Well, as many of us who are armchair installers like to fantasize about what we would do if we got our grubby hands on a Ferrari convertible. Well, it isn't as glamourous as you might want to imagine. Most people who own Ferraris don't want them modified, don't want to add too much extra weight and disturb the way the car handles, and don't want anything visible (or if it is visible, it should look like the factory in Maranello, Italy did it).
That is what we encountered when one of our customers came in wanting to add more "ummph" to his Ferrari 348 convertible. He had already added a Clarion CD player/Changer controller as well as a Clarion Changer. But, in a car as small as this, he was having a hard time finding a way to add bass.
Enter La Jolla Audio. We have discovered a new way of getting the bass up front type of sound without loosing much space and keeping the cars aestetics pretty much intact. You can see from the following pictures that the car has lost little of its precious trunk space and once the cover is in, looks very stock.
Well, here is a picture of the amplifier install. The carpet needs to be tucked in, but basically its your run of the mill autotec 4 channel amplifier with built in crossover. It sends about 75 watts to each of the pioneer subs and 75 watts to each of the speakers in the doors (which were put in at the time of the CD player install).
Why did we chose an autotec amp? The amp had a slender design, had covered end caps that overhang so that it could be mounted stealthy, and because it looked cool in the trunk of the car.
Here is a rear view of the car. Alot of the pictures I take look like this because they don't really stay outside much (you don't want to try and explain to a customer that some putz in a 72 Ford Torino with 400 lb doors put a big crease on his pride and joy's fender?). So, the cars stay in the shop when being worked on, and are pulled in at night as well. 
Another view of the car with two of our highly skilled installers, Steve and Clark putting the finishing touches on the install.
This is what the finished product looks before the cover is place back over it. Originally, the cars CPU as well as several relays were positioned in the spot where the subs now reside. That meant we had to fabricate new brackets for the relays and CPU out of aluminum stock. The relays and CPU had to be as accesible as they were before for several reasons.
Here is a close up before we put the relays and CPU back. Those are two 8" pioneer free air "diamond plate" subwoofers. Why Pioneer? They kick butt, work great in free air, and don't require tons of power. To top it off, too much output could create a whistling noise when it really gets cranked.
What did we do to make this work? Well, if you look closely, we took several layers of thin wood to make this work right. We then cut holes into the side of the blower motor box and vented the bass into the cabin through the air vents (talk about the bass up front effect). To mount the woofers, we had to take the baffle, mount it into the car, then mount the front woofer and reach the back screws and then mount the rear woofer. Their is very little clearance for anything in the car, yet this package develops a good amount of bass.
Here is another picture at a different angle. 
A close up view of the completed product.
Take 2 Pioneer woofers and some power, add a whole lot of knowhow and you get one happy Tifosi.
Well, as you can see, a car as unique as the Ferrari 348 requires a shop with the unique creativity that our shop has. La Jolla Audio has been in business for over 14 years and specializes in European car of every persuasion. If your interested, come by and take a look at some of our other installs. We are located in San Diego, CA and can be reached at 858-581-6545.
Bookmark this Ride