# Adding Pioneers 8” mini subwoofer to Lotus Esprit Interior



## HerberttHarvey (Oct 11, 2021)

I recently added Pioneers 8” mini subwoofer to the center firewall area in my 1989 Lotus Esprit. The interior of a vintage sports car such as mine offers little to no room for such a endeavor but I decided I wanted to go ahead and give it a shot. I constructed the speaker box out of balsa wood. Then I brushed fiberglass resin over the box. First test it sounded like making the box more robust would be a improvement. I wrapped the exterior of the box with some dynamate I had laying around. The subwoofer along with my 6”x9” Polk speakers sounds pretty amazing. I am surprised how well the Pioneer sub is performing with a speaker box that is smaller than the manufacturer minimum specifications. I am wondering if I would gain anything by cutting a 2” round hole in my sealed speaker box?


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## DoubleCrown (Jun 26, 2019)

This sounds very Lotus lol 
Simply and add lightness


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## DoubleCrown (Jun 26, 2019)

No you wouldn't gain a predictable improvement by cutting a hole in the enclosure, but your could experiment with port size to a degree


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## FAUEE (Jul 22, 2010)

I think I would try looking into a 6.5" mini sub for that airspace. Looks like there's some space below it you could take advantage of too. 

I dig the placement. Reminds me of vipers and the GTR.


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## Jheitt142 (Dec 7, 2011)

Keep making it more rigid. if its on the small size then feed it more power! Porting will probably do more harm then good in this case


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## maybebigfootisblurr (Nov 4, 2011)

Is that 1/4" wood panel?


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## HerberttHarvey (Oct 11, 2021)

1/4 yes, I will most likely build another speaker box, 2nd build I will construct with sturdier materials . Really appreciate everyone’s suggestions. What do you think about wiring the sub? The instructions show that I can wire the dual coils in a number of ways, I wired bridged mono with this first experiment.


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## Viggen (May 2, 2011)

As stated the port could make it sound worse…. Then again if your going to build another box anyways, you could do the port and play with multiple port lengths.

also as stated going with a smaller sub that can get its ideal volume might work better.

depending on how the 6x9’s are setup you might be able to improve their low end response with some tweaks as well.










I am rocking the stock stereo in my lotus….. hopefully that will be addressed this winter…. I was so close to getting a Esprit….. hopefully someday!


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## HerberttHarvey (Oct 11, 2021)

Viggen, your Lotus is beautiful! You probably do less working on your car and more driving/enjoying than myself. Owning a 30 year old Lotus is a labor of love. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone that doesn’t enjoy tinkering with their car.


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## HerberttHarvey (Oct 11, 2021)

street.terror said:


> Keep making it more rigid. if its on the small size then feed it more power! Porting will probably do more harm then good in this case


Thank you for your comments on this, definitely won’t get into porting, I think I can gain a little more cubic space by having the box taper wider toward the firewall, giving the speaker box a pyramid kinda shape. Can’t go any lower as I need room for my 2 part Speedo cable, left just enough room for it to pass through my firewall were it plugs into the gearbox,


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## HerberttHarvey (Oct 11, 2021)

*Jheitt142 , thanks again for your insight, ended up using the same balsa wood box, increased its rigidity by glueing, clamping panels on the backside of face of box. I also installed threaded female brackets from inside the speaker box. I took out the Dynapad I had lined the interior with, replaced that with a Dynamat. I thought this might give the Speaker more air to push around, Lastly i upholstered the exterior with Dynapad, Haven’t decided what to cover it with. It’s Sounds Amazing!! Strengthening the box and securing the speaker with more precision and patience made a huge difference in the performance of the Pioneer 8” mini subwoofer. Love it, Love it, Love It! Thank you so much for everyone’s input. Chris H.*


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## Viggen (May 2, 2011)

HerberttHarvey said:


> Viggen, your Lotus is beautiful! You probably do less working on your car and more driving/enjoying than myself. Owning a 30 year old Lotus is a labor of love. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone that doesn’t enjoy tinkering with their car.


I was so close to getting a esprit, been a dream car of mine since the 80’s….. I was worried about the car being expensive to maintain which is the biggest reason for not going that direction. Really wanted a S4S, always thought that was the pinnacle of the Esprit, even though the v8 has more power and a better interior. Those crazy expensive v8 repair bills scared me away. The shop I purchased my evora from has a 02-04 v8, he spent over $30k rebuilding the engine with all forged internals…

i have put 7,500 miles on the car so far this year, been trouble free! With winter getting close it will soon be time to put it away for the winter.

Great to hear reworking the sub’s enclosure made a big improvement. So many time the install itself is more important then the quality of the speakers.


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## MAYA EL (Nov 3, 2021)

My dream car is a 04 to 06 in that crazy purple . One day when I find the right deal And i stop being a tight a$$ lol


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