After getting bored of the stock audio, and viewing numerous car shows I decided it was time to upgrade my system. What started off as a simple rear seat delete grew quite a bit. I decided to install new front splits, headunit, 2 ten inch sub woofers and a 5 channel amp to power it all.

Rear seats out and I made a box for the amp.



Made a top deck for the amp and the scaffolding to house the crossover units for the front splits.



Sound deadening and mounting brackets for the sub box.



Crossover units fibreglassed up using duct tape as a frame work to get the shape right.



Vinyled up.



Front frame work in place to house the sub woofers.



Fibreglassed the bottom of the sub woofer box.



The top deck was cut out, and covered in vinyl and carpet. Subs and amps installed and its pretty much good to go.



When I got it back from the shop who wired it up for me I installed some LEDs to light it up.



It didnt give me much free time though. Enjoy.

 

Awesome!

 

that looks goood!!

 

 

So what brand and model equipment did you go with?

Looks like a very clean install.

 

Thanks guys.

Amp is an 1100 W 5 Channel amp made by polk audio. Model is 1100.5.



The subs are 2 x 10" Polk Audio mm1040 woofers.



Front splits are JVC CS-WDS1, here is a pic:



And wow do they sound incredible.

Headunit is the Pioneer DEH-P88RS

 

Sick job! That looks great!

 

Where's the "bow down" smiley when you need it? I guess this will do.

Great work, very clean.

 

That is really purty. The rear seat delete sure gives you freedom.

 

Looks really really nice!

Can you give some more details about how you made your sub box? Since the seat part under the box isnt flat, how did you make secure your box? Or any other details would be great!

Its like a rear seat delete without buying a rear seat delete!

 

If you take a look at this photo:



You will notice in the centre there are two bolts sticking out, these were the mounting screws for the rear seat backs, so they hold the sub box in place. Note that the sub box is mounted to this panel, but I don't have any photos that show this.

If you look at this photo:



You can see the side walls for the sub box held loosely in place. These were bolted up and the whole sub box was installed into the car. I covered the seat bottom in aluminium foil and masking tape and applied layers of fibreglass to the curved section making a perfect mold of the seat bottoms.

Any questions guys feel free to ask.. All you need to do this is some mdf, 200 screws, drill, jigsaw, sander and a router. And other things... including no life.

 

Great job on a very nice install!

 

Ok, a question. Can you still access the fuel filter and fuel pump? I guess that you left yourself some way of changing out the sub-woofers if needed and that the hole created could give you enough room.

 

The box the subwoofers are in is 99.9% airtight so if I removed the subwoofer this is no way of getting to the fuel filter or fuel pump covers as there is a layer of fibreglass in the way. So to change the filter and what not I have to remove the sub box and a couple wires attaching them to the amp. Then cut the sound deadening to get to the covers. Would prob add an extra 30 min to the labour time to work on the fuel pump. Good thing I dont have to do that too often. :p

 

Those wooden speaker cones are pretty wild. I guess you almost don't want to put speaker grills over them.

I was going to go with the Kappa Perfects with their aluminum cones, but went with regular Kappas instead. The added rigidity would not come into play until it reached volume levels way beyond what I listen to.

 

Thanks for the extra details!

One more quick question, how is the fiberglass bottom joined with the mdf? Did you just fiberglass onto the mdf?

 

Thanks everyone.

Yeah I had to show them off. So the guys who wired in the system also made the housing for the speakers.



I roughed up the mdf a bit with sand paper and some coarse files for added measure and just fibreglass straight onto the mdf.

 

Can you please re-upload your pictures?

 

Done.

 

Wow. Thats amazingly clean. Well worth the ask for the pictures.
I dont own a MINI yet. I plan on buying in the spring, but I want the install to be perfect. So I am planning all of it out now.

 

Thanks. Spent 6 months working on the audio system, doing what I could in my spare time. Before then was a good month to 2 months of getting ideas from the net and designing it up, planning how it will be constructed, as well as how to finance it all because it is not that cheap of a path to go down. In the end though it was so so soooo worth it. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

 

This is an amazing install man. I for one have been an audiophile for a long time installing car audio and this is one of the cleanest DIY jobs I have seen. For now (because I can't afford the fiberglass materials) I just built standard boxes to house my subs but I will be doing a rear seat delete and tagging right along with this type of set up

 

This is a really slick install. Any chances you still have the templates for the amp rack? Its the best rack I've seen that would leave useable space.

Thanks
Austin

 

Hi Austin,

Thanks for the compliments. I did the amp storage area from scratch and all the measurements I had have been thrown out. It was fairly straight forward though so easy some what to replicate. I placed a layer of 9 mm mdf on the bottom and measured out the size of the amp. Then placed supports around this area to hold up the new carpeted floor. This box can be seen in the top photo on this page.