VE II SSV Sportswagon Project 2x15"s and 6" upgrade

[litch]

Greetings all.

I'll be detailing my system build in my (recently purchased) 2012 SSV Redline Sportswagon. Hopefully it helps someone along the way.

TL;DR - If you have a VE Sportswagon you can find pictures, schematics and box designs here.

The Plan

• 2 x MTX T8515-44 15" Subs
• 2500W monoblock / 600W 4ch
• JBL P662 6.5" Coax (rear door)
• JBL GTO 609C 6" Splits (Front door)
• Sourced using a Soundstream iCQ4 Line-Out Module (which will convert the existing Holden IQ speaker outputs into line-out RCAs)
• Dual battery (System will be in the 2,000-3,000W range)

At the time of this thread's creation, I've built and installed the custom sub box, power wiring for 1 battery and the LOM for testing, but I'll continue to update as the work progresses to the final stage of installation.

The Sub Box - Design/Build

My main aim when installing this system was to balance the following:

• SPL (I like to ground'n'pound)
• SQ (But I should at least make an effort in retaining some SQ)
• Boot room (And I don't want to take up the whole boot)

So with boot space and SQ in mind - I decided to sacrifice some SPL and went for a sealed enclosure firstly because a sealed box is inherently smaller than a ported one and secondly the response curve is a little smoother (but drops off sharper down low). Now the manufacturer wants 2cuft NET (Meaning it's 2cuft inside the box, minus the volume the sub takes up as well; ie. 2cuft of actual air) - and if you own a Sportswagon you'll know the boot isn't exactly teaming with space, there's only about 330mm from the rear of the back seats to where the inside panels narrow significantly - also there's about 390mm from the floor to where the horizontal "boot cover" bar comes across immediately behind the top of the back seats, and within that whole area there's about 1220mm of width to play with.

With all that in mind, I set to work in Excel and spun up a template where I could tweak values to get the right size (also taking into account the subs are 390mm high) and once I got it close enough to 2cuft - I took the final measurements down to Mitre10 and told them to cut it using their wall-saw (much more accurate than my circular saw abilities ). The box was cut to-the-millimetre using 18mm MDF and cost under $40 including 100 x 8G/45mm wood screws and a tube of liquid nails. Assembly took a couple of hours (including dry time) - but the result was dead square.

Photos in ZIP:

• Box Build 1-4

The Sub Box - Fit out

With the box built and just sitting there (waiting for the carpet and other power parts I ordered to be delivered) - I grew impatient and decided to throw something together with what I had as a temporary solution (at least get to hear what it sounded like).

The amps I had previously - an decade-old but reliable power-house monoblock: An Orion 2500D and a crappy Precision Power 600W 4ch (to be replaced in due time) were ready to mount, so I dug through the bottom of my "old car audio installs" box for some power distro and 4AWG and set to work. Since these subs could take the best part of the 2500W from the monoblock, I ran 8AWG in a DVC-parallel+Sub-Parallel configuration to leverage that 1Ohm power level (4 Ohm voice coils in parallel = 2 Ohm per sub, then both subs in parallel = 1 Ohm final).

HINT: Ensure you amp is 1Ohm stable before you go ahead and wire it up that way, else you'll risk damaging it.

Photos in ZIP:

• Sub Wires 1-5 - shows how to properly cable up the subs by mid-joining DVC cross connects.
• Temp Build Back / Temp Build Front - Showing the temporary throw-together.

The Sub Box - Install

I knew the box had to be installed from the back seats and pushed into place, the Sportswagon's boot opening is smaller than the width of the box (and thus, so it most of the boot from the tailgate to the area just before the back seats) - the one thing I didn't count on was the damn back seat latch pegs; 3 inches of hardened steel protruding out from each side where the back seats lock into place. (Hint: Multigrips took care of them). After that I was able to finally see how everything fit - and it was like a f@#%ing glove.

Photos in ZIP:

• All "Box Fit" photos...

As you can see in the photos, the box fits snug up against the back seat while the seat's vertical angle allows the amps and wiring to remain hidden. The box's height still allows for the boot cover bar to be installed, and it's depth fits it snug up against the narrowing side panels - keeping it stationary.


