MichiganAve

If you want to run high end speakers, you can by bridging that amp to 2 channels. There is no point in powering your rear speakers off that amp instead of the headunit in my opinion. So I'd either power a sub, or bridge to the fronts. Bazooka is junk... The stealthbox looks good, is small, would work off your amp's power. If you want to go cheaper then build something small yourself. I can tell you that the MBQuart Q series won't do well off 40 watts. With only 40 watts you are probably looking at entry-line, like a Focal 165 A1. Not sure if MBQuart or Polk offer something in that power range. You can also check the other big manufacturers like Alpine, JL Audio, Rockford, Pioneer, etc. The best way to judge this is looking at the nominal power rating and the sensitivity. Something with a continuous power rating of 40-60 should work. Higher sensitivities will make better use of that power, so avoid getting something with 60-70 watts power rating unless it has a sensitivity >90. If you want to make sure it doesn't sound "bright" then look for a silk dome tweeter instead of metal, or just get an equalizer.

Do you know what comes with that uhaul unit for tie downs and what I should get myself? I'd like to go through the pairs of Drings on both my front and rear bumpers in addition to the regular tire tie downs.

JL audio is overpriced, and any authorized dealer will charge closer to MSRP than online dealers. If you want to save money, build your own. You can fit tweeters behind those grilles. I stuck my aftermarket tweeters to the A pillar without their own grille, fit just fine behind the OEM one. Did you disconnect those stock tweeters that were in parallel yet?

JL Audio is good. I think since the W0 is discontinued that now they sell this with the W1 version 2 which is their current lowest line. But it is better suited to your weak amp than other JL subs. Seriously, fix that parallel stock tweeter before going any further with the sub route. Disconnect it. You have no idea how much that is messing up your sound. It also is doing bad things to your amp. Most bose speakers are 1 or 2 ohm. Throw that in parallel with a 4 ohm speaker and your amp is seeing 0.8 or 1.3 ohms, way below what it can handle. Because the bose speaker has lower resistance, it gets more current than your alpines and is out of proportion louder.

Xtant makes some good amps. You would have some more flexibility in planning a system if you were to get a new amp, like I said before you are limited with your current one. That looks like an Image Dynamics logo to me, not a shallow sub. IDQ, IDMax? What was wrong with the sub set that you said it wasn't to your full liking? They make some pretty good subs.

Cool, but can't make next week and no more newbie clinics til August? If you hear of anymore in norcal please post them up. I'd like to go to one.

I'm moving 2300 miles,and instead of using the QX4 to tow my stuff, I was thinking of renting a uhaul and towing the QX4 behind. This gets all 4 wheels off the ground and would cost me $400 http://www.uhaul.com/guide/userguide-autotransport.pdf but I just noticed it says a limit of 3900lb. Stock is 4275, with front and rear bumpers, sliders, stereo I'm north of 4600. I'm also concerned about problems with stability with 5" of lift. Any other ideas? Another source of trailers? Transport companies? It would be nice to not beat my truck up towing that far.

I missed this one earlier, and didn't see anybody else comment either-- you are running your stock tweeter in parallel to your door coaxials, powered by the 40x2 front channel of your amp, and without a crossover? And the rear coaxial 40x2 off the rear channel of your amp. Is that right? This needs to be fixed Dean, no more stock tweeter in parallel. Just run the front and rear coaxials off the amp and kill the tweeter. No wonder things sound so bright... As a class, I think the shallow subs are pretty bad. They ironically require larger enclosures in terms of cubic feet. The problem with sound is that the amount of air moved isn't just about surface area of the cone determined by the diameter, it is the distance the cone travels (usually reported by an xmax). These cones are shallow and have very limited excursion. Therefore their efficiency is poor, their low frequency extension is poor, and their volume is poor. The shallow magnet and spider designs also cause issues with sound quality. If you are mounting in the floor, you would want to remove that whole plastic tray. You would need to use fiberglass as the sheetmetal would not be rigid enough alone (don't worry, its actually easy to use fiberglass). You would want to make a grill to go over the top so you can put things on top- a strong metal mesh grille would be just fine. Your problem will be mounting depth here. I think inside my plastic tray I had less than 3 inches, so even with that tray out you will only have 3-4 inches without raising your floor. Underneath your seats you are looking at a similar depth unless you are willing to do some foamectomy and pound in the metal to make more room. Don't forget the doors up front. If you are willing to cut the panels and to make some rings that allow the driver to stick outwards further into the passenger compartment you should be able to fit a good 8 or shallow 10" sub in there. The stock grills for my bose stereo already stick like 2" out into my feet area, I don't think that going further would have bothered me. A setup around this idea could be using components with a tweeter in the stock location, a 5.25" in a new hole cut in the door panel or in the kick-panel, and then the 8" sub in the doors. So if you want a sub, you either need to really custom up the mounting of this sub in the doors, under the seats, or in a storage area-- or just go for a small 10" enclosure in the back. Now, I looked up your amp and it is limiting. Just to get the specs out there, Dean's amp is a 40x4 at 4ohm. It does 50x4 at 2ohm and 100x2 bridged at 4ohm. So it doesn't really double down and we don't have much power here to play with. With this available power, my idea of running stereo 8s in both doors or under both seats isn't gonna work. I see two real options (after you have removed that stock tweeter hook-up and reassessed how things sound): 1. Get better components and live without a subwoofer. You could bridge your amp to 100x2 to those front speakers and power some very nice components, much better quality than you have now overall, but only marginally deeper (but a ton less bright compared to the whole parallel stock tweeter thing). Even speakers like the MBQuart Q series will work on 100watts RMS (to remedy my complaints of brightness without buying an EQ, you can use the control including with their crossover to tune down the tweeter a few dB, which helps a lot). Run the current rear speakers off the deck. After this is setup, if you still need a little more help you could add an equalizer. This will sound really nice, but just lack thump below 45hz. 2. Have weaker front speakers running at 40x2, and run a single sub at 100x1. For that sub, I would think of the generic frequency bottom ends as 40hz for an 8", 30hz for a 10", and 20hz for a 12" (greatly oversimplified). So you either custom-fab something in a door, under a seat, or in the storage area for an 8" or shallow 10"-- neither is going to be earth-shattering bass but it'll be a little better than you have now. Or you just get a normal 10" designed for small enclosures, make a small box with a good grille over the speaker so you can just throw your stuff around it in the back and not worry- that would truly sound the best in terms of the low-end. Between 1 and 2 is personal taste. With limited money, space, and amp power, #1 gives the best sounding quality for everything except low-end bass. In fact, you could power some great speakers with 100watts RMS if you bridge that amp. Now, if you gotta listen to Snoop while crossing the Rubicon, go with #2-- your front speakers won't be as good but you'll pound out the lows. Either way will be a vast improvement over your current 40x4 setup with stock tweeters in parallel!

