I have a Dakota regular cab so room is in short supply. I had 2 8" Rockford subs(RFP 1808) in 2 sealed boxes and the surrounds finally rotted out due to age. I decided I wanted to go ported this time. The room I have will only allow for about 1 cu/ft. The box I made with the driver and bracing(no port yet) is 1 cu/ft and just barely fits in the truck.
I have a Rockford 401s amp, the spec sheet rates it at 426 watts bridged, so I wanted to find a sub that would work in a 1 cu/ft box, handle 400watts, and cost under $150. I went with a Infinity Kappa Perfect 10.1, only 350 watts hopefully it will handle the power.
My first question is about the port. In order the save internal volume and add tuning ease is there any reason that I cannot run my port tubing outside the box? Infinitys website shows a 1 cu/ft box with a 10.4" x 3" port tuned at 35hz, WinISD shows me a 3" longer port at 35hz, so I am unsure what to do and would like to play with port longth and an external port would work well for this. Would ther be a problem with this?
Question 2: The sub will be firing directly into my seat back, if I didn't use a grill the surround would rub on the seat back fabric. Will there be any negative effect on sound or cone movement with it firing so close to the seat? (I am using a grill btw)