LOM and wire looms

A Line Out Module, Line interface module, Line OEM module or however many other names it has essentially takes the 40-60 Watt audio channel designed to power speakers directly and converts it to line-out levels (low power audio designed to drive the RCA inputs to amps). It's the effective, low cost solution that doesn't require you spending a grand to replace the whole dash with after-market audio gear. The Soundstream iCQ4 unit I have is what you would call "middle-shelf" quality and does the job quite well, but for "full-on" SQ installs, you would look a few shelves higher so-to-speak.

So, in an ideal LOM install - the unit would be placed at or near the audio source (Holden IQ) - like under/in the glovebox or behind the kick panel. In this case I just threw it on top of the sub box for the sake of and easy place to be tuned (to be removed and properly installed when I receive all the other gear). I tapped the rear door speakers via the wire loom under the kick-step of the driver and passenger front doors. There's an absolute mess of wires in there with the rear-speaker colour codes *not* being unique.

HINT: The speaker wire-pairs (+ and -) are twisted together, as far as I could see - no other wires were in that loom.

Colour codes:

• For rear-left, it's Brown(+) and Yellow w/Red stripe(-)
• For rear-right, it's Dark Blue(+) and Light Blue(-)

For the sake of it, here's the front colours as well (though you won't find them in that loom):

• For front-left, it's Brown(+) and Grey(-)
• For front-right, it's Light Green(+) and Dark Green(-)

I simply cut them, soldered on a couple of 16AWG speaker wire, taped it up and ran it back to the LOM (feed from IQ) and the 4ch (return to speaker). Then set the LOM to 2ch mode - taking the 2ch from the rear speakers and duplicating it into 4ch output; 2ch for the 4ch amp which will run the rear speakers for the time being and 2ch for the monoblock.

Power

The VE has the battery in the boot, left side panel just in from the tailgate. Convenient? Yes, but at what cost... The alternator in the SSV is 140A - significant for a sedan, but it's got a LOT of electrics and I'm unsure of how big the alternator->battery wire is. I can see about a 4AWG from the battery going towards the engine bay (which I'm hoping is the alternator feed) but there's also a small ~10AWG cable bolted to the side of the battery terminal with "ALT" stamped next to it - totally insufficient for my level of power requirements if that's the case; further investigation necessary (TBC)...

HINT: To run the power from the battery, there are Torx screws along the top of the side panel that allows its removal where you can then easily access the inside quarter panel (and the battery there-in) all the way to the rear seat mounts. I'll be detailing this when I install the other battery w/photos etc..

Initial tests

Wow, sounds really good. Very loud, punchy and hits every note, though starts to struggle below 50Hz; a bit of baffle may help that.

HINT: "Baffle" or "Dampening" (that soft, white fluffy material somewhere between insulation bats and cotton wool) attenuates the sound waves inside the box. When your sub fails to drop low it can be because the sounds waves are bouncing off the back of the box and slapping back into the cone at the same time it's going back for another pressure wave (that's called a standing wave or resonance). Baffle reduces this negative feedback on the woofer cone - essentially emulating a larger enclosure and smoothing out the resonance curve. The basic rule of thumb is that a larger enclosure will hit deeper notes (to a point). If you find you're not hitting low as well as you'd like, adding a few inches of baffle at the rear of the box can help substantially (at the cost of taking some of that "punchyness" away). You'll need to see how much you need by trial and error, too much and you'll start to dig in to performance, too little and you won't notice anything. Note that low powered systems (ie ~300W subs) will suffer more performance loss when using baffle than higher powered systems of the same physical size.

The stock speakers in the rear (now powered by the amp) sound twice as good as the front doors - clearer, better response up each end of the spectrum and it's now made painfully apparent that the front door and centre speaker are under-performing.

Coming up...

Enough Dynamat to cover a small stadium, some better power distribution and some HQ speaker wire are all en-route, but the JBLs are still on back-order from the USA.

The next update will be once the JBLs come in, and I'll detail:

• HOWTO: Door speaker/speaker wire upgrade
• Proper LOM installation, tapping into the Holden IQ audio plugs at the dash
• Power distribution, alternator feed, second battery install
• How it looks with a carpeted box

Also I'll try get some videos to accompany the install photos.

