door speaker upgrade[with pics]
 

Well I finally picked up a new pair of door speakers. The old ones were falling apart and rattled like crazy. i didn't want cheap 4x6" speakers and the Infinity Kappas cost too much. I chose the Kicker DX60 6 1/2" speakers.



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Kicker DX60 6 1/2" speakers



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This is what my original speakers looked like. They sounded about the same too.



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4x6" speaker housing and the amplifier. If you have a good deck you should bypass the amp or just rip it out.



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Door hole. Pretty dirty in there too. There should be 5 wires that were going to the old amp. +12v, ground, remote turn on, + signal, and - signal. Just like a regular amp. I just cut and taped off the power ones.



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Outline of my new speaker plate. I used Plexiglas because that’s all I had.



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Clamp it down and cut with a jigsaw.



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Panel outline cut and the arrows were pointing to the screw holes so I can make a circle.



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Makeshift compass to make circle.



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Mounting panel all cut and holes drilled.



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Both mounting panels ready



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Both speakers screwed in



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New mounted speaker




I installed them to test them out. I still got to make a fiberglass box for the inside. That’s tomorrow’s job… or maybe Saturday’s job. Even without a good box they still sound a whole lot better than my old speakers and most 4x6s. I also have to make a high pass crossover for the door and rear speakers too.

I just wish I got components instead... I was worried about mounting depth since there’s only 2 1/4" before the magnet hits the glass if the speaker is flush mounted. But after making my new speaker panels, I realized you could move the speaker 1” away from the door and you could fit some big shat in there and the interior door stuff would still be fine. Maybe later I’ll stick an 8” driver in the door…

To be continued…

:thumb: nice clean install 10 points

A job well done. :)

nice job:)

i think when i get 6.5 components up front, ill switch to plexiglass

my plywood's attracting too many spiders:ugh:

also maybe buy some speaker baffles, cause for me some water leaked inside and damaged one of my speakers

I am in the process of doing a stereo in my 98 240sx...and found out this afternoon that my car has 6.5" seakers in the front doorsstock. I could have saved some time if I had checked...but made new plates for my 5.25" components (I would have gone 6" if I had known from the start.

i just finished making fiberglass boxes to go in the doors. i'll post some pictures when i get them installed. also my fiberglass sub box is nearly complete. i been slacking off and should have finished this stuff sooner.

very clean install.. much props! :thumb:

very clean

would u be willing to make 2 more and if so how much would u charge for them?? I could really use them. thanks

Well I finally got around to resizing all the images and uploading them. Here are all the fiberglassing images for the door speakers and my sub box.

http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/~danieljo/...2/DSC02876.jpg
I made a cardboard template of the hole. You also have to make room for the window when it’s all the way down.

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I hot glued the shirt to the door and put resin on the shirt. I then took it out and put a layer of fiberglass on the inside. but from my experience you should just glass it while its in the door. I had trouble fitting it back in because it would distort a little.

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Here are the finished glassed boxes ready to get the fiberglass lip. All I did was put it on wax paper (better than that foil crap I used before) and slap some glass on the sides.

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Here is the lip with it trimmed and sanded.

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Box in door.

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6dB/octave high pass crossover, which is just a capacitor.

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Capacitor wired inline with the speaker wire.

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Speaker over fully trimmed box.

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Box in door with hole for wire. Put the hole at the lowest part just in case water gets inside. The hole doesn’t make any noise if your wondering.

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Caulked and screwed in.

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Ghetto drain pipe amp.

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Use to be the amp from a bazooka.

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I also made a fitted sub box for the trunk. I lined it with foil like I saw in another site. Well anyway, that guy needs a slap. Foil is gay use wax paper instead. And spend a few bucks and buy the blue painters tape, I was dumb and used CLEAR tape, its hard to find and take off after. When the first layer of glass dries, just pop it out of the trunk and work on it from there.

http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/~danieljo/...2/DSC02895.jpg
Sorry I missed all the pictures in between. Here is the finished box. I used ¼” plywood with glass on both sides.

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Back of box.

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Box in trunk wired to ghetto drain pipe amp. I used an old 12” Kenwood sub.

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Top of box.

damn, you sure put a lot of effort in this. Very nicely done, very nice:D

I wanna do the door speakers, but I have no experience with fiberglass or the tools to do so:angry: :tear:

Nice!! You want to do mine? lol

good job used the exact same method me and my dad been using to do the interior on our crx, we also tested it out on a neighbors box very similiar to the one you done in the trunk. the only thing i dont see in yours that we did differently is we cut out speaker rings and used wooden sticks to support the weight of the sub against the shell. but yours looks clean. good job, at first we used fleace then we switched over to the t shirt material for the door panels because it seemed easier to work with nice to see other people are discovering this as well it is very neat and a good learning experience, you can even make a few bucks doing that for buddys and what not. good job.

it was a good learning experience, but i don't plan on playing with fiberglass anytime soon. too time consuming and it costed more than i though it would. i was expecting around $40 but it added up to around $80 for the 2 door boxes and sub box.