My plan for my car audio set up involved 5.25" Infinity Kappa Perfect Component speakers in modified kickpanels that a local shop was going to make out of fiberglass, and carpetlike standard kicks. I just removed them for the first time expecting a little room behind them only to find NONE. There is absolutely no room for the speakers to recess into the panel even a little. For the passenger side this is not that big a problem, but for the the driver side I don't see how it can be done. Anyone have suggestions? I am DEADSET on these speakers by the way.

I also have a 10" sub that I need to fit into a box that will work with the top down.. is there even room for this??

 

nope, the stock kickpanels install flat against the inside of the body down there. You can still have the custom kickpanels made but the rear of the speakers can not extend out past the back of the kickpanels so they need to be designed so that come out the front side. You are not going to be able to install them so the speakers are flat and flush with the front side of the kickpanels.
As long as you are willing to live with kickpanels that don't look stock it will be ok.
Actually, there IS an advantage to this situation. Because the speakers will have to mounted differently in the kickpanels it will allow the shop building the kickpanels for you to angle the mounting of the speakers in the kickpanel. This will allow the speakers to be "aimed" for better accoustics anyway. The speaker on the drivers side kickpanel should be aimed to point at the passengers head and the speaker on the passenger side kickpanel should be mounted to aim at the drivers head.
This will greatly help to improve the staging and imaging of the sound anyway. Otherwise the speakers would be firing directly across the car into the transmission tunnel and a lot of the sound would be lost below.

for your 10" sub, the best recommendation I have would be if your are willing to sacrifice one side of your storage well a custom sub box can be made to fit inside it. The best method would be to have the shop cover the inside of the storage well to protect it and using fiberglass make a mold of the inside of the well. That mold can be used to make a custom sub box out of fiberglass and 3/4" MDF wood. there is planty of air volume on one side of the storage well to hold a single 10" sub in a sealed enclosure. By making the enclosure out of fiberglass it will be a perfect fit into the storage well and than a panel can be fabricated with a speaker grill and cloth or carpet to go over the sub to protect it and hide it.

you can now even use the other side of the storage well if you want to mount your amplifier.
This allows everything out of sight, protected, and not take up any of your limited cargo space that you need to be able to put your top up and down.

 

Thanks for the reply.. I know the speakers were not going to be flat, and that they were going to have to be angled, but there seems to be NO room behind the kick panel at all.. and these speakers are pretty deep.. honestly it looks like the speaker will get in the way of the clutch.. maybe I am wrong and the audio place can figure it out but these speakers are about 4" or so deep.

 

well, you have about 5" of clearance from the carpeted side of a stock kickpanel to the clutch pedal. That IS a bit tight when you figure your foot on the pedal also.
i've only taken the kick panel on my car off once so don't remember but there might be room behind it if you are willing to have them cut to allow the speakers magnet at least to go further back. That should allow you to pick up at least two inches.
Like I said, I don't remember how it's laid out behind the pcarpets panael but the fresh air vent is also there further up so I'm assming there is SOME space available if you allow them to cut.

 

I put the top down to check how a box would fit.. it would take some $ but they could fab something nice up.. as for the components I just don't know.. I really don't wanna do any cutting... and certainly don't want joe schmoe cutting anything.. but I don't saee any other way =( I really didn't want to do this kinda custom stereo thing.. I mean I only have 5 speakers for gods sake..

And while we are at it.. I have this setup which I think will work nice..

Alpine CDA-9855 (I bought this for the 4v preouts which they have now discontinued since I bought it)

Infinity Kappa Perfect 10.1d Sub

Infinity Kappa Perfect 5.1 Component System

Alpine MRP-M350 Amplifier (200x1 to power the sub)

Alpine MRP-F450 Amplifier (75x4 RMS for the components)

 

i'm sure you can come up with SOMETHING creative for the front kickpanels to make them work

yep, those older alpine units with the 4V outputs were nice. It's a shame more units weren't doing that - it made a significant different in the system overall and a cleaner sound since the outputs of the amps could be turned down reducing system noise and distortion.

You have the makings of a nice system there with that equipment. Although known mostly for their headunits Alpine actually made some nice amps, they were clean, low distortion, and low noise levels.
Add a simple 3-way electronic crossover to your equipment and you can even get rid of the passive crossovers that come with the componet set and use the 4x75 ampt to run the tweeters on 2 channels and the mids on the other two channels than the other amp for the sub..
Or you could simplify the system to mafe easier and have one less piece to have to install in the car by just running the componets on the front to channels of the 4-ch amp and bridge the rear two channels for the sub and run it all off the one amp.
The two amp system is techically better but in our C2's, especially a 'vert space is definitely at a premium.

 

These are empty kickpanels that I ordered fron Custom Autosound (cas), then modified to accept round RockfordFosgate coaxials (Rfcoaxs). The oval speakers that the panels are designed to hold won't fit under A-C ducts, and the RFcoaxs sound better than any oval I have heard. The buyers of cas speakers who post on the web complained about the speakers, so I was happy to order the expensive plastic panels empty. Good thing I did. I had to chop the LH one a lot to make it fit below the A-C duct.

PS: More about them in my Details web page with a pic at the top of the page showing them installed before the black panels were painted, and the story with the above pic farther down. Details here: http://www.corvetteforum.net/classic...e/index5.shtml

Here's the LH under the A-C duct

 

If you are talking about a C-2, there is room. There is a 4" X 3" hole in the panel wall that a bit of your 5 1/4 magnet can angle into. I built kick panels for my Kappa 5 1/4 components.

I'll see if I can borrow my friends digital camera and show you what I did. Might take a few days.

 

I would appreciate that... thanks!

 

Any updates on this issue. I will be in a similar situation really soon

 

I'm look at upgrading my C2 system. Where are you mounting the stereo?

 

I am mounting the Head unit in the glovebox, and will have a remote IR sensor mounted somewhere under the dash hidden for the most part, so I can you the remote and not have to drive with the golvebox open.

 

Never thought of that sounds great. Good luck.

 

Here's mine. It's been rock'n for 9 years now:











The "indrustrial" look was intended. I didn't build it for show, just for go.

 

65H, Where did you get those kickpanel boxes?

 

I built them from scratch.