Regular Cab amplifiers

Under my seats is all tools. But that's a really good way to go, that's how my crew cab is setup.

 

Yeah that's some scary stuff. Collarbones heal, but hearing damage is forever.


I might get to put this back together tonight. I think I'll disconnect the battery now.

 

Luckily the airbag in the dash is pretty easy to work around. All the wiring is in yellow loom so you can avoid it.
When working in the steering column, most of the wiring is bundled together. This makes it easy to make a mistake.

What happened in his scenario,
We military splice all of our connections. This requires cutting away the rubber insulation without damaging the copper wire inside. We use fresh razor blades for this.
He was trimming the insulation on the main ignition wire going to the key cylinder (this wire is always live, and is a high-amperage wire)
His blade nicked into another wire, which unfortunately was a wire going to the airbag. The blade became a jumper from the live ignition wire over to the airbag wire, and that triggered it.


Luckily you’re not cutting/splicing near the passenger dash air bag, and like I said, it’s all yellow so you know what to avoid.
But again, an extra step of caution never hurt anybody

 

I have done TONS of research on a sub amp that is powerful, yet insanely compact. If you want available power output and flexibility of install config, my best advice is go with a SKAR audio SKM5000.1D compact amplifier. It measures some 7" wide by 4.5 inches long. It's a monoblock so it will handle resistances of 4 ohms down to 1 ohm. The less resistance you have running through the amp the higher the power, it goes up to 500 watts RMS @1 ohm. Has a remote bass knob for independent sub volume control. It's the perfect little amp for anyone looking to rock sound in tight spaces.

If you want flexibility on install and variable resistance option I would go with a DVC subwoofer in the 2 ohm variety. It will allow you installs in 1 ohm all the way to 4 ohms as well to match the amp. I can give you more info if you want but that should be enough to get you started.

 

Yikes. Military splice seems like a lot of extra time, but I bet you don't get much in the way of callbacks.

The first step on the procedure i was reading was to unplug the airbag, so that's what I did, then wriggled it out and put it on a shelf, away from the usual mayhem.

 

Once you get used to military splices, they’re fine. I absolutely do not use t-taps or anything like that.

But we for sure do military splice when doing remote starts. That and a little dab of solder and that wire is not coming loose.
The last thing I want is to have to tear a car BACK apart to troubleshoot loose wires.
Do it right, do it once

 

Agreed. I don't splice wires often, but that's definitely the way to do it if you have to.

I keep a few of those taps on hand, behind a break glass in case of emergency sign. There's almost never a case to use them unless it's totally temporarily.



Also, I noticed the kicker key has a USB port. Now i want to tear one apart and see what dsp they've got in there, and if I can play with it.

 

Just in case someone finds this thread and wants more pictures.

 

I wanted to keep my under seat space free for some zippered canvas bags I keep under there, for random cables and tools that I use often.

I'm using my headunit amp for the front main cab speakers, front channel is running the tweeters in stock location, and the rear channels driving the door speakers. And I lined and sealed the doors.

More than enough for me, although I could use a smaller, or custom box for my sub, to reclaim some space.

With a single cab, you can't really store anything back there anyways.

 

Can you send a pic of the sub box

 

Here is what I have now, going to rebuild box and make an amplifier board for the amp and ham radio, eventually.

 

Is that a 12”? And is the actual subwoofer a shallow mount?

I have been struggling with my regular cab passenger seat not being able to tilt back all the way.... super annoying for the wife... do you have a link to your box??

 

Although not the best amp for a sub these Pioneer power packs are plenty for the small cab and thin sheet metal of the Tacoma.
I mounted mine using the clutch pedal mounting point.

 

Glad to know you like the pioneer! I’ve used the Alpine, Kicker, and Kenwood versions. Everybody makes one these days and so far none have disappointed

 

I've become a fan of these little amps because of there power consumption efficiency. I had an older class A amp before that had a parasitic draw of 8mA with the ignition key out. These class D amplifiers only draw .12mA. That's a calculated dead battery in 78 days vs 14 years. (Yes I know self discharge and the alarm system will kill a battery faster that 14 years)
While playing heavy rock loud the old class A amp drew 3.3A average vs 390mA average for the class D. A 25W solar panel can just about keep up with the current draw of the stereo system with the class D. This is comforting while starting the truck after a weekend desert camp trip.

 

I wasn’t there for the testing so I won’t say that’s incorrect, but that sounds off to me.
Ive put an amp clamp on an Alpine power pack at about 75% volume and it was pulling about 9 amps @ 14.4V

 

0.39 mA is .0056 watts at 14.4v. Hmmmm.

 

Opps, typo. Should be 390mA not .390mA. Edited my original post.

How I got this measurement is with a Fluke 87 multimeter. This meter has a recording function that samples at 1mS. I can cycle through recorded displays of maximum, minimum and average amperes. After several minutes of recording the average amperage stabilized and that's the measurement I saved. I did not write down the peak amps but sure was much higher. I suspect if I had made a measurement with a 50hz sine wave I would have seen much higher amps. I figure actual music has a much low duty cycle (not sure this is the correct term) than a pure sine wave. This may explain the low average amps I recorded.

 

I have the bench seat, and I'm only 5'9", so don't need the move the seat back far enough to interfere with the sub.

Its a 12 inch Kicker shallow mount sub, I bought it and the box in downtown Los Angeles, so I don't a link to the box.

My plan is to rebuild the box to fit under the cross bar on the back of the cab, so it will be a bit shorter, and a bit wider, to allow for the seat to move all the way back, and not interfere when I get buckets.

 

Yes!! Exactly what I was thinking... just get a table saw, cut the box, then reseal it up. What would you use for resealing? Gorilla glue and screws? Then caulk then edges and then put the carpet back on? It can be difficult to reseal the sub box sometimes....