Amp Rack build

[jdc753]

I had a couple of questions on this so I figured I would post some detailed shots of how it all got put together.

I got my truck prepped and removed all the unnecessary things from behind the seat this left me with a bit of room to work with but not too much.

Here is the amp rack as it is now taking shape.






With the basic back wall and floor formed I figured out how I wanted to mount the amps and such. For this I actually fiddled around with the design in AutoCad. Drew in the amps outer dimensions and the dimensions I had to work with and from there just fiddled around to see what would maximize the space. This brought me to this design with some runners to mount the amps to and put them out at the angle to follow the seat back.







Drilled holes to pass the wires through.


Next part was to mount the crossovers, looks like I am going active now though so these behemoths will be getting put back in the box pretty soon, but until I can rebuild the amp rack they will stay put to keep things looking decent. They are mounted with pretty much a small triangle piece that spaces teh 1/2" mdf panel off the back wall and angles it right. As I built the amp rack things changed slightly from my "perfect" autocad drawings so I had to add a 1/4" mdf panel over the 1/2" panel to push the crossovers out more so they would be flush into the 1/2" cover/beauty panel.







With things mounted up I could wire things up.

Here is the back side with about half the wires run. This is the power/ground for the computer and 100.4 as well as the 4 channel RCA to the 100.4 and 2-channel RCA from the computer as well as 4 channels of speaker wire from the 100.4 to the crossovers. The other 2 large holes were drilled for more of an airflow/cooling idea.


In the process of mocking things up for the power/ground and audio runs. All audio related wires exit the amp rack on the drivers side, while all computer related wires exit on the passenger side. So far I have no issues at all with power related noise with the RCA wires being this close to the power wires.


Next with all this completed I can start on the cover panel. This is where things get a little bit tricky. I will admit at first I did things backwards, I had the amps/crossovers mounted in pretty much concrete locations, this makes it very hard to build the beauty panel that will exactly work around these locations. So after learning from my mistakes I opened up the amp openings on the runners so the amps could move around some. Then I built the beauty panel the way I wanted it to look and moved the amps accordingly so they showed through the panel just right. I made the openings on the beauty panel an 1/8" big on each end of the amps and then 1/4" big along the sides of the amps. I could probably go a bit bigger as 1/8" leaves just enough room for the carpet but 1/4" is about right and leaves a small gap around the amp.













This is before I cut a new top panel to fix the mis-alignment you see in this pic.




With the front panel all cut the rest was pretty simple to complete. If I remember correctly there is a 15° bevel on the top and bottom of the front panel so that it matches with the top and bottom and not leave and ugly angle. Also when working with 1/2" mdf brad nailer is key, this thing would have been junk if I tried using screws. Nailer just makes it soo much easier and near idiot proof, and I need as much idiot proof as I can get lol.








At this point I am happy enough with the product to go ahead and put some carpet on it. This is only the second time I have carpeted something and the first time it really turned out crappy lol. This wasn't too hard though since it didn't have to be wrapped fully, just needed the front face, so essentially no seems needed to be made. I just started at the top and wrapped it down to the bottom, then folded over the sides and cut carefully with a razor blade on the sides. Then from there cut out the amp and crossover openings with a razor blade and folded them in.





Test fit


and Final product, until version 2 is built lol.


I most certainly don't claim to be an expert of any kind just figuring things out as I go along lol. I learned a lot with this, much of which is no plan no matter how well layed out ever survives the execution intact. I have yet to run into heat issues but I only have the 100.4 running, when the computer and 1500D are going things may change but that is something that will go into the rebuild on version 2 as well as ditching the crossovers, maybe a nice SI or Sundown logo can go in that spot instead.

[ccrobbins]

Looks great! It's a shame nobody will get to see it.

[CrazyKenKid]

i think it looks quite clean and very professional! congrats!

o hey if you have a heat issue i actualy have 4 brand new fans which i will NOT be using. they have never been used only b/c i was plaaning on putting my amps undermy rear seat but in turn learned that i didn't have the space i though i had, so now i have some extra fans if you need let me know and we will go from there


but all the same congrats, and in my opion you may run in to a heat problem only b/c your seats will be close to the amps and there will be little or no movement of air, the 100.4 should be fine but the 1500 is what you will have to watch out for b/c it will be making all the heat!

cheers mate!

[toyrunner]

Looks D@mm GOOD !

[jdc753]

thanks guys

I will most certainly be keeping an eye on heat issues and make sure to address them in the future.