, it says the car hasn't been researched. I emailed Crutchfield asking if they had an ETA and the response was that they had it on the list to research, but did not know when it would be available. They suggested I continue to check the site occasionally.

On the way home, I switched the fade from front to rear. The rear speakers are puny sounding and there is little to no bass. All the bass is coming from the doors. Not that I see a problem now, but its just odd to me for some reason. Guess I'm used to the bass coming from the trunk of a car.

I'd like to replace the mids and highs one day. It will probably never happen, but if I had the cash now, it would get done asap. I spent some hours on Crutchfield building dream Shopping Carts. If I had the cash, my system would probably be focal. Maybe not the subs, but the mids and highs for sure. Their top of the line sub (on Crutchfield) is like $2k! That's nuts.

Click to expand...

I recently picked up a rcsb 13' like you and was researching the forums for advice... I don't know what unit you have but I have the RA4n which has too much stuff tied into it and it sound ok to me. So I decided to keep it simple and do a full swap on the 7 speakers and add a sub to keep it simple and clean.
Ill try to post pics..
guess I should start with getting power in..
first pic is where I went thru with power at firewall, funky looking plate you will see it right away. Power is connected to the post at fuse box, and remote wire is jammed in at the cigarette lighter 20amp fuse. ran them out together and covered with black loom thru the firewall.
2nd pic are the JL audio c2 3.5" for front stage which makes a hell of a difference. The oem sounds good but you can really hear how cloudy they are once you go aftermarket, don't matter what brand you go with...
3rd pic are JL audio c5 6.75" midbass drivers. Youre right the doors work real hard and from what Ive read is that they are crossed 20hz-800hz. So I wanted to spend a lil bit more for those speakers
4th pic are the replacement JL audio speakers c2 5x7 plates to replace the 6x9 oems. I pulled my rca from the rear speakers..into a an old JL audio slash amp 500/1 I had left over.
5th pic is the amp under the drivers seat as you mentioned
6th pic is a simple drop in JL audio 10TW3 thinmount sub..absolutely pounds with a tight clean bass. I have the slash probably at only 30% and eq down to -7 on headunit just to make it sound balanced. All together I spent about a $1000 on a 7 speaker plus loaded sub.. the amp, I already have but they are about $500 or less used. Probably another $400 for misc. dynamat, wires etc. For $1400 + amp I already had total investment I cannot be more happier and probably the cheapest audio upgrade Ive done in 25 years in all my vehicles..heres some pics, hope this helps and GL

amp under drivers seat like you mentioned, very accessible to tweak just pulling seat forward

autobred said:

I recently picked up a rcsb 13' like you and was researching the forums for advice...
..heres some pics, hope this helps and GL

Click to expand...

Man that looks very clean. Your info will help a lot once this gets going.

I don't know what head unit my truck has. It's the factory uConnect 3.0. Sounds like I have 6 speakers (2 dash, 2 door, 2 in the back somewhere). This is the very basic model, without any bells and whistles. I think its most advanced features are satellite radio and the usb/aux ports in the console. The old school cd player is under the center seat. Truth be told, it doesn't sound horrible. My 03 VW Jetta sounded better, but I've had worse. If I had the cash, I'd consider swapping the unit, but that's too much money and too much hassle. With a quality LOC, I'll be happy.

Since the rear speakers are crossed, should I tap the LOC into the door speakers? Wouldn't tapping into the rears (in the rear which I would assume is past the cross) cause my amp to not get the low frequencies?

Attached is the 'mock up' for the box I have in my head. The volume is approximately 0.82 cu ft. This doesn't subtract speaker's displacement. Just to note, everything is to scale and the original file is drawn to actual size. The next step, construct a card board (or the like) scale model to see if it will actually fit.

Edit: Disregard the 'board' crossing below the speaker on the completed side view. I was using that to check my measurements and forgot to delete it before making a screen shot. The box will not be divided and will appear as it does on the right, side view.

nice diagram!..if you enjoy making boxes by all means..iv'e done many myself thru the years...inhaled plenty of MDF dust in my time. Nothing wrong with your radio..I do miss the RBZ I had in the 10' can load cds up into hardrive, dvd player. This new one is all about compressed music, kinda sucks but getting used to it..just run my iTunes thru it for now. All my favorite reference music is on cds..need to transfer. I tapped into the rear speakers with these
Car Audio - Connection Systems - Discontinued - Audio Connections - RCA to Speaker Wire The slash are signal sensing for remote turn on so its all I needed so I thought but it was intermittent, older amp. I ended up running a remote wire anyway from the fuse box, no biggie.
but I accessed rear speaker wires at the door sills once I physically took rear speakers out to verify speaker wire colors, YOUR colors could possibly be different, just verify by physically look at speakers. Easier to solder at sill than at back near rear speaker. NO issues with tapping at rear speakers with mine and other have done also..wanted the most full signal I could get. Old 90s R&B songs with the extra low hertz have no problem pounding thru. Panels are real easy to take apart on these rcsb too.. for rear, unbolt your cargo tray 2 screws. Then unbolt seatbelt and that's it. Carefully yank quarter panel out. Door panel is easy..heres a pic I picked up

