Amps under front seats?

[BrAdZ]

Anyone done this?

Due to a lack of space in the boot, i want to put a 2ch amp under both front seats to power front and rear speakers..... Good Idea?

Many Thanks

Adam

[E30BeemerLad]

alright as long as your carpets are dry mate, good handy earthing points where the seats runners bolt to the floor less hassle to run the power switching lead to just under the front seats than all the way to the boot too. They might get a bit warm though and rear seat passengers may inadvertantly kick them by mistake

Edit - depends also on whether you have the battery in the boot or under the bonnet

[Steviec]

Im not sure that it will fit and you may also have a over heating problem.

Could you not put it in one of the side pockets in the boot in a little build? Thats how im going to do mine.

[hoshy]

This is a good idea. Heating must be taken care of though. I've not installed an amp yet but I will be putting mine under the passenger's seat. My CD player is under the driver's seat.

I use a bit of steel to attach it. width of the seat mounting bots (used as anchors) deep enough to allow the cdchanger mounting brackets to be bolted on, 1mm thickness so that the seat will still bolt on to the posts. This is a very secure way to attach it and mean you can change the CDs easily.

As for the amp, I'm planning on doing the same thing mounting wise. this is good beacuse I already have speaker wires (good qualily stuff) fitted in and I *really* don't want to have to rip it out for power and signal wires. It's also better to run the strong, amplified signal down the length of the car as the long cable runs are more likely to affect the low power line level signal before amplification.

Connection wise I've just got to run power and signal to the passengers seat and pull the spearker cables from the stereo back a bit to the seat. much easier than a full reinstall.

[BrAdZ]

Ok, well it will be a proper job, i would be taking all the seats and carpet out so all wires are 100% hidden, i know there is a heating duct under the seats..... i was thinking of taking that out, so you say make a bracket to mount the amp onto the seat mounting points? and not drill into the floor?

If the amp mounted sideways.... so only the heatsink could be kicked by passengers that wouldnt be so bad.....

I guess i need to get amps with fans built in to aid cooling....

[Steviec]

If your after an amp, the Maystart QX series have built in fans, are pretty cheap and I havnt managed to blow one up (I used to compete in db competitions).

[hoshy]

On the drivers side there is a flap of carpet (maybe this is around the heating duct) that you can run the wires through to make a nice job of the cableing.

My braket worked like a charme. little bit of this steel two drill bits and you're away. It can be a little tight to get the nut back on the seat post but once on you can really clamp the bracket down with the ratchet.

[BrAdZ]

Ok excellent!

Thanks Guys

Better look for some amps, really look the look of the blaupunkt ones

[Steviec]

Personally I wouldnt touch Blaupunkt, I used to work for Halfords and most of the Blaupunkt head units we sold, we got back a few weeks later cos the internal amps kept packing up.

[E30BeemerLad]

best off going to decent audio makes, like rockford, Alpine, Genesis etc, the power outputs might look lame on a Ԛ£250 rockford amp with 40 Watts per channel but it will kick out a much better noise than a 1000 watt Halfords Ԛ£150 effort.

[Andy_magic]

I'm a fan of Alpine stuff, not cheap but very nice quality.

[BrAdZ]

i know i know.......

Not keen on alpine amps, but i do like kenwood amps

Blaupunkt seam pretty good, wouldnt touch one of there H/U's though

http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/index.p ... 9b64330027

[placey]

an alternative to under the seats you may want to consider is behind the rear quarters for 2 door cars....a bit of cooling is built in from the boot air flaps.

if mounting under the seats then i've always made the amp base slightly longer than the rear end of the amp and glued and screwed a trimmed piece of mdf to it - hence passengers kick the trim and not the amp. also makes it less visible - always good! if adjustments need to be accessible this can be hinged and clipped for easy access.

if this is not clear i'll draw a diagram and post it over the coming days. i won't bother if not requested though.

hth - paul

[ognam]

placey... would love to see how you pulled it off..

[artis2]

be carefull putting them under the seats , i tryed this and they keeped over heating , someone here said get fan assited amps ill aggree with that if you gonna go under the seats with them , the boot is the best place for amps thay have all the air thay need and its always cooler in the boot

[placey]

ognam - i have my amps in a boot rack for my current setup so cannot show pictures. i've installed amps under seats many times though. shout if you want me to draw a diagram.

another trick i've used is to spike the amp base at each corner - say with a wood screw - the push these gently into the carpet - the whole lot stays in place rather well without further hassle! this has the advantage of giving most available air space above the amp - hence overheating has never been a problem.

paul