i know i've asked this at least twice before and have seen it asked by other as well and never really got an answer, well let me ask it in a different way this time.

i want a rear seat mini fridge air pass through,, so i am about to get a stereo shop to cut out the back of the mini fridge but what is behind it??

what is between the back of the mini fridge cooler box and the trunk space? is it just carpeting?

who has removed their back seats or seen what is behind it?

if its just filler i'm gonna have all but the last piece of thin trunk carpeting removed but if its metal and gas tank then obviously i'm not gonna do much removing. thanks,

 

I dont have an answer for you but I'd like to ADD the fridge to my 04 LS (sure it wouldnt make sense cost wise, if it could be done). I just think they are so cool.

 

The rear A/C in the UL is an entirely separate unit. It receives compressed freon from the compressor. That means it has to have an expansion chamber with a heat exchanger, blower and ducting to the upper rear vent above each door, valves, and plumbing. It also has the air filter with air purifying feature. Plus, part of the air is ducted into rear fridge.

All of that is going to take up space and I suspect most of that is in the area behind the rear seats and the trunk. Don't know this for a fact, but that's my guess for what it's worth.

 

As much as I don't want to admit it, u may be right. It doesn't have to be a pass through big enough for a todler to squeeze through but if it can get some air flow at all it would be better than present.

 

The rear A/C on the UL has a dedicated blower behind the rear seat. There is only one compressor. I'm not sure if there's a dedicated rear evaporator...my tendency is to think "no" since if it did, you'd see a puddle of water under the car in the rear and in the front under the passenger's side firewall. After that, the plumbing goes underneath the car to the blower in the trunk. I do notice that the rear A/C on the LS is not as cool as on the LX. I believe the reason is the plumbing on the LS goes to trunk (ie, behind the rear seats) while that on the SUV's only has to go behind the driver's seats and up to the blower, which is under the center of the car. Over the additional distance, the cool air warms up from the street. When it's like 108F outside and I'm driving on the interstate, the front/center console A/C is cold, but the upper rear vents are barely cool. This leads me also think there's no evaporator in the rear, just a blower and rear filter. It probably has to be this way, as if it were R34 going to the rear, it would warm up too much from the road to be of any use. I wonder why Toyota didn't duct it through the ceiling/walls to the rear or at least insulate the hoses better?

No, you can't just cut a hole in the coolbox. The blower and air filter are back there, which is why there's considerably less space in the UL's trunk than in a ML's trunk (still generous, but not cavernous).

 

Hey, for the benefit of others on this forum that also want to know... take the dive and do it on your LS and then we'll all know for sure what's behind there.

Other than that... it'll all just be guessing or curiosity.

 

what about the rear deck?? is it more probable to assume that you could cut out some stuff towards the top of the trunk wall to make an air pass through to the factory sub compartment in the rear deck lid thing?

where might be the easiest part to try and mod to get some air to pass through??

 

I added a sub in the trunk of my UL and had the shop remove the factory sub to act as a port to the trunk. It works quite well and I have a lot of bass.

 

I did this when i had my GS and it worked great! I am planning on doing the same thing to the LS shortly.

 

this was the very first mod i did within 1 week of owning my LS but there is no air passing through from the trunk to cars cabin. in the trunk it is walled off to the cabin. i guess the factory sub sat in its own little space in the back shelf but by removing it you don't free up any more air to pass through.

 

i did this on my previous GS400 too and on the GS there was now a gaping hole in the back shelf going into the trunk WHICH WAS AWESOME,, but on my UL this is not the same case. you can't see where the factory sub was or is by looking in the trunk on the UL, it is walled off.

so is there a way to cut through this space where the factory sub should be seen hanging down like on the GS and then be able to have all the air flow???

 

basically on my old gs400 i had removed the factory sub and added a single jl12w6 in a sealed box and a little 500.1 amp to it. on my old gs it sounded awesome for a year. then i got an 05 ls430 UL and had a shop remove the factory sub and added the same jl 12w6 in the same box with the same amp as the GS and it sounds like *** compared to the GS.

the only difference in bass between the 2 cars (GS400 & LS430 UL) was the trunk and cabin space configuration. this tells me that since the trunk is so sealed off this is why the same sub sounds like *** in this LS compared to my old GS.

now fast forward 2.5 years and i am finally fed up with the poor quality bass so i want to upgrade but want to increase the air pass through in the process so that by getting more power to a more powerful sub i don't just have a much louder crappy sounding sub putting out crappy distorted muffled trapped sounding bass.

 

There has to be an evaporator in the rear. If you look at a parts diagram you will see that there is a line from the engine driven compressor to the rear of the car. That freon has to have an expansion chamber and heat exchanger in order to work. The blower back there blows air thur the heat exchanger to produce an independent cool air source just for the rear, which is then ducted to the vents above the rear doors and the fridge. All this has to be enclosed behind the rear seats. It might be possible to cut a hole thru the fridge, as it receives it's cool air at the top thur the little open/close door at the top of the fridge box. Even so, one doesn't know what's behind the fridge box.

 

You are correct. The rear AC in the LS UL is a separate unit. It will puddle under the front and rear of the car when the rear AC is on.

 

Sojah, I hear you man, sucks having a sealed trunk. Its what stops me from doing a custom system. Why spend acouple g’s on trunk work and not enjoy it much. For me... looking at a nice car with a ****ty sounding system don't mix. So, what I came up with was a 2.5” speaker air tube. By removing the stock sub and making a hole straight through the fiber glass/rug of the trunk. This can help you get much better sound out of your music. You can see from the pic's, it doesn't even look bad.