People w/ subs in rear door...

[VehiCrazy]

I am curious how it is working for you?? I am concerned about how well the rear door is structually, does it rattle terribly (hinges, latch, door popper, etc.)??

I have read several posts here on people that have done it, but not much on how it sounds or if it rattles. I currently have the entire back half interior gutted and am poised to embark on my install. I still can't decide if I should go through the trouble of making custom enclosures and (gasp!) cut the interior panels...

So, please, those of you that have done the sub in the rear door thing (especially the high power/ big sub people) let me know how well it worked sound-wise.

Thanks,
Jason

[Navigator]

...The rear hatch was made to hold the weight of a heavy spare tire, so by comparison a sub is no big deal. No problems detected after 2 years of use, so I'd say it's safe and has no negative effects on anything.

You'll have to come to a local meet to find out how it sounds, I can tell you mine is awsome, but you've got to hear it for yourself Mine is a custom sealed unit inspired by Tone's baffle board.

[VehiCrazy]

Navigator,

So no audible rattles from the rear door?

[WormGod]

I dont have my sub mounted in the rear hatch yet, but have done a few preparatory things to be ready when I do. In some parts of the rear hatch, I Dynamatted. Not too many places you can access easily in there and its pretty contoured, so Dynamatting is a pretty good headache in there. For other areas, such as weld joints and hard to reach areas for Dynamat, you can use a good spray insulation. I didnt imagine myself ever wanted to toy with much in there after I had the sub enclosure in, so I just spray insulated everything, even over top of the Dynamat. Watch you dont spray your lock mechanism though, heh. That wouldnt be a very intelligent thing to do. Other than that, packing the area with some polyfill before closing it up with reduce sound waves in the space and aid in keeping down any vibration through the hatch to the body of the vehicle.

I have heard Navigators hatch system and its quite nice. Not as beefy as my 12" bandpass system, but it does look better than mine.

*elbows Nav in the ribs*

[UtahVXer]

I've had mine in for 3 months with no rattling -- no dynamatting either;
I have a sealed fiberglass enclosure.

[VehiCrazy]

Thanks for the replies.

WormGod,
Which type of bandpass did you build, single-reflex or dual-reflex? I am impressed that you pulled it off, those are very difficult types of boxes to build. I've tried twice and failed twice...

[Navigator]

Originally posted by VehiCrazy
Navigator,

So no audible rattles from the rear door?

If you install it right there will be no rattles.

It took some work, but I managed to seal out the rattles. The bass is loud and clear. What I did was Dynomat the spare tire area, then seal every void in the rear door around the outside of the spare with packing foam, then used a 3 foot by 1 foot rectangle of 3 inch thick egg crate foam to seal the baffle board over the top of the spare tire AND tucked that under the metal lip of the rear door. A bowl of dead air remains, made up of the space inside the rim of the spare and the back of the sub. That sealed the back wave of the subwoofer from the front making the bass precise and clear.

[Radiologue]

I have had my sub enclosure in the rear door since March of '03 and have been very pleased. You may have to trouble shoot some rattles initially after install. I was able to resolve all rattles with minimal effort. If you go super big / super power then I doubt it will be easy to avoid all rattles easily.

Highly recommended mod though!!!

[kpaske]

I installed my custom sub enclosure / amp rack in Aug 2003. See a photo in my gallery here:

If you are building a sealed enclosure like I did, you shouldn't have much trouble damping your rear door. I used BQuiet's Brown Bread damping material, which is better (and a bit more expensive) than Dynamat, but any damping material should help reduce vibrations. With a sealed enclosure, you won't have to worry about covering every square inch of space - only the wide, flat surfaces really vibrate anyway. (Contrary to popular believe, Dynamat and other damping materials do very little to block soundwaves from travelling through, rather, they decrease vibration.) You might also want to consider getting a liscense plate kit - that was the only part of my rear door that rattled - and backing it with BQuiet's VLiner material solved that problem.

As for the hinges, the VX has some pretty heavy duty hinges on that rear door. My enclosure, subs, and amp weigh at least 50-60 pounds, and I've noticed no undue stress in nearly a year. The only thing I've had to be careful of is when parked on a slope (like the parking spot in front of my home) the hinges aren't always strong enough to keep the weight of the door from swinging shut. I've also installed the rear door popper, and while it doesn't always pop the door completely open (I sometimes have to hit it a few times), I believe I can solve that by adjusting the cables a bit. I just haven't got around to it yet.

Sound quality depends on a lot of factors - what type of equipment you are using, how well the enclosure is sealed, volume of the enclosure, etc. The acoustics inside the VX, when properly dampened, are incredible. The thing I love the most about my system is that when all the windows are up and the doors are closed, you can hardly hear anything outside, but inside you are engulfed in clean sound. My only regret is that while my subs hit hard and low, I know that two Orion XTRPro 12's can go even louder and lower, had they been given more volume. With my amp rack and two 12's shoved into that tiny space, I provided the minimum internal volume for them to work properly, but had I gone with a much larger box, those Orions can just put out some incredible bass. If I had to do it over again, I would either make the box larger (so it sticks out of the door more, or eliminate the amp rack), or go with 2 - 10's (which normally aren't capable of the same sound as 2 - 12's, but given the proper internal volume, might sound better than 2 cramped 12's). But all in all, my system still sounds incredible and can play a wide range of music (from Classical to Metal to Techno to Rap) at high volume and virtually no distortion by adjusting only the settings at the head unit. For my first major install on my own, I think it sounds perty damn good.