-Litch

[EDIT] Site won't let me upload the Excel doc I built, so I've included a screenshot and I'll email the original on request.

 

[Tasmaniak]

Great write up and look forward to some more details. Going to throw some questions at you that may help others even more...
What was the decision to go with 15s?
What music do you typically push through them?
Why those particular brands?
15" to a 6" sound stage is a big difference, how do you intend to compensate for the difference if the subs are struggling above 50hz?
Where do you intend to crossover your front doors and will they cope?
How many octave will your crossover be if your subs and front doors are set at different frequencies? E.g. My Mercedes sub is cut at 70hz with a 24db slope and my fronts are cut at 50hz (I like the punch from them) with a 24db slope also.
Any phase issues?

Sorry if I missed some details that answer these questions... i think I read it all but long posts on a phone can be confusing for old eyes haha

 

[litch]

Great write up and look forward to some more details. Going to throw some questions at you that may help others even more...

Thanks, the whole aim of this was to get some information out there.

What was the decision to go with 15s?

Had these in my old BA Wagon, paid a small fortune and ended up being a regrettable buy in the end as they're not as loud as I hoped - mainly because I misread the tech specs...

Excursion (Xmax, the distance the cone moves in and out) is only 1/2" (12.5mm) and there are plenty of 12" subs that do more than twice that (which is actually capable of creating higher SPL).

To quantify that fact:

Using the formula: pi*r^2*Xmax (volume of a cylinder = pi x rSquared x length)
A 15" sub that does a 1/2" excursion (Xmax = 12mm):
= 3.1415 * (190mm * 190mm) * 12mm
= 1.37e6 cubic mm (1.37 litres)

A 12" sub that does a full inch (Xmax = 25mm):
= 3.1415 * (150mm * 150mm) * 25mm
= 1.77e6 cubic mm (1.76 litres)

The ratio of air moved:
= 1.77 / 1.37
= ~1.3

Conclusion: 12" has a 30% increase in air volume (if the 12" was 30mm, it'd be 55% increase).

Rules:
- A 12" with 60% more Xmax of a given 15" will move the same volume of air at max excursion (max power input).
- That relationship is linear (ie. a 12" with 60% Xmax of a 15" will still move the same volume when both subs are at half power / half Xmax)

Anyway, that's my SPL love shining through; you ever want to do a hair trick? Lots of Xmax and lots of power to push that air.

Back on topic - So, while I'd _love_ to have a couple of DD 9512s or DC Level 4s in there (30mm Xmax) - I made do with what I had from a cost perspective (If we talk costs of the install not including bits I already had, I'm at around $600 for the box, 2 x 6", dynamats and other odds/ends).

Note: The box itself would be just about spot-on for a ported 12" set up. Perhaps after a while - I'll do just that.

What music do you typically push through them?

All kinds from metal to dub to classical (though mostly dub)

Why those particular brands?

MTX Subs as mentioned earlier was a mistake I'll never make again. $450 per sub - but when their performance was weighed they've been found wanting.

JBL splits? Well I did a _lot_ of research. Mid-shelf 6" was the aim (~$150-$250 mark) and it was a toss up between the Focal 165AS series, the Polk DB6501,
Infinity REF6500 series and the JBLs.

To summarise:

• The Focals had poor tweeter response up loud (according to reviews), and were only rated at 60W with a max of 120W.
• The Polks, were the other side of the fence at 100W@4Ohm - some reviews were conflicting and that was a red flag.
• The Infinitys and JBLs were all round winners. Both had good reviews. Both are 90W@3Ohm.

The deciding factor? I knew who JBL were and they were $15 cheaper.

The Precision Power 4ch

Precision Power, an amusing title for the product supplied. You'll find them on the shelf amongst the likes of Boss, D18 and Sansui.

4ch amps are actually fairly cheap and I would have got a decent one under $500 like a Rockford T6004, but fate would have it that I hit a roo and the amp that would have been instead went to the excess for insurance.

