I'm sure that those subs can handle 1,000 watts each if the rest of his settings were set right.
So buy one, put a 1000W sine wave into it and see if it survives 5 minutes. I've seen one of those CT subs (broken) and it was particularly poor build quality. I would say even the 800 "rated" is probably optimistic.
He also could've been playing too low of a frequency for his setup.
Is going to burn coils? Is even going to mechanically break those in a .67 cube sealed box?
Don't you think that an 800 rms sub can handle 1,000 watts?
1000W playing Mongolian throat yodeling or 1000W playing DJ Whalesong's 30hz clipped sine wave dubbed over some slowed down mumble rap?
I can assure you, if OP's subs could handle the 2000W amp he has right now we wouldn't have this thread.
I guess I'm overpowering my subs.
Probably, but you appear to have at least figured out how to dial back on the volume knob before doing permanent damage.
That all said, where that tinsel failed looks to me like a manufacturing defect but I'd reserve my judgement unless I see pics of the coils, and OP did say his car stunk for days after this incident. And this, kids, is why you don't tell noobs to run more power than their speakers are rated.