# MoparMike's 2010 Dodge Ram Quad Cab



## MoparMike (Feb 14, 2012)

This build log covers install changes done to the truck since the first work done on it two years ago. First, here is a pic of the truck itself. It sits on 2/4 Ground Force lowering kit via new springs with 24" color-matched wheels and 295/35-24 rubber.



















After swapping the stock deck out with a Pioneer AVH-4400BH, a rear view camera was installed in the tailgate handle and wiring was run under truck back into the cab. A set of Boston Pro 60 6.5" components were installed in the doors with the mid-bass in the stock location and the tweeter placed in the Boston pods in the sail panels. A pair of Hybrid Audio Legatia V1's were placed in the stock dash locations in an MDF baffle that attached to the stock mounting locations.


























Two runs of Knu Concepts four guage cable feeds two PPI Phantom amplifiers are installed under the driver's seat along with the passive crossovers for the Bostons. The current wiring setup has the components running passive on two channels of the Phantom 900.4 and the Hybrids running band-passed using the crossovers on the other two channels of the amp. The Phantom 1000.1 will power two Sundown Audio SD 12's that are going in an enclosure under the rear seats. 










Building a new sub enclosure is what has re-ignited this build. In stock form, there is not enough air space to put in two 12's in a ported enclosure. For the last year and a half I have been without the motivation to tackle the job of a making some modifications to build a custom enclosure. I got the inspiration and ideas for this from a build that was done by Net Audio in Wichita Falls, TX in a similar Ram. There is a metal cage that makes the cargo area for under the seat. To gain enough room for the new box, the seat would have to go up and some metal would have to come out.

Here is how the floor looks with the seats lifted up and the carpeting pulled back.










The spot welds were drilled out and a cut was made from the top down to the floor just in front of where the seat brackets sit. Then it came out.










The seat needs to go up about 1 1/2" so MDF blocks were cut and drilled for longer bolts to pass through and mount the seats.










MDF was then cut and fitted to frame the vertical walls that attach to the seat lifts. 


























The seats have just enough clearance for the lid of the box to go on.


























I pulled the seats and framing out and then taped off the floor and laid a layer of foil down to prep for the fiberglass that will make up the bottom portion of the enclosure. The plan is to down fire the subs with a few inches of clearance from the floor. The front wall will be cut out to allow the sound to come through. A port will probably be installed facing the back of the center console. The box volume will have to be measured after fiberglass has been put in so that the port dimensions can be calculated.


















For now, I am at a stopping point. Its started raining and I don't have enough covered area to work under. The next steps are to finish cutting and fitting the vertical walls on the passenger side of the truck and join them to the front of the box. Baffles need to be cut and spaced from the floor and then I can begin laying down fiberglass. This will be my first time with glass so I am taking my time and reading and watching a lot of videos for tips.


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## mrmill (Feb 11, 2013)

Nice truck. Pretty extensive work to get the subs in there. 


Sent from under your mom's bed


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## MoparMike (Feb 14, 2012)

mrmill said:


> Nice truck. Pretty extensive work to get the subs in there.
> 
> 
> Sent from under your mom's bed


Thanks. It's a lot of work but I was ready for a project to work on. I expect that the finish product with be worth the time.


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## mrmill (Feb 11, 2013)

i hope so....i'd be very interested in hearing it when it's all done. i had a prefab underseat box in my yukon for a while and it didn't do it for me. 

do you do truck shows?? scrapin the coast is coming to that neck of the woods.


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## MoparMike (Feb 14, 2012)

I'll go from time to time, but only as a spectator. I've gone to Heat Wave a couple of times along with Texas Showdown and SlabFest. I've got a friend who competes in IASCA SPL competitions so i'll go when possible to the ones he competes in. Haven't been to Scrapin the Coast though. Maybe I'll check it out.


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## autokraftgt (Aug 28, 2012)

I know the Netaudio build you are referring to and I have always thought removing the metal sub structure like they & you are doing seemed fairly straight forward. I figured a drill and possibly a saw-zaw would do the trick....how long did it take and was it pretty simple?
With the metal structure out of the way....you open up SOOO many possibilities for a sub stage.
Nice work man!
Subs? Air space goal?


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## MoparMike (Feb 14, 2012)

The removal wasn't difficult. There are around twenty or so places that are spot welded and need to be drilled out. I then used a reciprocating saw, or sawz-all, to cut down the sides as show in the pics. It took less than half an hour in all. A narrow pry bar was then used to separate any areas around the spot welds that didn't break immediately loose after being drilled. There is a small amount of sealant or glue that joins the sides of the cage to the floor where the saw cut ends. Simply lifting the cage broke broke this bond. Luckily it was rather malleable and didn't have to be cut or grinded.

