So after searching through every thread, I decided to make my own seat lift for my 2006 supercrew XLT. I have tried putting several systems in my truck before, and never been happy with any of them. I recently order 2 new kicker 8" comps, built a nice fiberglass box under the rear seat and was extremely disappointed with the outcome. Not enough air space, not loud enough, and basically sounded awful. I saw that there was a 2.5" seat lift available through a company, but I figured I could come up with something rather than pay $155 for 6 small steel brackets. Anyways, I'll post some pictures to show what I came up with

 

I guess I'm not able to upload pictures to a thread. There is an album on my profile called "rear seat lift for 06 supercrew for Kicker L7 subwoofer".

Basically, every thread I had viewed showed where the seat frame was removed from the truck body, and spacers were put in between. I removed the seat from the seat from instead and actually lifted the seat using blocks.

I personally don't give too much care as to what it looks like, I plan on painting the blocks at some point in time and maybe covering the pivot joints I made for the seat.

Anyways, the first thing I did was take the rear seat out of the truck. You get access to all the lower frames this way. Next, I cut five 2" high blocks out of a simple 2x4 board. I tacked three of them together for the center support, and used one on each side of the outside frames. (You can see all this in my album, I took pictures). I drilled through the wood blocks and put a two 3" bolts through them into the seat frame (there were holes in the center frame mount, I drilled the side frame supports).

Next thing I did was run a long 2x2 the length of where the seat originally sat. This was just to add some extra support since the seat is actually not bolted to the frame anymore. Unfortunately, this keeps the seat from folding up when everything was completed. I'm sure this could be altered but I'm not that concerned with whether or not the seat folds up.

Since the seat is raised up 2", it also has to sit outward from the backrest about 2". Since I also removed the actual seat from the pivot frame, I had to reattach it somehow. I had an extra center console jump seat that I had torn apart several months ago. The steel frame had a support with several holes in it that just so happened to fit absolutely perfect. I simply used a dremel to cut them out and used it as a pivot point and for something to actually attach the seat to. These worked out almost perfectly. I'm sure a wooden or steel piece could have been drilled and used, I just lucked out having the extra jump seat around.

After the side pivots were attached on each side, I made an L bracket out of wood in order to reattach the two seats together, allowing both of them to pivot. I attached this to the three 2x4 wooden blocks I tacked together, and it fit absolutely perfect. I used a steel bolt (don't remember the diameter, just whatever fits) about 4" long as the pivot point. Obviously I drilled a hole in the L bracket that lined everything up.

With this, I can fit a 10" L7 subwoofer under the seat with plenty of clearance. I'm going to either try to build a box in the next few days or see how much the local audio shop (guys do awesome work) would charge me to build a box. I'm actually planning on using 2 10" L5 subwoofers instead of L7s just because I already have 2 of them, and I got a great deal on the setup. I might see if the audio shop would do some trades and see if I can somehow fit some sundown SA10s under the seat. There is almost 9" of clearance right where the seat is flush. I'll be sure to add any new pictures when I get them.

Overall, so far I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The seat is pretty stable (not rock solid but you can sit on it comfortably). The seat belts are still functional. I am 6'4" and my head does touch the roof when I sit up straight. If I slouch over a little bit or lean up against the door I don't come in contact with the roof. Considering I didn't spend a penny on this, I'm pretty satisfied. I also rarely have any passengers in my back seat so I'm not too worried about it.

One more thing, when I attached the side pivot frames, I used 2" bolts instead of the star bolt that came in the seat. I did use those (you can see what I'm talking about in the pictures), but had to come up with a couple of my own solutions attaching the frame pieces I made. I used several spaces and washers all over the place.

Hopefully this gives some people some cool ideas on how they could make their own seat lift for virtually nothing and be able to fit some cool systems and/or other things under their rear seats!

 

Sounds kinda like what I did to lift my rear seat. And I think you'd be a lot happier with the sa10's over the kickers. Better output, but you'll need a decent bit more power than you were planning to use on the L5's.

 

BE ABSOLUTELY SURE that you are supplying adequate power AND that you are using a box with enough air space for those L7s. I've fried 2 solo barics. One by having the box too small and the other by clipping from not having enough wattage to power it.

 

There's always polyfill if the box is too small. And the sub is destroyed because of the clipped signal, not because it didn't get enough power. You can underpower a sub and be fine, but trying to use that gain **** as a volume **** is where you get into trouble.

 

Thanks for the tips guys. I'm running 2 mtx jh600 amps (one to each sub) and I have plenty of experience with amps so the power and gain settings shouldn't be a problem. I'm actually working on a full under the seat fiberglass box (wooden box turned out to be impossible), which should give each sub well of 1cu ft of airspace... I'm just hoping it will be sturdy enough! I'm waiting for the final layer of the bottom of the box (actually building it inside my truck) to harden up.. I will post any updates as they come along

 

I finally finished my box, got everything installed and I think it sounds great.. I used 2 10" L5s instead of L7s because I already had 2 and didn't want to order another L7 for $300. I molded the bottom layer of fiberglass inside the truck as built the rest outside. I used 5 layers of Fiberglass and there is no flex from the box at all. I'm running 2 mtx JH600.1 amps, 350rms to each sub at 4ohms. It is super loud and still had good sound quality. The seat lift worked perfectly and the subs don't hit the seat at all. The box is flush underneath and there is still plenty of room in the back! I uploaded a bunch of pictures to an album on my profile, too bad it won't let me upload them to this page!