annunaki, you were pretty much dead on with the size requirements!
I've been having too much fun with sketchup creating something that will fit under there. This is the basic design I'm looking at. The top is the outside, the bottom is the inside volume
I can squeeze ~2.55 cu ft out of there once I take out the bracing, driver, amp and vent volume.
I'm not really sure what the better vent configuration would be though...out the front/back is easier to build but since the back of the box would be 5-8" from the wall would it make the sub too boomy?
I'm not worried about my box/volume calculations, but I've no idea if my sub modeling is anywhere near decent. I just tried to create the flattest curve I could with a few drivers and this is what I've got:
WinISD project
Sketchup project
It'd be awesome if someone could double check my model to see if it looks reasonable before I start hacking apart some MDF.