I stopped by Best Buy on the way home today. I was just there to window shop their amps. While I was there, I talked to one of their techs about some of my plans. Out of curiosity, I asked how much to install an amp in my truck and he guesstimated around 120 for labor + amp, LOC, wires and connectors, etc. Not that I wasn't already planning on it, but looks like I'll be doing the install myself.

I also asked about swapping the head unit. More specifically dash kits and wiring harnesses. He looked up my truck and it did confirm the 3.5's in the dash and the 6x9s in both the doors and the rear. However, that was all it had. All other parts were blank. The bb tech said typically, its about 2 years before you really start seeing new kits come out for new vehicles. We looked up the 2012's but the dash and stereo were different on the base model stereo, like mine. I'm not so worried about this, cause this would be the final upgrade, if I ever do it. Back in the day, it would have been the first thing, but car stereos were a lot simpler in the late 90s.

I've gotta remember... Baby steps. Time to get back to doing a box mock up.

I finished the scale mockup. Dont laugh at it. I had a decent sized scrap piece of corrugated plastic that me and a buddy put 100s of pistol and shotgun rounds through. The big spots of duck tape are patches over the bigger holes.

As for the build i think its time to finalize my plan, build a cut list and get to building. I am going to tweak the plan slightly because i do have more side to side room. I fit the mock up over the speaker (speaker inside the box) and it was pretty much all the volume the box had. Not literally but a couple extra inches wont hurt.

Anyone have suggestions on a carpet source? I want it to match as perfect as possible.



Its not actually touching the seat back. About .25 or so from top. Thats with the seat in my normal driving position.


I will have to remove the hook. Ill have to search for a how to on that when the time comes.

For the LOC: I spliced into the wires in the dash behind the head unit. No reason to take apart the doors. There is a thread on here somewhere with wire colors (saw it earlier today). The dash and door speakers are run off the same wires from the headunit.
I want to say they are all the green wires, and the grays are for the rears. *shrug*

The mock up looks pretty good. I wanted to be able to recline to the full extent possible (and can) so mine is tappered a lot more. I think you'll be very happy with this when it's all done.

The hooks are easy to remove, pop them into the 'open position, then stick a flat blade straight down into them, and slightly depress the inside piece of the hook, it will then release allowing the hook part to fully extend out of the way, revealing a Torx (T27?).

For the box width, I went with a total of 21.5" (19" panels, and then 3/4" for the sides)
Fit right up to the divider on the package tray. Of course, I didn't fit it inside the tray either.

WhiteExpress said:

There is a thread on here somewhere with wire colors (saw it earlier today).

I wanted to be able to recline to the full extent possible (and can) so mine is tappered a lot more. I think you'll be very happy with this when it's all done.

For the box width, I went with a total of 21.5" (19" panels, and then 3/4" for the sides).

Click to expand...

I have the thread bookmarked already. Its for an older model but sounds like everyones had success with newer models.

Tapering it back has been a possible tweak. It only bugs me that the lines of the box slope and the seat back arent more parallel. If i widen the box, ill gain some volume. Which would allow me to shorten the thickness of the top. In turn, increasing the slope angle. The key to how much i can shorten the top depth is the mounting depth clearance. As it is, i have an estimated .5 inch or so to play with. Ill have to check it on my computer model before i finalize.

Does the 21.5" hide behind your seat? I was thinking maybe 20" just to be safe. Not that that small of a difference would really matter, but i dont want any 'i-wish-i-would-ofs'.

Thanks for the advice.

Yessir! I'll try and take some pictures to show you tomorrow.
Mind you, my enclosure also buts up against the B pillar trim at the bottom.

If you've never removed the package tray, I don't think you can even see this area (might be wrong, don't remember!)

One of my main concerns was to keep it 'practically invisible' I didn't want my window shattering and it growing legs.

Looks good, keep up the hard work. It's all worth it in the end.

Pictures of how my box 'hides' behind the seat.
This is between the driver's door and the B pillar:


And this is looking straight back at the edge of the drivers seat:


Hides pretty damned well IMO. You can get an idea of how far over it comes based on the 'hook' on the cab wall too (as well as how tall my box is)