Speaker upgrade

[Brian894X4]

After one of my door speakers apparently blew up, I needed to fix it. I remember reading a few threads about speaker upgrades on here and I decided to go ahead upgrade 6 of the 9 speakers.

First off, I don't have a clue about speakers or what is good or not. My radio is stock and I was mainly just looking to replace the broken speaker and 5 other main speakers with something a bit higher quality.

I was looking to replace the front grill, and all four door speakers. I didn't bother with the far rear speakers or the woofer, both of which are hard for me to access and I figured the payout wouldn't be worth the hassle.

The first thing I did was rip out 1 of each the 3 pairs of speakers and took to them a local stereo store to try to match them up. The first problem I ran into was the front dash speakers were much smaller than I anticipated and I knew I could go larger, but I wasn't sure how much larger.

We settled on a set of 4" Kenwoods. As it would turn out, one side fit perfectly. The other side didn't...more on that later.

The next problem was the front door speakers. They are reverse cone/magnet, something or other type speakers, when apparently blew the stereo guy away because he'd never seen that style before. The problem I had was there's a metal bar in the door directly behind the speaker that limits the depth. I ended up going with set of 6.5" Kenwoods with 1.5" depth that just "barely" fit.

The rear door speakers are unique in how they are set up and I picked up another set of 4" and modified the speaker holder to fit them.

Here's the speakers. I have no idea if they are any good, but they do sound better than stock.

More coming soon....

[Brian894X4]

This is about the dash speakers.

In the first pic, you can see the size difference in the stock speakers and the Kenwood 4". I looks like the dash grill is designed to use 4" speakers. Whey they didn't I have no idea. The 4" speakers fit perfectly on the driver's as you can see in pic 2 and bolted right up. I used some foam to keep the speaker stabilized so that it won't rattle, since only two screws only holding it in place.

The problem came in the passenger side. The dept is too shallow thanks to what I think the factory stereo amp behind the speaker. I didn't have time to pull the dash apart, but I'll have to see if I move the amp back or relocate it to fit. For now I had to leave the stock speaker in place on that side.

[Brian894X4]

The front speakers were a little easier than I thought they'd be. I purchased spacer rings, since I figured they'd be too long, but I didn't need them.

I put some foam on the metal bar behind the speaker, because I knew the speaker would end up making contact here. I also added some foam around the speaker edge. There's about a 1/4" gap, which the foam helps to take up, while also providing cushion for the speaker.

When cinched down, the panel and stock speaker grill fit perfectly. I ended up cutting the wires off the stock speaker and soldering them into the new speakers wiring so it would plug in like stock.

Pic 1 shows the stock speaker and how thin it is with its unique design. You can also see the bar (window run) inside the speaker that prevents using a deeper speaker. Pic 2 and 3 shows the stock speaker (left) and Kenwood 6.5" (right).

[Brian894X4]

Pic 1 shows the factor wire soldered into the Kenwood speaker.

Pic 2 shows the foam in place on the window run and around the speaker well to act as spacer and cushion for the speaker. It bolted in place using the stock holes, but I had to use longer screws.

Pic 3 shows the speaker mounted...pretty much hassle free.

[Brian894X4]

The rear door speakers required a little bit more work. I'm not sure upgrading them is even worth it, because it doesn't sound like they put out much output, but I did it anyway.

They using a unique speaker cup that the factory speaker bolts into and then that bolts into the door. A 4" speaker fits perfect, except it is slightly too deep for the cup. So I cut the bottom part out. Then glued the new speaker to the cup (the factory grill also helps to hold the speaker in place) and bolted it back into the door. I also soldered the factory wire harness to the new speaker wire harness.

Pic 1 shows the stock speaker cup, the stock speaker and the new Kenwood 4" speaker.

Pic 2 shows the bottom part (right) cut out of the speaker cup (left) so that the Kenwood would fit.

[Brian894X4]

Last pics...

Pic 1 shows the new speaker glued (well actually black RTV'd) into the speaker cup.

Pic 2 shows the new speaker mounted into the rear door.

That's all for now. I still need to figure out to mount that front passenger side dash speaker. But overall, the sound is much improved over stock and I'm happy with the new speakers. And the door panels and stock grills are in place, so noone will ever know the speakers are different.

[SF80]

Nice write-up! A lot of detail.

I also replaced all my speakers (all but the the sub.) I used the 3 1/2 infinities for the rear (3rd row)

Infinity Reference 3022cf 3-1/2" 2-way car speakers at Crutchfield.com

I found that once i replaced the 6 main speakers and disconnected the sub, the rear speakers had enough distortion to muddy-up the overall sound. As long as I was going to pull the headliner down to disconnect them, I went ahead and just put in new ones. They sound pretty good, well if only from the very back.

[Brian894X4]

Thanks much.

Is there any purpose/advantage in disconnecting the subwoofer? Maybe relocating it? Or just replacing it?