audio difference for front speaker housings. (1 Viewer)
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I thought all the 100 series front lower components were 6.5.
ramangain
Clarksonian disciple
Nope
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- #4
Shop that did stereo install on my truck said fronts and rear doors were 5.25"
I had bought 6.5" component fronts and 4" rears thinking thats what they were based off searched posts. I've seen a few different door speaker housings in posts so im a tad confused.
I feel like the 5.25 had a big weird flat spot or the mid-lows are over driven so I was hoping to be able to swap in my component 6.5"
It has been too long ago to remember the details but, this is where I put the 6.75" Focal ES165K speakers in my rear doors.
Front doors with Focal 165KRX3 - 6.75" speakers in the front doors. I remember the Big Beefy magnets hitting the window, so we had to adjust the baffle a couple of different times to stay under the OEM door card & hit the window.
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- #8
I should just make my own like you did and throw the whole dumb thing out. thanks for the pics.
Yes
I am also considering laying DynaMat in conjunction with a speaker change. I have been told that DynaMat is not meaningfully impactful unless it is applied to the inside of the OUTSIDE of the doorskin (which appears to be pretty hard to get to. Curious - how big a difference did your DynaMat install make? Great job BTW!
I recently went through the sound-deadening process myself. Locks were slowly failing so I decided to replace all the little motors in the actuators (not terribly difficult, I give it 2 bananas) and while I was in there I did all the sound deadening on the inside of the door skin. Definitely a pain to do but to my subjective ears it made a big difference. Not sure how much music sound quality was improved, but just overall comfort and reduction of decibels while driving. I did also notice that most of the body seam filler was dried out and failing throughout the car (roof ribs to roof skin, hood support to hood skin, door bars to door skins) so while I had it all apart I used Sikaflex 221 to rebond everything and provide some extra deadening.
I found working inside the doors made using a roller to apply the deadening extremely difficult at best. As a solution, I used plastic panel popper tools sort of like applying putty except with a lot more pressure. This allowed me to work down into the corners and get much better adhesion than I could using a roller. I used about 2 boxes of the kilmat 80mil stuff available on amazon which was enough to do the doors, the roof, inside the rear quarter panels, and a good bit of the floor, although I skipped over some areas of the floor that already had factory deading in place. I'm sure if you wanted to chip out and replace everything and do a full seal job it might sound a tiny bit better but I'm not sure you would really notice. I also added road kill 3 piece speaker enhancement foam kit (amazon) to help control the speaker sound a little bit as well.
Also to the main point of the thread, I have Kicker component speakers up front and coaxial in the rear, both 6.5 inches. Whoever installed them before used adapter rings and did a terrible job just drilling sheet metal screws through the doorskin
. I'm sure some exist, but I couldn't find a solid sealed adapter that would work so I bought a huge $20 HPDE cutting board and made some adapters. I don't think it was the ideal material but it seems to work just fine. I made a print file to 3D print some but my brother in law was having some struggles getting his printer to play nice with PETG filament so I had to make do with what I could make on my own. If anyone wants the 3D file just send me a PM.Happy to answer any other questions about the install.
(I know the sikaflex is not the right product to use, but after talking with my father-in-law who is a long-time body man I came to the conclusion the sikaflex would work great for significantly less than the correct 3M expanding body joint filler, while also remaining much more user friendly to anyone who has ever used a caulk gun before. His advice was to ensure whatever product I used remained flexible to account for thermal expansion/shrinkage, and also did not shrink during curing as it would warp the panels. FYI One tube was enough to do all 4 door bars, all roof ribs, and the hood support. I probably could have used 2 tubes if I went super gung ho but I think 1 tube was just fine. I've had it in for about 2 months now and it seems to work amazing. )
Thanks Jaysways! Super helpful. Curious if you have parts numbers for the lock actuator motors? Nice job getting that insulation on the outer door skin. Was that sufficient or did you end up doing the inner door skin (basically covering what's in the picture you posted) as well? I am going to run 6.5" 3-way coax in the rear doors and a component tweeter in the grill by the mirrors and 6.5" woofers in the front. Trying to figure out which component tweeters will NOT fit behind those grills by the mirrors (which I understand are actually glued to a mounting plate). Kilmat is way more reasonably priced than DynaMat, did you find any trade-offs? While doing the rear quarter panels did you replace the tiny little 4" subwoofers in the back? Nice job man!I recently went through the sound-deadening process myself. Locks were slowly failing so I decided to replace all the little motors in the actuators (not terribly difficult, I give it 2 bananas) and while I was in there I did all the sound deadening on the inside of the door skin. Definitely a pain to do but to my subjective ears it made a big difference. Not sure how much music sound quality was improved, but just overall comfort and reduction of decibels while driving. I did also notice that most of the body seam filler was dried out and failing throughout the car (roof ribs to roof skin, hood support to hood skin, door bars to door skins) so while I had it all apart I used Sikaflex 221 to rebond everything and provide some extra deadening.
