Upgrading a pick-up truck with a nice subwoofer system is one of the bigger challenges in car audio installation; the limited space inside of a truck cab sometimes means sacrifices to storage or legroom to achieve the desired results.

An easy and great sounding solution for moderate bass was to add a flat subwoofer with a decent amount of power, which is where the owner of this Chevy Silverado started out after taking his truck to our Baybrook (Houston) store.

Car Toys added a Pioneer flat subwoofer and a mono-block amplifier. It was good, but not good enough. Within a 5 month span, the customer returned no fewer than four times until he finally felt his install reached audio nirvana.

First, the flat sub and sub amp evolved into two JL 10W0 subwoofers behind the seat in a custom box and a bigger subwoofer amp. A few weeks later the truck was back for another upgrade – this time a little more extreme. Car Toys install experts swapped the 10′s in the custom box for two JL 15W0 subs in a cut-through system (subs are loaded in the bed in a custom box with a big hole cut into the cab to port the bass up front). A pair of Focal 165A1 component speakers replaced the factory door speakers so the highs could keep up with the serious bass upgrades. The system was amazingly crisp and loud, but the customer still wanted more.

Installer Jimmy Mason fabricated a very cool center console system that housed not one, but TWO JL Audio 8W3 subwoofers powered by a JL Audio 500/1 amplifier. The 165A1 speakers were pulled and replaced with a pair of Focal 165VB component speakers. Jimmy built a set of kick panels for the Focal woofers and a dual tweeter set-up was fabricated into the A-pillars. Now we have some serious sound. But it still wasn’t enough.

The next and final version is what you see here. Jimmy added two 13W7 subs which force an insane amount of ground-pounding sound into the Chevy’s cab, each powered by a JL 1000/1 amp. Two Stinger batteries in the rear provide extra juice for the amplifiers, and a third Stinger battery under the hood with a high-output alternator keeps the system rocking. Quite a step up from the original install. Check out the Gallery below for more pics of this crazy install.