Front 6.5" Speaker installation (doors)

Hush

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o i see thanks for the info i might as well put it there, i was just trying to keep it looking stock cuase my area is starting to get kinda of ghetto. alot of people around here have been trying to break into cars at night alot no a days... its cuase off all the little kids that live around here grow up.... they think its fun and they get to have car parts for free... i hate it. i freaking drive an accord, and they still borke my window.
 

Wildman

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you probably won't need to do all that extra work if you're using a smaller tweeter, i think you could even fit a 1" tweeter in the sail panel on our cars without having to build it out at all, but i'm not positive. just take your tweeter out to your car and see how it looks
 

ryon527

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I think he did that so it would have the plastic ring around the tweeter molded in. So the finished piece is the sail piece and the grill.
 

MixMaster

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Hi All,

Unfortunately Im new to this forum and just finished the most monumental install (4 weeks part time)....(for the whole system though)

I installed Nakamichi 6.5 components in the front, now getting the actual speaker in was horrific because well...its too big. I had to make a new weather sheild new mount, shave down the door all so i could get this thing to clear the window by 3mm GAH!

With that done though I decided to install the tweeters into the OEM dash locations and it was easy, very easy...heres how.

Step 1
Pop the fabric thing up with a screw driver wrapped in electrical tape. I keep one wrapped up and use it for everything.

Step 2
cut the wires as long as humanly possible, by unhooking the wire from the bottom of the tweeter you can get an extra 20mm or so (Im an Aussie METRIC ROCKS!! 1 inch = 25mm)

Step 3
Unscrew the tweeter from the bracket. DO NOT take the cloth thing of first or you will no be able to crack the screw for the tweeter without breaking stuff.

Step 4
Take all the protective meshes off your tweeter, at least for the Nakamichi soft dome this made it quite compact.

Step 5

glue the tweeter to the bracket. This sounds dodgy but seriously it is the best way. The vibration and forces are puny and there are often no screws on your tweeter to use by this stage.

Step 6
Screw the bracket (now glued to your tweeter) to the cloth thing, solder the wires and pop it back in.

Finished!

There is one complication though, the wires are split somewhere where you cant get at them, I ran new wires out my doors (really hard) so then it was just a matter of dropping the OEM speaker wire into the tweeter terminals on the cross over.

Lesson, just put smaller speakers in the door and live a long and happy life.
 
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Wildman

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question: maybe i probably just misunderstood what you were saying, but wouldn't it have been a lot easier to cut some wood baffles out of some 1/2" mdf or whatever and use that to fix the clearance issues with the mids?

and while i've never heard a set myself, nakamichi has a good reputation for their HU's so i'm assuming the same is true for their speakers :cool:
 

NINaudio

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that's the problem (well, not really a problem) with puttin in good aftermarket speakers in our doors. Bigger magnets, less clearance!
 

MixMaster

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Unfortunately the distance between the fully openned window and the inside of the door cover was about -5mm (ie too small). I had bought the speakers some time ago for a different car but they were so hard to get that i wasn't going to give up easily.

First i decided that i needed atleast 4mm for reliable clearance between the magnet and the window.

Once this was done it determined that the interior door cover could not fit and would stick out like 9mm more than it should (1/3rd of an inch)....no good. Anyway if you look at it there are about 4 small spots that stop a larger diameter fitting so a got the dremel out and VERY VERY carefully cut them out.

A rim of 1/3"x1/3" self adhesive soft foam rubber the went around the perimeter of the speaker to give the cone enough room to move and then voila! screwed it all back together and i have a lovely sweet low end coming out the doors.

WARNING: This is really tricky. I wouldn't do it unless you REALLY want a specific speaker in. Actually even just getting new wires out the door was an epic. If someone actually wants to do it I will type up a huge post on the dos and donts but honestly just get some that will fit straight of the bat even if they dont quite hit the lows.

I will say one thing though. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE having my tweeters in the forward location. The imaging is stunning.

PS how do i start a new thread, i try not to hyjack other people thread but i dont know how to start a new one. Cheers, Mick
 

Troy

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If you don't want broken pieces ...

Thanks for the detailed post. I was a little put off by the door panel removal, until I looked through the description here. The first door took about an hour, and the second took half that, once I had it worked out. :D

Just one thing I discovered about the little plastic screw covers in Step 4:

These are actually little hinged doors that open very easily, if you carefully open the snap clip with a tiny instrument. I used an eyeglass kit screwdriver, but I think a paper clip would also work. Make sure you open the REAR part of the piece on the door and the FRONT part of the piece in the armrest; the other side is the hinge, which gets mashed and breaks the rest of the piece if you stress it. (I did this with the first one, using a medium size flathead screwdriver, until I realized that it didn't open there. :mad:

Other than these little problems, I now have a much better sound, thanks to a JVC KD-G310 head unit (4X18 W RMS/4X50 W max) and Pioneer TS-A1671R three-way front speakers, all for under $200. :)
 
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