Opening up much more space was my main goal. I knew that I could probably make tens sound OK in the stock floor, but I wanted twelves. And I wanted ported. And I missed the down-firing subs from my last truck. I just knew that tens firing up into the seats wouldn't satisfy me, so I started looking for ideas. Blow-throughs are awesome and one day, maybe I'll have one, but for now, I use the bed rather often and don't want to sacrifice that much cargo space. When I saw that build that Net Audio did, I wanted to do something similar. I almost just ordered one of his pre-fabs for a sealed setup, his are the only ones for the Ram that I ever thought looked well made but then I made up my mind to just cut it up and build my own custom box. 

The goal is to get 3.5 cubes worth of air-space and have a port going forward towards the back of the center console. I'll have to measure the box once I get it glassed to see how much can be achieved. The subs are Sundown SD-12's with 4 ohm coils. I have plotted the box and port combo to see how it matches up with the SA line as well, but future upgrades will depend on how much depth I end up with. The SD is great for shallow mounting and has a sealed back-plate and vents from around the sides of the motor.


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## velama28 (Jul 2, 2014)

Hey mike I am a new member who noticed your box you were building. I have an 05 dodge crew cab and was thinking of doing a similar install but with my subs facing up. But I was wondering if you finished that install to see how it came out. I attached a picture of the setup I got now. A local sound shop put this in. They just put a carpeted piece of mdf over the storage area and sealed up the cracks with foam and it doesn't sound very good at all. I am like you and want more air space and I want it ported and don't feel like paying someone else to do it. If you want something done right you gotta do it yourself


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## sirbOOm (Jan 24, 2013)

Updates! Updates! Updates!


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## MoparMike (Feb 14, 2012)

After 3 weeks of rainy days and/or already busy weekends, I did finally get back to this project. Last Saturday I tackled the fiberglass, my first attempt working with it.

This was taken after the 6th layer of mat went down. The first two went in with the seats in place and then they were pulled out.










The framing and mold pulled from the truck easily and only took the foil with it. There were no resin leaks outside of the masked off areas. 










After calculating the box's dimensions I came up with just over 3 cu. ft. of volume. Two 3" Aero Ports were cut to 9.5" to end up with a tuning around 32 hz when using one flared end. 


























The box went back in to confirm its fitment prior to the top going on.










There wasn't much to take a picture of, but the fiberglass bottom was checked for leaks. Two were found where the floor met the walls and were sealed with more fiberglass mat and cloth. In all, 8-10 layers of mat and cloth were used in the fiberglass portions of the box. 

The top of the box was traced and cut out. As you can tell by the background, working in a car port sure makes me miss having a garage. 










Speakers installed. There is 2 1/2" of clearance between the speaker's surround and the floor of the truck at its closest point. The majority of the speaker has 4"+ of clearance.










Box installed with speakers for sound testing.











At this point I am just checking to see how I like everything before doing anything aesthetic to the enclosure. The plan is the carpet it to match the flooring. 

As far as how it sounds, its a big improvement mostly. Lots more output, especially below 50 hz, than anything I've had in this truck up to this point. Some low notes sound muddy though and 45-65 hz has a big peak. I want to play with tuning some more, lucky that's easy with Aero Ports. I also really would like a DSP to help with more in-depth tuning.

There was a very bad rattle between fiberglass floor and the hump in the center of the truck at first. The box was removed and the underside was lined with some adhesive CCF weatherstripping that quieted it nicely. Need to track down a few more rattles around the back of the truck. I haven't taken pictures of it with the seats in, but its a nice and tight fit.


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## MoparMike (Feb 14, 2012)

After looking over my last post, I will go looking for the charger to my camera and take some better photos next time around. These are pretty bad quality.


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## sirbOOm (Jan 24, 2013)

Can you try venting toward the passenger door. The best ported boxes I've heard vent toward the passenger door with a slot vent.


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## velama28 (Jul 2, 2014)

Damn! That came out real good. It's gonna look even better with the carpet. About how much did it cost for all the material?


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## MoparMike (Feb 14, 2012)

velama28 said:


> If you want something done right you gotta do it yourself


You ain't kidding. Though after all the work that has gone into this build, I can see why shops would charge an arm and a leg for custom work like this. 

Regarding your install, I would get those speakers out of that setup as quickly as you can. They need a proper enclosure and there are several options available. Some people like the Fox Box, but I think if you are going to buy pre-fab that Net Audio's look to be the most well built. I do like doing my own work though. My lower back does not however.


