I was tired of my amps looking like this: (This lovely amp rack is trn’s handy work )



So I got off my butt and built a proper-ish amp shelf:




The rack rests on a little shelf like lip in the back and is held in place up front by some simple metal strapping.

Since I don’t know anything about car stereos I knew I would want to have the amp adjustments up front where I could get to them easily.




Here is a simple diagram of the shape of the shelf (not to scale):




I still have to clean up but it looks a lot dirtier in the pictures than in real life, damn you harsh lighting, and you can see where I "repaired" my 5 year old Kenwood amp with a Sharpe. (I'm poor right now, saving for a supercharger, so didn't see any point in replacing something that looks ugly but works great)

I made the shelf out of 3/8 inch plywood and covered it with a solid corduroy (seriously, it’s thin and light) using Elmer’s Craft Bond glue then used 6mm staples every inch or so on the back to make sure the cloth doesn’t go anywhere.

I used pieces of card board to prototype the shape and make sure it would actually fit. This saved me several wrong turns and allowed me to test exactly how wide I could make the board and still have it fit into the hole.

I had to insert it at an angle and then install the amps onto the board. I guess you could make it about 18.75 inches and you could install the amps before hand (the hole is 19 inches wide). My amps needed a little more room than that so I was forced to go as wide as I could.

I can’t really say how long it actually took me to do it because I had to go to the hardware store twice and had family over in the middle of the building but I got it done in a day. If I had to guess I would say it took me about 3 hours. But again, I had no idea what I was doing.

 

MUCH better!

 

Much much better looks clean

 

Nice job!

Good write up too ... giving me some ideas too.

Clean and simple.

 

damn can you say spagetti wires?? looks sooo much better...nice job

 

good job! it is so much cleaner

 

Nice! Much better than the previous.

I did something similar a few monthso ago... even used the little metal straps to secure the front. Its almost the same shape too!

 

Looks a lot better, well worth a few hours of work

The original look was my favorite Ghetto amp install pic though

 

Yep, I saw your rack when I was looking for ideas and thought the strapping was a great idea, for a rack that no one would see, so I stole the idea from you.

Your's is a lot cleaner looking though; it helps having matching amps like you do. I'm only allowing myself to spend a few bucks a month on the car while I save for the supercharger so matching amps will have to wait for now.

 

OEM Sub area. I haven’t taken all of the moldings off to look at it but was wondering how we remove the metal piece that is there to hold the factory sub? Is it welded on or are there screws?

 

there are 6 or 8 bolts that hold the metal sub bracket in place. it's really easy to remove. i also just replaced my ghetto amp rack last weekend. pictures to come later...

 

looks way better the other way!!!

 

Yeah, it's just some screws but to get to them all you have to take off the whole back plastic piece. You might be able to bend the plastic some to get to the screws but it didn't look like it was possible when I first looked at taking the metal bracket out.

Oh, I don't know if this is normal but I had the subwoofer metal bracket even though I didn't have the factory subwoofer.

 

Do you have to take out the whole back piece where the rear speakers go? Is the bottom piece seperate from the top piece where the speakers go?

 

>> Do you have to take out the whole back piece where the rear speakers go?
Yes, you have to take the whole back piece out and several side pieces to get to that.

Once you get the subwoofer bracket out though you don't need to take the whole piece out again unless you really want the extra 1/8th inch or so that you would get to insert something.

>> Is the bottom piece separate from the top piece where the speakers go?
No, it's all one huge piece.

Don't be afraid to take these pieces out. They are very easy to remove and put back. Just make sure you are careful when you put them aside as they can be easy to scratch. In other words don't put them face down on your garage floor.


I finally got my subcover so it's all closed up nicely now.

 

[QUOTE=Kaitain]>> Do you have to take out the whole back piece where the rear speakers go?
Yes, you have to take the whole back piece out and several side pieces to get to that.



>> Is the bottom piece separate from the top piece where the speakers go?
No, it's all one huge piece.

Don't be afraid to take these pieces out. They are very easy to remove and put back. Just make sure you are careful when you put them aside as they can be easy to scratch. In other words don't put them face down on your garage floor.
QUOTE]

hmm unless things have changed, it is two seperate pieces and the part in the rear that covers the speakers does not need to be removed. what does need to be removed are the plastic pieces along the door sill, the plastic pieces by the seat belts that goes up and over the speaker shelf and into the hatch, and then you have to remove two screws from the rear of the center console so you can lift it up. then the plastic piece that covers the "glove compartment" and the area where the bose subwoofer can be removed (seperate from the speaker section). just open the glove compartment, and remove the plastic cover that is over the subwoofer area and you can start pulling the large plastic piece off and slide it up to remove it.

 

You're totally right. Sorry, gotta put the crack pipe down. I just always took off everything every time so remembered it wrong.

Sorry for the bad info.

 

i want to make the same amp installation but i`m concern that can i have some problems with the amp ,because you do not have enough air or ventilation to the amps so can they fail because of the temperature?thanks

 

wicked gonna do the same amp setup im so noob with this =D could that same setup be used for a roadster?

 

Yes and no. You probably don't have as much space back there but I've seen roadsters with amps and subwoofers installed in those spaces.