10" sub in spare tire!

Originally Posted by Chimaera

Hi Everyone,

Sorry to tag onto an almost 1-year old thread, but thought it would be better to keep this information together rather than starting another.

I was inspired by the several examples that members have shared and wanted to contribute another example for those who might want to take a stab at making their own stealth sub box that fits inside of the spare tire. I have a '10 base+sport so I believe the spare is a little larger inside to clear the brakes vs the non-sports.

I used the Pioneer TS-SW251 10", 4ohm shallow mount sub and a Rockford Fosgate Punch 500-1bd. The sub is speced at needing 0.35ft^3 to 0.70ft^3 for a sealed box enclosure. Based on the inner diameter of the MDF pieces I used I was expecting 0.46ft^3. Going by how many packing peanuts I could get in the enclosure at the end I probably only ended up getting 0.42ft^3. I am not sure that I could do much better than this as I feel like I really sculpted the rings to take up every bit of free space. The rings are only about 1/2" to 5/8" wide - outside diameter minus inside diameter - (I think people like to use 3/4" thick MDF for square boxes) but being circular and braced against the metal of the spare rim I decided to take a chance. I used 6x 3/4" thick rings and 1/2" thick pieces for the top and bottom. All these pieces were glued and screwed together. I also threw in some polyfil on the inside to help the enclosure act a little bigger.

The top of the speaker is just a little taller than the styrofoam spacer that goes around the spare. Once you put the plastic shelf/sheet thing and the trunk carpet over the sub you can't tell it is there from the outside looking in. I may come back and try to protect the speaker some more, but I feel like it will be fine with light stuff in the back like groceries, which is all that ever goes in the truck these days.

The speaker still needs to break in, but the sub seems to put out a decent amount of bass. It won't win any SPL awards or wake the neighbours from a block away, but it fills out the car and the stereo well enough. I got the bass boost control knob and mounted it where the heated seat switches are on the touring models. This lets me increase the gain on the bass easily when I want more for a particular song.

Thanks for taking a look. Enjoy the pictures.