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## MoparMike (Feb 14, 2012)

sirbOOm said:


> Can you try venting toward the passenger door. The best ported boxes I've heard vent toward the passenger door with a slot vent.


There isn't enough clearance around the sub inside the box. I thought about this too.

The port velocity is very low though and there is no audible noise that I have noticed. It probably would be louder if the ports loaded off of the door panel but the speakers firing down helps a lot too.


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## MoparMike (Feb 14, 2012)

velama28 said:


> Damn! That came out real good. It's gonna look even better with the carpet. About how much did it cost for all the material?


I've got just over $300 into is so far. The fiberglass is the expensive part and I did order a fiberglass roller and bought a low of extra stuff for cleanup and masking purposes. Its better to have more and not need it.


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## velama28 (Jul 2, 2014)

Yes I was looking at net audio but the cubic feet I need they cant get. I know I shouldve went with subs that require less air space but these are what they recommended to me so I will work with them. So they need 1.75 cubic ft each in a ported box. And my truck has the solid bench seat so I could squeeze a little more space cubic foot wise. So all together I'm needing 3.5 cubic ft. I think I can accomplish close to that by doing this kind of box. I just know how these subs sound in a good ported box and thats what I want to get out of these


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## MoparMike (Feb 14, 2012)

velama28 said:


> Yes I was looking at net audio but the cubic feet I need they cant get. I know I shouldve went with subs that require less air space but these are what they recommended to me so I will work with them. So they need 1.75 cubic ft each in a ported box. And my truck has the solid bench seat so I could squeeze a little more space cubic foot wise. So all together I'm needing 3.5 cubic ft. I think I can accomplish close to that by doing this kind of box. I just know how these subs sound in a good ported box and thats what I want to get out of these


I know just what you mean. I didn't set out to cut metal but it was the only way to get what was needed to port some 12s. I've only seen this done once before but if you're up for it, I'd like to see how yours comes out.


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## velama28 (Jul 2, 2014)

I tried fox acoustics first but sounded like garbage. They recommended a w6 so I bought one but still was not good enough. So I had a shop make me a custom console box ported in new orleans for the w6. Looked good but bad port noise and had a weak hit. So I got rid of all that and had a place in nederland called audio edge. They recommended the two twelves with this board using the compartment as a box. It hits hard but with no low end response. I have one w0 ten in a ported box in my rodeo and that thing hits reeeaal good. People never believe me till they see it that it's one ten lol. So my last choice is to build it to spec myself


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## tmjoe30 (Sep 2, 2014)

Any pics of everything finished with carpet? How's it sound? I had a 02 ram and had done the under seat fiberglass before but was somewhat disappointed when I got my 2012 ram that they hadn't changed the under seat setup. I just finished a sealed fiberglass under seat box for two 10" Alpine type R being pushed by a 1200w Hifonics Brutus but I was somewhat disappointed. Last truck had a down firing Kicker CVX in a custom console box with that same amp and it was a monster! Your build makes me re think my current setup.....


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## MoparMike (Feb 14, 2012)

tmjoe30 said:


> Any pics of everything finished with carpet? How's it sound? I had a 02 ram and had done the under seat fiberglass before but was somewhat disappointed when I got my 2012 ram that they hadn't changed the under seat setup. I just finished a sealed fiberglass under seat box for two 10" Alpine type R being pushed by a 1200w Hifonics Brutus but I was somewhat disappointed. Last truck had a down firing Kicker CVX in a custom console box with that same amp and it was a monster! Your build makes me re think my current setup.....


Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to pull it out and finish it in carpet lately. I'm not totally satisfied with it but its way too hot around here to build another one right now. The output is great but on certain notes the box is noticeably too small for these twelves playing in a ported enclosure. I have thought about trying out some tens in the future thinking that would give up some output in exchange for a better overall response. I can't explain it well enough, but if a season box builder listened to it that's what I would expect to hear as a critique. I'll update as I get further along with it.


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## captainobvious (Mar 11, 2006)

MoparMike said:


> Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to pull it out and finish it in carpet lately. I'm not totally satisfied with it but its way too hot around here to build another one right now. The output is great but on certain notes the box is noticeably too small for these twelves playing in a ported enclosure. I have thought about trying out some tens in the future thinking that would give up some output in exchange for a better overall response. I can't explain it well enough, but if a season box builder listened to it that's what I would expect to hear as a critique. I'll update as I get further along with it.