I found working inside the doors made using a roller to apply the deadening extremely difficult at best. As a solution, I used plastic panel popper tools sort of like applying putty except with a lot more pressure. This allowed me to work down into the corners and get much better adhesion than I could using a roller. I used about 2 boxes of the kilmat 80mil stuff available on amazon which was enough to do the doors, the roof, inside the rear quarter panels, and a good bit of the floor, although I skipped over some areas of the floor that already had factory deading in place. I'm sure if you wanted to chip out and replace everything and do a full seal job it might sound a tiny bit better but I'm not sure you would really notice. I also added road kill 3 piece speaker enhancement foam kit (amazon) to help control the speaker sound a little bit as well.
Also to the main point of the thread, I have Kicker component speakers up front and coaxial in the rear, both 6.5 inches. Whoever installed them before used adapter rings and did a terrible job just drilling sheet metal screws through the doorskin
Happy to answer any other questions about the install.
View attachment 3051807
(I know the sikaflex is not the right product to use, but after talking with my father-in-law who is a long-time body man I came to the conclusion the sikaflex would work great for significantly less than the correct 3M expanding body joint filler, while also remaining much more user friendly to anyone who has ever used a caulk gun before. His advice was to ensure whatever product I used remained flexible to account for thermal expansion/shrinkage, and also did not shrink during curing as it would warp the panels. FYI One tube was enough to do all 4 door bars, all roof ribs, and the hood support. I probably could have used 2 tubes if I went super gung ho but I think 1 tube was just fine. I've had it in for about 2 months now and it seems to work amazing. )
Actuator Motors: 4X FC-280 Motors with Collar - Car Door Lock and Mirror Motors - FC-280PT-22125 | eBay - https://www.ebay.com/itm/282890358233 - not sure what the part number is as Toyota doesn't sell the little motors separately but there are a few write-ups on here and a few youtube videos as well. $25 for all 4 sure beats $200+ per door, especially if you are already going to be doing work inside the door. Basically, just remove the full actuator assembly from the door, disassemble it until you just have the black plastic housing separated from all the extra cables and brackets, and then you have to gently pry/break open the black housing. A used a small flathead to sort of pry it open (try a few different edges to find a weak spot) and then just sort of work it around until you can open it. The motor just snaps onto two terminals embedded in the housing so zero wiring and the helix screw just swaps out. Then just use some JB weld plastic epoxy to glue it back together. (I used a toothpick to get just enough in the joint so it wouldn't squeeze out everywhere and I could repeat if need be)
As far as sound deadening goes, I found the inside of the outer door skin to be relatively sufficient. The outer door skin is basically just flat sheet metal so its super susceptible to reverberation, whereas the inner door skin is significantly more contoured and thus pretty rigid. I just kinda knocked on the inner door skin and if it was a bit rattly in any particular section I added some scrap deadening to the inside (hence not shown in the picture). Overall not a big need. Im sure audiophile people go crazy applying it to every surface but I think under the 80/20 rule the benefit is not worth it for 99% of the population. If you look that the Lexus parts diagram (and perhaps later year model land cruisers? mines a 98') there is also a sheet of sound-insulating foam that goes between the vapor barrier and the door card. They are a bit more than I wanted to spend on them so I looked into getting some similar foam from Joanns or some other store but ultimately I haven't done it yet. I think it may further reduce road and ambient noise, but I can't say for sure.