Orion 2500D Mono

This amp was accompanied with another powering 2 x Orion HCCA15.2 subs in a vertical wall just behind the front seats of my first car - a 1984 KB Ford Laser. That was over a decade ago, and the amount of continuous punishment I have dealt out to this amp (and the luckless subs who happened to be at its mercy) astonishes me that it continues to operate with as much power and ferocity as it did when it was broken out of the crate from the USA all that time ago. Its brother however, victim of a fatal short-circuit due to some 8AWG coming loose is waiting for some vital components and my time to revive it.

15" to a 6" sound stage is a big difference, how do you intend to compensate for the difference if the subs are struggling above 50hz?

You mean below 50Hz yeah? The subs actually perform too well above 150Hz even with an aggressive LPF. But yes, as an overall system - the current stock mids/highs are not keeping up with the capability of the 15s down low. I'm hoping the JBLs are as good as everyone says they are.

Where do you intend to crossover your front doors and will they cope?

Good question. I've seen people put the crossover module in the door with some double sided tape - but I'm sceptical about the whole moisture/corrosion aspect there. Since I've got 12AWG, it would make sense to crossover before the door - thus only having to run a single cable into the door. The tweeters have their own place on the dash where it meets the A-pillar, so I'm hoping there's room in the side kick-panels as a nice 'mid-way' point between the two components. Obviously I haven't actually investigated this yet - I'm treating it as a "know it when I see it" job.

How many octave will your crossover be if your subs and front doors are set at different frequencies? E.g. My Mercedes sub is cut at 70hz with a 24db slope and my fronts are cut at 50hz (I like the punch from them) with a 24db slope also.

I have no idea how exactly these JBLs will perform, nor do I know how the baffle, carpet and second battery will affect the subs' output - to use the term literally, I'll have to play it by ear on how exactly I'll configure the LPF/HPF.

Any phase issues?

Again, we'll see how it goes once complete and we're up to tuning. In saying that, if I was going that far into SQ - I'd just get a RF 3sixty or bit10 processor.

Sorry if I missed some details that answer these questions... i think I read it all but long posts on a phone can be confusing for old eyes haha

Nah, all valid questions and thanks for engaging.

 

[Gouldinator1]

Awesome great info.

I have a question on your electrical. Plan on doing the big three as well as bigger alternator or dual alt setup? Probably not a big issue with these subs and being sealed but was just wondering your thoughts on power and the draw that amp will have.

Also your excel spread sheet looks good. But check out Torres Box Tuning Calculator, it is dope.

And here is some extra info on Google SketchUp and ported boxes. SketchUp is great for doing up sub box designs and that ported box page is a great tutorial for using Torres as well.

 

[litch]

Awesome great info.

I have a question on your electrical. Plan on doing the big three as well as bigger alternator or dual alt setup? Probably not a big issue with these subs and being sealed but was just wondering your thoughts on power and the draw that amp will have.

You're right, the Big3 upgrade is on the design board as "tentative" as it probably wont't be required.

Also - It'll be rather expensive and there's more research to be done before I can even consider any action.

In summary...

• The circuitry from the Alt to the battery in the boot is confusing, I'm still yet to confirm which wire is charge from the alternator and which is the feed back to the starter - is the wire large enough already? How will upgrading it affect other systems that require power?
• How sensitive the myriad of fuses along the way from the Alt to the boot are to my power requirements - will they blow? Will they hold up? This is all dependant on how reliant the Amps are on the alternator's power (where the current will go through these fuses) versus the amount of power the batteries can provide them to make up the total power draw.
• The SSV already has a 140A Alt installed to support all the electrics it has (plus the engine size). That means any 'worthwhile' upgrade will need to be up around the 200A level - Bolt-on alts that size just don't exist in Australia, or they're 2nd hand, or they're hand-made and cost a small fortune.
• Speaking of hand-made alts (and just so I'm aware of my options) I've contacted Mechman in the USA and they're more than happy to help (the L77 6.0L in my SSV is the same as the Caprice cop cars over in the USA) - but they're thorough, wanting photos of the brackets and regulator as well before they quote me. With the AUD vs. USD and the inherent ludicrous shipping costs from the USA - I expect to pay somewhere on the larger side of a grand to get one over here. Ouch.

Is the Big3 really important?

In my case, probably not.