Are they simply peaky higher in frequency? Plenty of EQ to bring down the peaks and then up the overall gain to the subs should help with that.


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## tmjoe30 (Sep 2, 2014)

Have you tried plugging the ports and running it sealed? Just an idea because a sealed box is much more forgiving....
Also the amp settings/gains can make a huge difference. I had to completely readjust all my gains/crossover settings when I changed box/subs....


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## MoparMike (Feb 14, 2012)

captainobvious said:


> Are they simply peaky higher in frequency? Plenty of EQ to bring down the peaks and then up the overall gain to the subs should help with that.


Part of the problem is that they are peaky in the higher frequencies and I do need to add the ability to better tune my setup, ie: a processor. However, there is also something lacking in the lower frequency range that I can only described as "constrained." There is plenty of pressure but the sound that is produced doesn't match it. At some point the audibility of the bass just falls off while the feel of it is still there. The vehicle itself and the placement of the enclosure and/or ports in relation to the cabin may play a part in this as well.




tmjoe30 said:


> Have you tried plugging the ports and running it sealed? Just an idea because a sealed box is much more forgiving....
> Also the amp settings/gains can make a huge difference. I had to completely readjust all my gains/crossover settings when I changed box/subs....


I only went so far as stuffing the ports with a couple of rolled up T-shirts to try out the "sealed" option. The sound was more "SQ" in the higher notes since they didn't overpower the lows as much but I didn't care for the loss in overall output. Nearly all of my enclosures in past builds have been sealed and I was pleasantly surprised with a ported box in this truck. 

I definitely think that tuning can help to correct some of the issues. As it is now, I am happy but there is room for improvement.


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## captainobvious (Mar 11, 2006)

MoparMike said:


> Part of the problem is that they are peaky in the higher frequencies and I do need to add the ability to better tune my setup, ie: a processor. However, there is also something lacking in the lower frequency range that I can only described as "constrained." There is plenty of pressure but the sound that is produced doesn't match it. At some point the audibility of the bass just falls off while the feel of it is still there. The vehicle itself and the placement of the enclosure and/or ports in relation to the cabin may play a part in this as well.


How low in frequency. I'm going to sound exactly like my username, but... once you get low enough in frequency, you "hear" less and get more tactile feel than sound.


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## MoparMike (Feb 14, 2012)

captainobvious said:


> How low in frequency. I'm going to sound exactly like my username, but... once you get low enough in frequency, you "hear" less and get more tactile feel than sound.



Haha...yeah I had that one coming. I've only sampled it with test tones but starting around 38 hz or so is when it is noticeable to me. The tune from the port size/length should be lower than that but the box is smaller than recommended by Sundown. I've adjusted the subsonic filter on the amp to make sure that wasn't the culprit as well. It's one of those things where certain songs make it really shine and others expose the flaws. 

I'm also comparing this to past builds that were cars with a pair of twelves in the trunk. Those setups seemed more well rounded in the lower frequencies but the speakers weren't in the cab with me and the effect that the cabin can have on bass is different between the two.


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## BlackFx4InTn (Apr 11, 2009)

Outstanding build! That would make me nervous as hell trimming that cargo sheet metal out. Looks like it should pay off. I went to the Net Audio's site and it gave me tons of ideas on how I'm going to fiberglass my sub enclosure for Ram.

How do you like the PPI amps? I've been wanting to try out the 900.4 and I think I will do just that for my Clarus comps. In your initial post, I think there was a typo on your 3.5 in the dash. Are they Legatia L3v1's?


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## MoparMike (Feb 14, 2012)

BlackFx4InTn said:


> Outstanding build! That would make me nervous as hell trimming that cargo sheet metal out. Looks like it should pay off. I went to the Net Audio's site and it gave me tons of ideas on how I'm going to fiberglass my sub enclosure for Ram.
> 
> How do you like the PPI amps? I've been wanting to try out the 900.4 and I think I will do just that for my Clarus comps. In your initial post, I think there was a typo on your 3.5 in the dash. Are they Legatia L3v1's?


I admired several of Net Audio's build pics, though I didn't end up ordering one of their boxes, they look to be very well made.

I really like the Phantoms. They have been one of the best-bang-for-the-buck purchases I have ever made in car audio. An amp with 1000 watts of power that I have pushed aggressively, at times for over an hour in length, costs less then $200 and hasn't let me down? Yes please. Both the 1000.1 and the 900.4 have worked great and since they are tiny it helps that I can save space by installing them under the seat. If you are looking for something similar to what they offer, it is a good one to try. 

And you're correct, I did mislabel the L3V1's.


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