Chief Gunner

I just picked up a 5 channel amp and I am looking for mounting idea. I was thinking of mounting under the front seat, but I think it might be too big. The second location I'm thinking about is under the rear seat. I wanted to see what others have come up with for amp mounting location. I am trying to keep everything out of site as much as possible. I have a mono sub that mounts in the little cubby hole in the rear passenger side. I want to try and keep the interior clean and simple if possible. Thanks in advance.

EatonXJ

My amps are under the rear seat. Nothing picture worthy as I am waiting until the weather gets hot to see if they are going to overheat or not before I mount them permanently.

Jeepification

Mines on the back of the sub enclosure so I can remove it all quickly for extra storage.

Chief Gunner

Not gonna have a tradition sub enclosure. I have a tiny pod that bolts into the small cubby hole in the rear of the Jeep.

by921

Storage boxI had mine in a vented section of the box

XJRed96

is that a drawer on the bottormor does the top lift up?

XJlimitedx99

Under the rear seat. Perfect set-up.

by921

Now i have this with the amps mounted to the ousides of the box<br/>

investinwaffles

I have a 4-ch amp under the rear bench on the drivers side, and I have my sub amp on the pass side (under the rear bench as well).

I'll snap some pics for you in a few mins

investinwaffles

After taking these pics I realize my wiring looks super lazy, but it was because i had my amps in another location before and didn't want to waste expensive power wire

[also because I am lazy when it comes to wiring]








The foam and random cloth are to sandwich the amps in place so they don't move around.
Zero heat issues, that 4-channel amp has been in that same location for about 4 years now, lots of long 8+hr road trips and never once shut-down on me.

Chief Gunner

I appreciate it. I am thinking that is where my amp will go (passenger side bench seat). I just want to see some pictures of how you mounted and installed them so I have a better idea of what I need to do.

Chief Gunner

That JL Audio looks about the size of my amp. Looks like it will be a good fit there. Any issues with heat build up at all?

investinwaffles

The amps will get warm after about 2hrs of use, but even in the summer time I have yet to have any heat related issues. The subwoofer amp is new as of a few months ago, but should be fine in the summer as well.

Honestly, the only audio component that gets alarmingly hot is the headunit, when I am running the heater on full blast in the winter. Thing gets SUPER hot and I even sealed up the HVAC vents in that area with aluminum tape to try and keep it cooler.

I did see someone that actually installed 80mm fans (12v computer fans) along the bottom of the bench seat (in the floor-pan sheet-metal where it forms the cubby for under the rear seat). He installed them to blow air over the amps, wired to a relay using the amp turn-on wire as a trigger so it turned on only when the head-unit was on. Can't find the pics though...


EDIT:
There is tons of horizontal area, but not much "vertical" area, the JL amp I have sits pretty high up in the cubby, which is sloped behind it. The Pioneer 600w sub amp is much shorter and fits with more clearance.
With the yellow piece of foam jankly placed on-top of the JL amp, it keeps it fairly squished in place, no rattles from under there.
You can see the clearance on the trans tunnel is more than enough for 4-ga wiring, probably not a whole lot thicker though. I ran KnuKonceptz oversized 0 gauge wire down the drivers, side - you can see it in connecting to my fused distribution block (thick red wire)

Chief Gunner

Those are some great pictures. I checked my amp this afternoon, and it looks like the best place is under the driver side bench seat. I can run power cable from battery, around the side and back of the engine bay tied into a factory wiring loom. There is a "plug" that covers a hole just above the factory wiring loom that goes into the interior. I think I can run speaker wire and RCA patch cables down the seated of the trans hump to the amp as well. Now, it looks like you cut out and removed the carpet around the amp correct? Also, how do you have your amp secured? Otherwise, I like what you did and it looks like that is the way I need to go.

investinwaffles

Right now, I have everything "unsecured" and just sandwiched with foam or cloth.

If you look at the pics closely, it is really easy to just drill holes in the floorboard to secure the amps. You could use self-tappers, or that area is pretty wide open underneath the truck.

My plan is to use some one-way screws with lock washers + nuts on the underside to prevent theft. You would need one person under the truck holding the nut, and another going at the 1-way screw with vice grips or cutting a slot in the head to get it out quickly (which is easy enough for me to do when I need to service things, but no thief is going to waste the time)

You can easily fit 0/1 gauge wire in the factory firewall grommet, or you can use one of those self-sealing bushings like this;

0/1 gauge was pretty difficult to fit down the interior molding - I had to get longer screws and washers because the factory screws wouldn't fit with the thick wire. But I wanted the option to run a rear battery, 12v air compressor, 12v fridge, etc off a single distribution box (I am using one from KnuKonceptz, you can see it in the pics) so I am glad I went oversized from the get-go.