To add perspective, the everyday "turn it up loud" power draw would be (as I guesstimate) about 1.5KW-2.0KW and to put that back to current, the average, 1750W @ 13V is in the 130A (+/- 20A) realm. As it is now (stock battery only), the headlights already dim slightly on heavy notes so the "up loud" power draw is likely within the car's capacity during the day and it just falls short at night when the headlights are on and it loses ~40A to them.

In short - Once the second battery (Optima yellow top) is installed, I'm confident I'll be able to play anything at any volume with anything else on. The yellow top will be at the end of the circuit (Alt->Stock Bat->Amp Distro->Optima) so the Amps, now surrounded by two batteries in parallel shouldn't affect anything else.

Note: If I wasn't getting a second battery or if I upgrade the subs to something more serious - it would definitely be necessary.

Also your excel spread sheet looks good. But check out Torres Box Tuning Calculator, it is dope.

And here is some extra info on Google SketchUp and ported boxes. SketchUp is great for doing up sub box designs and that ported box page is a great tutorial for using Torres as well.

Cheers - I'm aware of both of those tools (but the SketchUp HOWTO will be a great help in the future).

In this case with the simple sealed design meeting the manufacturer's spec, I didn't need to spend an hour or more tuning it and drawing it on SketchUp making it look pretty, instead 3 minutes on Visio (providing the top-view of the box) and 5 minutes on Excel (wood cut list) was sufficient, though perhaps hindsight would say otherwise in light of their performance down low.

-Litch

 

[litch]

Update - 6" delays...

Looks like the JBLs I ordered are no longer available (end of life) and JBL are shipping the successor to that model over instead.

No idea what that actually is, but they're still a month away ffs >:|

Quality can vary from version to version of a certain model - I'm not sure I'm comfortable being the guinea pig for these new ones, but I'll confirm exactly what model they are and go from there; otherwise the Infinity's may be the answer.

-Litch

 

[Gouldinator1]

In summary...

• The circuitry from the Alt to the battery in the boot is confusing, I'm still yet to confirm which wire is charge from the alternator and which is the feed back to the starter - is the wire large enough already? How will upgrading it affect other systems that require power?
• How sensitive the myriad of fuses along the way from the Alt to the boot are to my power requirements - will they blow? Will they hold up? This is all dependant on how reliant the Amps are on the alternator's power (where the current will go through these fuses) versus the amount of power the batteries can provide them to make up the total power draw.
• The SSV already has a 140A Alt installed to support all the electrics it has (plus the engine size). That means any 'worthwhile' upgrade will need to be up around the 200A level - Bolt-on alts that size just don't exist in Australia, or they're 2nd hand, or they're hand-made and cost a small fortune.
• Speaking of hand-made alts (and just so I'm aware of my options) I've contacted Mechman in the USA and they're more than happy to help (the L77 6.0L in my SSV is the same as the Caprice cop cars over in the USA) - but they're thorough, wanting photos of the brackets and regulator as well before they quote me. With the AUD vs. USD and the inherent ludicrous shipping costs from the USA - I expect to pay somewhere on the larger side of a grand to get one over here. Ouch.

Some thoughts.

Your first point. I would use my own runs of 1/0 gauge positive and negative from alt in the front to the batteries in the back and fuse that. It would eliminate the stock wiring creating any bottle neck and limit the alternating charging the batts.

3rd-4th point. Yeah all high output alts I have seen are from overseas. Besides Mechman, DC Power Inc and Singer Alternators are two I have seen people use a lot. Also don't think shipping will kill you to much. They don't have the size and weight of say a sub and can be shipped cheaper. Think Nic92 got a Mechman alt for around 500-600 bucks and shipping wasn't too big of an issue.

Is the Big3 really important?

In my case, probably not.

To add perspective, the everyday "turn it up loud" power draw would be (as I guesstimate) about 1.5KW-2.0KW and to put that back to current, the average, 1750W @ 13V is in the 130A (+/- 20A) realm. As it is now (stock battery only), the headlights already dim slightly on heavy notes so the "up loud" power draw is likely within the car's capacity during the day and it just falls short at night when the headlights are on and it loses ~40A to them.