Skip that 6" powered sub, it would probably sound horrible. A lot of the small powered subs use porting and bandpassing to make louder bass, the problem is it is very boomy around a narrow range of frequencies and sounds horrible. If you want a sub, then just make a small sealed sub yourself with an 8" or 10"- custom will fit what little space you have. The storage areas in back are good too, but I know you already are using those. I've seen subs hidden underneath dashes, 8s where stock 6.5s go in doors, etc- you can do anything if you are willing to customize a little. There should be room under the front seats if you are creative. Not sure what yours looks like under there, but even with power seats I have room for a cd changer and laptop and power adapter under my seats. You can also massage seats to give more room by pounding up the supporting metal and doing a little foamectomy. I still think you can make things better with some better components up front and an EQ. It wouldn't rival having a sub, but at least better than you have now. I'll help you tune things up when we meet in a few weeks. I'm moving on June 1st.

I've always had a thing for focal too! FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS BUY BOSE!

Dean, we'll have to meet up for sure. I'm not going to have much free time before work starts, but certainly enough to help you fiddle with settings and get things tuned in. I currently am using MB Quart Q series and have competed with MBQuarts in IASCA back in the day. However, they are not "the best" for all circumstances and I don't think Dean would like them. They are rather "bright" speakers, require a lot of power to drive them adequately, and relatively lack bass. You can mount subs in the liftgate, but they'd have to be shallow. And you'd have to have good fab skills to pull off an enclosure in there as it wouldn't really be appropriate for an infinite baffle setup. Dean's speakers are coaxials, not components. I like components too... Did your Bose have the tweeter pod in the A-pillar? If so, you could easily switch over to some components up front and hide the tweeter behind the stock location.