In addition to the sound-deadening material I also wrapped all the wiring loom I could get to in tesa tape. Not sure how much it helps but in my head the soft fabric tape will make less noise rubbing or vibrating against the door skin than it would if it were just the exposed wires or the now hard electrical tape. I also added the same tesa tape around all the wiring clip holes in the door to help reduce any noise that the clips may make against the door (you can see the tape around the holes in the door in the picture) Perhaps overkill but it the tape is super cheap and I already had a few rolls lying around anyways so I figured why not.
Regarding the tweeter size, I honestly have no idea...my speakers were all replaced before I bought it, and when I cleaned it all up I just re-used what was already there. (a bit frustrating because I would have liked to have all the factory wiring intact but some of it was chopped up in the installation, similar quality to the sheet metal screws right through the door. I would love to replace the entire system, head unit, amp, and all the speakers, but unfortunately, I've been on a budget finishing up law school with a family in tow (just graduated, now time to pass the bar!
), and I think in order to really make a significant improvement it would be $2K or more for what I wantSimilarly, I have 0 experience with dynamat so I can't say for sure but the kilmat had a ton of good reviews, and as far as I understand it's essentially the same base material, just a butyl rubber sheet with a foil coating. Both come in a range of thicknesses (I used the 80mil @ 36sq/ft per box) They help to deaden sound both by merely adding mass (making whatever energy is causing the vibration less effective) and by adding a flexible material that can more easily absorb the vibration energy rather than continue spreading it. Both do the same thing. Supposedly Dynamat is a more premium product and has thicker options, but I didn't want to go super thick as the stuff is decently heavy and our rigs are already heavy as they are. Again, I think kilmat is sufficient 90% of the time unless you are going for premium show car audio contest quality.
No I didn't replace the subwoofers, yes they are terrible, and yes I plan to change them in the future. In the meantime, I've just played around with the audio settings on my head unit to where the base is slightly more acceptable, although still not good by any stretch of the imagination. I think there are some good 6-inch subwoofer options available, but I need to find out first if the 6-inch subwoofer box out of the later year models will fit (I assume it would but I'm hoping someone can confirm) and what wiring would need to change going from two speakers to down to one. I've also just considered the possibility of hacking and modifying my current sub box just to fit a 6, possibly even 8-inch woofer, but again that's a project for another time when I have a few more dollars in my pocket.
Hey Jaysways - did you replace (or just re-use) the thin, saran-wrap-like vapor barrier that originally covered everything in your photo (including the two cavities that enable you to access the outer door skin) when first removing the door card? Is there a specific type/brand of adhesive to attach/re-attach it?
I replaced them all. I was trying to clean up everything and the old ones were in rough shape and had clearly been peeled off and reapplied multiple times. I didnt want to pay for OEM ones (about $20/per on partsouq and $50+ from the dealership!) so I bought some clear 6mil sheeting to cut out my own and then just some butyl rubber cord. I bought 2 rolls of the butyl adhesive initially but one roll was enough to do 5 doors with a little bit left over (I messed one up so I pulled it all off and then re-applied new adhesive).
The OEM vapor barriers also have double-layered slits in them for the door handle cables and the wiring harness to pass through. I wanted a similar product so after a bit of experimenting and practice I found I could weld another layer of plastic on the back by using a soldering iron. It took a little bit to get the heat right but I found the best results on my wood top workbench while covering the weld area with a piece of parchment paper and then using a flat tip about 1/8 inch wide. (It does leave a mark on the wood, use a piece of scrap if you are concerned about it.). Prior to welding, I did just gently melt the edges of the second layer to the main sheet like little tack welds to hold it in place so it wouldn't shift while I had it covered and dragged the soldering iron across the top, although be careful doing that as I had one blow through a small little hole. Super easy to do with a little patience.
The most difficult part was just trying to get it to lay flat as the door has slight contours to it and the wiring harness bulges out a bit. Sorta like trying to cover a basketball in wrapping paper but not quite so bad. A heat gun is on the list of tools I need to buy, but unfortunately not one I have currently so I did ultimately use a propane torch in an effort to sort of shrink the material. It doesn't shrink as much as it kind of bunches and folds on itself and the heat makes it go SUPER soft, but once it cools it actually firms right back up, worked pretty well.
sheeting I used - Amazon product ASIN B0040ZC5AOButyl adhesive - Amazon product ASIN B0977F5WNH
