I have many time added mass to raise qts so that a woofer would go down better in sealed box.
Adding mass to the cone does lower the FS, but you didn't mention it also raises the distortion (slows down it's reaction time) at the higher end of the woofers capabilities.
You give to one end but take away from the other, there's no free lunch.
Because it's such an odd trapezoidal type of shape, I'm positive when I bean bagged filled the bass chamber to do a proper volume check, it was more than 2.5cu ft.
Cheers George