Things to avoid: Those flimsy baffles sold at audio stores that are designed to go behind the speaker can move and make noise. Avoid them. At a concert you face the music, not turn around so the musician is at your back. Likewise, when you listen to a stereo, the speakers are supposed to be in front of you. The only reason for speakers in the rear of your vehicle is for those rear passengers to hear the music. So I wouldn't advise throwing money into expensive rear speakers and turning their volume up so that you are listening to the music behind you... My rear speakers are turned so low I can't even hear them. I would keep two channels of that amp on your front speakers, but consider bridging the other two channels to mono for a subwoofer and leave those rear speakers to run off the headunit. Or you could bridge 4 channels to 2 channels and have more power to run some fancier front speakers. Pre-fabricated mini-subs usually sound pretty bad in my opinion, and cost too much compared to what you could build yourself. Improving the 6.5s: If you want to make up a sealed enclosure inside your doors for a 6.5, you actually can, it doesn't take much volume to tune for a 6.5 woofer and because it is hidden behind the door panel it doesn't have to be pretty. That would give better response. Doing some sound treatment to your truck can help quite a bit because you cut down road noise and hear more of the music... putting some cheapo dynamat-like stuff in your front doors and elsewhere would be good. Any higher quality 6.5s would help: I don't have any particular brand to recommend but look for the low frequency -3db cutoff and other stats. Sadly, a lot of manufacturers have shady ways of reporting such things. But this may be the best way of finding replacement speakers with good extension for you. Other options to consider: A sealed 8" sub can have very small dimensions and improved low frequency extension than those 6.5s... roof would be odd and hard to do, but would work. If you don't have power seats or other stuff under the seats, it could be done underneath one or both of the front seats. If you are looking for that "punch" or "oomph" feeling of bass, honestly a lot of that low frequency stuff is more the vibration you feel in your body not just your ears. I use bass shakers in my home theater and have used them in cars before. They are fun. They are effective. And they kick @ss (literally haha). http://www.aurasound.com/ are some of the cheap ones, but they work. I probably have a few spares sitting around actually... AN EQUALIZER. I saved this for last cause it might be the best thing for you. Don't go turning up the low frequencies- just turn down the high frequencies and other frequencies that are bothering you. "brightness" is usually a characteristic of higher frequencies. My MB Quarts are notorious for being bright but accurate. I hate bright personally, so I crank down the high frequencies a little with my equalizers, based on my metering equipment for starters and then tuned for my personal tastes. This will also give you more tuning ability through the low and mid-range to suit your taste. Check to see what options your headunit already has built in for equalizing. Chances are it has an equalizer but with only a few bands, so each band may have too wide of coverage for you to tune things in to your liking. You may be able to add one on and control it through your headunit. Otherwise, there are tons of separate equalizers that you can grab that would take the RCA connection from your headunit, process the signal, then feed RCAs to your amplifier. You don't need separate equalizers for Left and Right, nor do you even need a digital equalizer with fancy features like crossovers, time delay, etc-- just a cheap old equalizer with enough channels to have some control (5-7 probably isn't enough, around 15 would work, 31 is awesome but probably overkill for you).

You don't need a huge one. Just make sure the tranny cooler is in-line before the stock one. Otherwise it can actually over-cool and the stock one is helpful to moderate the temperature.

And I thought OBX paid a lot to get his swapped... ouch. Sorry to get off topic. I still miss my SER, it was a fun high-revving engine. Coilovers and sway bars made it handle like a champ, and an IASCA competition stereo all fiberglassed. Was stolen. Were any of you guys on the old email mailing list for the SR20DE cars?

You had an SE-R too? My 97 SR20DE was a great motor. Had a popcharger, was lowered with coilovers, and never really avoided water on the roads-- but that's far from mud puddles and off-roading.

I was about to say obx just toasted his 3.3L recently. Sorry man. See what is found with that engine. If it comes out or you are swapping in a new one, you could add some cams or other mods. Stick with an R50 3.5L, doesn't seem worth the trouble to me to swap something else.

Don't stress! Here's how I look at it: -OME lift will clear 31s, CV angles aren't too bad -OME with strut spacer will clear 32s, but CV angles are not so good so you should use manual hubs -AC lift will clear 32s, but CV angles are not so good so you should use manual hubs, and you may top out your struts which is mildly annoying -sub-frame drop (Prado) lift will clear 33s+, CV angles can be nearly stock depending on your strut spacer/coil combination There is a trade-off between CV angle and subframe clearance. The greater your CV angle, the greater the clearance you will have between your subframe and the ground. The bigger your tires, the greater the clearance between your subframe and the ground too! GR2 struts > Rancho. There has been discussion on this over on AC. Sounds like the OME struts may be even better but I don't know anybody who has tried them personally. I think you are incorrect about the strut spacer placement. Strut spacers should go on top, otherwise you top out the struts even earlier. This will give you more lift and will increase the CV angle. I don't see any way to use a strut spacer to improve the CV angle. For the rear shocks the Bilsteins seem to be better made than Rancho's. Changing the bushings while you are in there is nice. You've already stated that your goal is to run 32s, so that would seem to fit with the AC lift with manual hubs.

Welcome to the club! Post some more pics of your blocks, spacers, steering, etc. And of course your sister...

If I am not mistaken, that's a very old picture of Max Stryker's R50! He posted in this thread earlier, scroll up.

That part I can make fit. The biggest worry= is 3.75 enough backspacing to clear the strut? I have a 98 R50 with ~ 5inches lift, this combo hasn't been tried before.

And since I don't have a 15x8 6on5.5 3.75in bs wheel of my own, I'd have to use theirs. And the whole idea of test fitting is to find out if it works- if it doesn't fit, I just bought wheels for no reason.

Can the label/grill come off those IPF's?

Know of any round fog lights that are 4-4.5 inches diameter? PIAA makes some, but they are pricey and I'm afraid of them getting stolen.

Are these the right part numbers I found? I got the ARB catalog here http://www.arbusa.com/alac/215110.pdf Front for R200A, shaft diameter 30.4, splines 29, ARB part number RD107 Rear for H233B, shaft diameter 33.3, splines 33, ARB part number RD24 What do you need to use for air setup? ARB's air (CKSA12 or RDCKA) or any other is ok?

Post some pics! What year cherokees and what model links? How does it ride?