I just picked up a nissan Altima to use as my daily driver since it gets about 3 times the MPG as my Mach 1 does. I wanted a car to just get in and go that is left completely stock that I can park anywhere, valet anywhere without worrying as much as I do with my Mach. Well I now have about a 1 hour commute to work each way and the stock stereo is really bugging me. I do not want to change out the head unit and I do not want to spend gobbs of money on replacing all of the speakers, running multiple amps ect. Here is my plan and I was hoping to get some outside imput on it because to me is sounds like a solid plan but who knows.
I don't want to loose any trunk space but I need a sub of some sort. On the passenger sidewall of the trunk there is enough room to build a fiberglass box to house a small sub. I am planning on using a Tang Band W8-740P 8" sub, they do well in small enclosures and at under $70.00 it is hard to beat. For the amp footprint is a major concerne. I do not want the amp mounted to the back of the rear seat or build any additional panels in the trunk to house it there. Under the front seats there really is not enough room and with the airbags in the seats I would prefer to not have to pull one out. There is enough room to mount a small amp under the rear deck so thats my plan for now. About the only thing I could find to fit would be one of the Arc audio minis but the price tag on that is a bit high so I think I am going to run a JL XD 400/4. It fits the size, has a remote level control and should put out enough power running ch. 3&4 bridged to the sub and ch. 1 & 2 stereo to the front.
I am not worried about rear speakers but I do plan on changing out the front stage. This is where I am second guessing myself. I am considering dumping a 6" woffer in the factory door location and a pair of 3 1/2" two ways in the OEM dash locations. I had considered doing a complete 3 way seperate system but I do not want to have to figure out where to mount the tweeter. I am thinking I would run the HP filter on the amp and use a passive crossover network from there. For example with the HP filter on the amp and then do a passive LP filter on the 6" woofer I could effectively make it a bandpass. then do an additiona passive HP on the 3.5" speakers in the dash. I realize that it would not be as good as a true 3 way system but it has to be better than just replacing the door speakers with 2 or 3 way speakers right?
Now I am just trying to figure out crossover points to use. the 6" I was looking at is good to about 3k so I figured I would cut it off at about 2700 or so and let the 3.5 get everything from about 120 and up. Is it ok to have that much overlap between the 6 and the 3.5" should one stop right where the other picks up?