Well I finally did it. I got an Infinite Baffle sub firing through my ski port. I have the sedan and the ski port came out with just pounding with my fist. I originally wanted to mount the sub from the inside behind the seats but I was convinced just to mount it from behind in the trunk. I don't understand why more people do not do IB sub installs. It saves space and it goes very low. I tapped into the preouts coming from the sat nav to the trunk. It was very tedious. I cut the pre out cables as BSW suggest but that is a very bad idea. The cables are too short to tie in with using a standard crimp connector. So I used couplers for the speaker outs that worked much better. You just put the original cable through and put your new cable on the other side and press together. Instant splice. However they are a bit bulky and were a pain as well.
I also replaced the front speakers with an old pair of MB Quarts made in Germany. They were the lower end Discus line and 5.25 so are not too exciting but are worlds better than the stock Harmon Kardon speakers.
The sub sounds pretty amazing. It is an older Hertz Air Mille. It blended seemlessly with the front speakers. In other words it doesn't really draw too much attention to itself. I had it in a box in my old 323 and it probably hit a bit harder in the box but in the Infinite Baffle setup it is just very very smooth. I guess I would say its more Sound Quality than SPL, which is just what I wanted. Don't get me wrong it is shaking the car but somehow it doesn't really go boom boom. It just adds bass if that makes any sense. I was very surprised at how low it goes. I think one of the benefits of IB is it goes very low but does not go very high. I expected it to really take over but it hasn't. It just sounds like an extension of the front speakers which don't go very low. I will find a good set of 6.5s to put in the door so they can do the duty down to 80 Hz or so than I think everything will sound pretty much perfect.
I also have a JL W6 10 in a Prowedge box. But I decided not to use it. I used to use one of those in a Van I had. It is an excellent driver. Very fast and very tight. However I had been dying to just do the Free Air setup as it saves so much space. I just can't get my head around sending 500-1000 watts to amplify something in the trunk. The little 10 JLW6 in the Prowedge box would certainly be a nice solution for the ZHP as it has a very small footprint. I should have tried it but I didn't. Another benefit of IB is you don't need a lot of power to run it effectively. Instead of running 500 to 1000 watts to get a driver to work in a small box, you need 150 to 300 watts to get the sound out of an infinite Baffle setup.
I would recommend IB to other E46 owners. The isolation from the trunk is excellent in our cars and is ideal for IB and bad for boxes. The rear deck needs a bit of sealing but that is easily done. The only problem is that not many companies make Free Air drivers any more. I have heard of people using the JL W6 and W7s IB with excellent results.
So there you go. Tap into the preouts in the trunk. Add your amp (JL amps and some others take the high balanced pre inputs directly) Get a piece of MDF or Birch and mount it to the rear seat panel, do some sealing and you will get some HQ bass if you use the right driver. My next project is to install a new Pioneer head unit in the trunk and remote wire the faceplate to the cabin. I was thinking about putting it in the ashtray. The stock sat nav audio is really pretty bad. I tried to like it but its not happening. however I will run it into an Aux on the Pioneer so I will still be able to use it. If I haven't bored you to death and you have made it this far, thanks for reading.