In short - Once the second battery (Optima yellow top) is installed, I'm confident I'll be able to play anything at any volume with anything else on. The yellow top will be at the end of the circuit (Alt->Stock Bat->Amp Distro->Optima) so the Amps, now surrounded by two batteries in parallel shouldn't affect anything else.

Note: If I wasn't getting a second battery or if I upgrade the subs to something more serious - it would definitely be necessary.

I definitely saw improvement with the big three. Made my volts way more stable and it carried my power load better.

If your headlights are already dimming then the amps are drawing more power than your alt can handle. Hence the voltage drop.

Also I think you are overestimating the capacity of the alternator. With another battery you will be able to have a bigger load for longer but you are asking that single alt to recharge both batteries while supplying the rest of the electrics. So you could drain both while the alt struggles to change them.

Generally you want to have about the same amount of cold-cranking-amps (CCA) as you do RMS to carry the load. But then you need to be able to charge them and maintain the 14+ volts.

Again this is only if you are playing full tilt for decent periods of time. But it is worth thinking about.

Either way loving what you are doing and the knowledge sharing.

 

[litch]

3rd-4th point. Yeah all high output alts I have seen are from overseas. Besides Mechman, DC Power Inc and Singer Alternators are two I have seen people use a lot. Also don't think shipping will kill you to much. They don't have the size and weight of say a sub and can be shipped cheaper. Think Nic92 got a Mechman alt for around 500-600 bucks and shipping wasn't too big of an issue.

Excellent news - cheers!

Generally you want to have about the same amount of cold-cranking-amps (CCA) as you do RMS to carry the load. But then you need to be able to charge them and maintain the 14+ volts.

3KW (230-250A) would land somewhere around half of of a stock-standard car battery's CCA rating (even towards a third in a V8). Eg - The VE SSV's battery is upwards of 600CCA.

Note that CCA ratings imply the battery's output would drop down below 10 volts under that load, and along with differences in measuring that value between manufacturers and the type of cell - it's a fairly unreliable metric to use.

But I will take your warning onboard - I should get around to measuring the system volts under load to actually tell how big the problem is - it may be more significant that I assumed.

Either way loving what you are doing and the knowledge sharing.

And I appreciate the comments/questions!

 

[litch]

Update - New 6" models

JBLs were taking too long, swapped them out for:

• Front = Infinity Kappa 60.9CS (reviews)
• Rear = Polk DB651 (reviews)

Should have them before the weekend, and given the time I'll have that part of the install well documented in my post next week.

-Litch

 

[litch]

UPDATE: Rear door install
In the format of a HOWTO:

Removing the door skin and dynamat prep

The door skin is removed by 2 x screws under the armrest, 3 down the bottom of the door itself and if you pop the plastic cover off inside the door opening lever - there's another one there. All screws are phillips head, bar the door handle which is a star-head (torx) size 125.

View attachment 178618View attachment 178619


There are clips along both sides - I cannot stress enough that you need a plastic clip lever (or whatever the hell they're called) as you will break clips if you don't have one. I was very careful without one - 3 clips broke across 2 doors.

So, working from the bottom to the top, unclip the skin and when left only with the topmost part - that comes out towards you (it doesn't lift up as other door skins do). You'll be left with the door like the below, with the moisture guard visible:

View attachment 178607

Remove the whole speaker mount (phillips), unplug the speaker and then remove the moisture guard in one piece. Clean all the metal down with methylated spirits or rubbing alcohol - don't use Mineral turpentine as that'll leave an oily residue that you're supposed to be getting off in the first place. Lay your moisture guard down over the dynamat and trace around it with a stanley knife - that's your template.

View attachment 178615

For reference - the speaker connection and the 30W, 2Ohm crappy things they put in the car to begin with:

View attachment 178609View attachment 178608

You should be left with a bare door, no speaker and a cutout dynamat to go back on. Don't worry if the dynamat doesn't have the height/width of the whole plastic template - just focus on picking a side which has the most complicated bits (speaker hole, cable holes, screw holes etc...) and get that cut out nicely - once its on as a point of reference, doing the rest will be much easier.


Running new speaker wire

(BEFORE you put on any Dynamat....)

