I have been considering taking the center pass through piece of plastic and cutting out most of the middle of it and putting in a custom speaker type cover (something like a 6"x9") cover in it, then putting a single 10" sub behind it facing into the car. Has anyone done anything like this?

In my old '97 mirage I had 2 10"s in the trunk, but ALWAYS had one of the seats folded down to be able to port the sound/air into the car. If I didn't do that I lost a lot of the bass.

 

A few people here have done that mod.
Here's what my search came up with: (Keywords subwoofer passthrough)

https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...er+passthrough

 

That's not a speaker port - he had the speaker installed into the passthrough piece.
Personally, I think that looks out of place - just doesn't fit even though it might sound good.

I had a passthrough box as well before but got rid of it.

Regarding making the passthrough a bass port - that's an interesting idea, I think nobody did it the way you described.

 

Oh crap, I completely misread the original post. Thanks Tamas for setting me straight...

 

I was thinking of completely removing the passthrough and replacing it with like a mesh grill, like fabricating a piece of black mesh (pretty thick though) and cutting it to fit the passthrough hole perfectly, using the two "prongs" to hold it in on the bottom and velcro or something on the top.

Of course with a mesh like that there's potential for some kickass lighting, like a 12" CCFL on the top or something (hidden obviously so you only see the light, not the tube). I've been doing computer/xbox/xbox360 case modding for a while so it's really my specialty...

 

Why'd you ditch the passthrough box? Was it only a sealed 8" sub? Did you post pics of it before?

I have been thinking recently... I wonder how a passthrough box with an 8" sub ported with the port facing into the trunk. I'm thinking that using a "sealed" area like the trunk to "boost" the bass. This is somewhat similar to how some home speakers work like my Boston Acoustic or even Velodyne subs (port facing the wall or the floor).

 

A 10" looks like *** in the pass through IMHO. The biggest that you should put in there should be an 8" sub. A Kicker Solo-baric with the square chassis giving it more cone for the size might be a choice to get a little more bass out of this kind of an enclosure.

 

Yes, it was an 8" in a sealed enclosure. It looked very nice and unique (I posted pics about it), but it just didn't go deep enough. Now my 10" in the 4080 box sounds much better.
I lost a bunch of money on getting rid of the passthrough box, but in the end, I'm much happer now with the sound I'm getting.

That might be a better solution than what I had. To be honest, had I knew how the sealed 8" will sound, I'd have gone with a ported enclosure instead.
Using the trunk as the bass boost is probably a good idea too.

 

With the passthrough plastic cover on, it rattles a bit and I get a whooshing air sound. I usually just keep the thing open and the passthrough in the trunk in case I park in a bad neighborhood.

 

^^ that works, but my preference/thought was something more like the other one posted by Jedi54. Looks cleaner... more stealth and OEM-like... but a 10" is too big for that setup... biggest is an 8".

 

I thought there was a vent somewhere in the trunk to let air escape when closing it or the doors. If there is it won't be a tight enclosure.