http://www.kicker.com/comp_vt

Looking at the CVT8 specs, the Watts are 400/200 peak/RMS. No way the anemic Shelby Kicker 4.1 is kicking out anything near 200 RMS to those subs.

I enjoy my setup, but I feel they are fairly underpowered on the door sub end of things.


The door subs use bare wire connections:




While the 5x7s use Ford harness plugs.





The rear sub is powered with a box-mounted amp, but gets its signal off the Kicker 4.1 amp, which feeds off the factory harness.



Is there an easy way to run a better amp to the doors/rear deck?

 

Easy way? No, not that I know.

Extremely difficult, PITA, wish you hadn't done it at all in the first place way?
Why yes! There's that way...












And now I'll be pulling out all that hard work cause it weighs too much and makes my car too porky to compete with the none-too-light Nismo 350Z in TTB in my NASA region.

 

Post up how you like it with only the CVT8s and door/deck speakers.


I am contemplating dumping my trunk sub as well. Replacing the door/deck speakers and adding a 4 and 2 channel amp for it all.

 

I had that for some time, thought it'd be nice to have the big 12 in the trunk. I'm not a bass junkie, don't like shaking the windows of the vehicle I'm in and the ones sitting next to me. In fact, tempted to slash the tires of those that do (they'd never notice -- they're all deaf).

So ultimately wasted time and money. The CVT8s don't handle their full rated power in the doors without vibrating everything and causing resonance/rattles, but do add quite a bit to the deck/door speakers. Those actually do a decent job themselves, I have Kappas, and with enough power they sound great. The 12" was the only thing that really shook the rearview mirror at low volume levels, though.

 

I was wondering about that. the door enclosures dont seem like theyd be able to contain the output of some decent 8s.Think maybe some dynamt on the doors would be enough?

 

No, doubt it. They're plastic and flexy, and the cavity behind them for the window is the problem -- everything just rattles when the power goes up. Not the best place for a sub. The kick panel molded pieces out there are a better idea.

As a mid-bass location they're fine, but asking a door mount 8" to really deliver low frequencies isn't the best. Put two on a ported box, and yeah they'll do fine, but the tiny tub where they sit doesn't give any decent low frequency.

 

Ok, ill most likely have a sub in the trunk, so ill be counting on those mostly for midbass anyways.

 

I disagree with the above post. I have the Shelby Kicker subs and after a suggestion from kicker themselves I dynamatted the rear of the door panel, the inside of the woofer opening and the door itself. and with no more than 100 watts each they sound absolutely amazing. The dynamat stiffened up the enclosure just enough to greatly improve the performance of the woofer and prevent rattling.

 

No argument that they sound good, I definitely like mine, but no way you're getting true low frequency sound from an 8" speaker in a 1" dinky cutout in the door. If you want 30Hz, this won't do it. A 12" sub in the trunk will. Or even two 8" subs in a decent sized enclosure.

Dynamat will help with vibrations (while also cutting down on road noise I imagine, and making the doors even heavier) but don't change the frequency response of a speaker.

 

I am not arguing that at all, just saying using dynamat greatly improves the woofers ability to do it's job by strengthening the enclosure and help it from being a rattle box. The woofer can only reproduce the frequency it's manufactured to and only if it's sent the reproducible frequency from the amp so that I agree with you 100%. I am only sending 300-500 frequency to the 8's as my 13" Stealthbox does all the lows.

 

Then we're saying the same thing I've got down to 160 or so to the 8s, and lower to the 12". I think the 8s can get to 100 or so easily, but around there is where I get rattles if any decent power goes to them.

I personally think I'll be plenty happy going back to just the 8s and the 6x8s, and forego the 12" entirely, but that's the type of music I listen to. Interesting experiment with the big sub, though, never had one before.

 

What amount of watts can stocks reach before bottoming out? How can I prevent them from getting too much power I have a powered 12 in the trunk so no amp for them should I disable the stock amps for the door subs?

 

I wouldn't give the stock subs any more than what the factory amps produce. I would keep the fronts as they are if you don't intend on changing the subs. If you do change the subs then change the amp

 

Good to know, I'm glad the dynamat is able to aid that much. Yea like you guys were discussing ill probably cut them off some where in the mid to upper 100 Hz. I'm jsut looking for good clean midbass out of them