Wow, 12AWG was a pain! But here's how it's done. First, where the grommet meets the B pillar on the car - it has 2 x clips centre top and bottom that you can depress with a flatheat screwdriver to remove it:

View attachment 178612

Then (as seen above) cut a wire coat-hanger and tape one end to the cable, and poke the other through the rubber grommet being careful not to pierce the flexible part. You will have to push it through the other end though - it's filled with white sticky butyl - nightmare to get through. Make sure you tape that speaker wire onto coat-hanger REAL good, get in the door with a stanley and cut a slightly larger opening where the hanger wire broke through if required.

Once poked through you can pull the wire the rest of the way from inside the door. Small long nosed pliers may of use here if the hanger wire detaches from the speaker wire (which is left almost poking through into the door cavity) so you can go digging in there and pull it the rest of the way.

View attachment 178614

If you're having real trouble, the whole wire loom unplugs from inside the B pillar and you can pull the whole thing into the door cavity and work on it from there - may be a bit easier for thick speaker wire.

Once the wire is through, unscrew the old speaker for the mount, thread the wire up to the speaker hole, through the mount (any any other fitting brackets that are required) and attach to the speaker.

Here are the Polk 651s just prior to that stage.

View attachment 178611View attachment 178610

Putting it all back together - Dynamat

At this stage you should have the wire through and the speaker ready to be mounted - but no dynamat on just yet.

OPTIONAL: Before you go any further - cut out a 10" x 10" square (or close enough), clean the outer panel through the speaker hole and apply the dynamat to the outer panel immediately behind the speaker hole. This is to reduce the flex of the outer panel (dampen external noise from the mids on the outer panel) and will add to your overall bass response.

Next, using a corner or edge as reference, unpeel the dynamat and stick it onto the door frame. Use a hair dryer or hot air gun if required to soften the dynamat to make it more plyable and use a roller, tennis ball or other firm rounded tool to work the mat into the bends and valleys of the metal.

Any areas you've missed or didn't cover with the first piece- measure and cut out more dynamat with the expectation you'll have about 10mm overlap with the mat already on the door and work it in using the same method.

NOTE: It's the objective to have the dynamat make contact with as much metal as possible, it's this contact that turns the metal from a thin vibrating plate into a more rigid (heavier) sound barrier.

It was dark by the time I finished, but here's the door:

View attachment 178617View attachment 178616

Note the cavity down the bottom-right (in the above) is where the drink holder in the door skin resides - you'll need extra mat there to allow for that to stretch into. In fact, before you go re-attaching anything - press the door skin up to the frame just to ensure it fits in there.

Putting it all back together - Speaker wire (door)

Cable tie the speaker wire up the pre-existing wires for the electric window inside the door, this will keep it from interfering with the window when it's moved up/down. Cable tie the wire and the old speaker clip to the same run keeping them out of the way as well.

Mount the speaker to the speaker mount, wire the speaker up and then the mount it on the door.

Putting it all back together - Speaker wire (car)

With the coat-hanger now taped to the other side of the wire, unclip the back-seat door kick and pull the rubber seal off between the B pillar and the kick - a gap will be exposed between the plastic interior cover and the B pillar itself. Poke the hanger wire up through the grommet hole at a 45 degree angle and you should go straight through the access hole and hit the plastic interior cover - bend and push the wire until you force it to bend around and present itself at the edge of the gap where you can then feed it through and route it to the boot under the seal.

Ensure both grommets (door/B pillar) are properly replaced back.

REVIEW: Polk db651

With the speakers operating by themselves - the sound in the car was already rich across the whole range with crisp highs and full bodies lows. I'm not sure how much the low end owes to the dynamat, I almost turned off the HPF altogether because they loved it so much, but ended up on 50Hz just to save them some of the grief I give to the subs.

Cons: They supply all sorts of mounting brackets to go over 6" holes. I used the old speaker screws to go from bracket to door mount, but they didn't supply any screws for the speaker to bracket?!?! Ended up drilling out the screw holes so I could use some other screws I had laying around. Immensly frustrating.

Overall - I'd certainly recommend the Polks; bang for buck - they're still a winner by far, with or without screws.

PS: If anyone wants the stock speakers - very good condition, PM me.