I'm looking into stereo options for my 81 and would like to but a set of speakers in the kick panels,did GM ever put speakers in the kick panels of early C3s? The reason I'm asking is before I make some brackets to mount a set of speakers if I could just use a set of kick panels from an early car that would save me the hassle of making brackets. All the kick panels I've seen have what appears to have the holes for a speaker. The speakers will be mounted with no speaker grills.

 

Hello,

1968 - 1969 Corvettes used two 4x10 speakers in the lower hinge pillar behind the plastic trim piece (which was perforated). These speakers/locations were the same regardless of whether a mono or stereo am/fm radio was installed.

Regards....

Hinge piller


69 interior lick panel


71 kick panel

 

Thanks for the info. Did the speakers bolt to the panels,I'm hoping I can find an early set of kick panels that would work in an 81.

 

Early C3's had the speakers in the kick panels. This was not really a good location as the sound came out at your feet and even at the best of times the sound was not that good. In 70 or 71 they moved the speakers into the upper dash and the sound could reflect off the windshield. The speakers they used were 4x10" at 10 ohms impedance. I have replaced the original speakers years ago with better quality ones, but the sound still is not that good. I don't use the radio very often as I have a tri-power and the sound that it makes is better than the radio. I added the felt material around the speaker to try and improve the sound a little. The factory speakers were open to the atmosphere. As I remember I made my own brackets to mount the new speakers.

 

When I added speakers to the kick panels I glued them on. I don't remember the size, it was over 30 years ago, but they were round...

 

We're the OEM speakers ever bolted to the kick panels. I'm going to have to make a bracket bolted to the lower A-pillar.

 

The speakers bolted to the body, using the area in green in Alan's photo as (I suppose) a somewhat convenient acoustic cavity. Bolting to the plastic panels sounds like an unlikely solution, probably picking up a lot of unwanted vibratrion.

Here's an old picture. I've since put better speakers in placc but at least you can see how they mount

 

You might find Top Flight Automotive (Corvette America) still produce the reproduction kick panels for most C3’s.
Thats where I bought new ones for my 73.
But that was about four years ago.

 

You can modify a set of '81 kick panels to fit 6.5" speakers. Put some tweeters in the dash location.

 

The speakers were mounted to the birdcage. The kick panels are already difficult to install, and I think if the speakers were attached to them installation would be almost impossible.

 

Does anybody know if the early OEM bracket can be found,anybody have an OEM part number?

 

I purchased two speakers to mount behind the plastic kick panels. The small company that sold them to me didn’t have the brackets (no one sells the brackets). Not doing any research, I didn’t see the speakers with brackets that the big Corvette restoration stores had. I kept my original Delco Radio so I need the higher ohm speakers. First I tried to make some brackets which didn’t work, finally I used some plastic plumbers tape from HD and two screws to secure the speakers.

 

It is possible and not difficult to do at all.

 

Have you tested using the kick panel speakers? The early C3's put the speakers there but they didn't sound very good. The sound came out by your feet and got muddy sounding by the time it made it to your ears. Maybe your feet thought it sounded good. When they moved the speakers into the dash it worked much better. Years ago, I added a different stereo and added rear speakers. It was better, but I eventually reinstalled the original radio. It works, but I don't use it much. The sound is better when the secondaries on my tri-power open up.

 

I made brackets to mount the speakers.

 

The above installation looks like the way to go. 4*10 speakers are very bad acoustically, IIRC nobody makes good ones. In the small 4" round size you can get some good quality speakers.

But all you will get from them is mid-range. They are too small for bass. And high frequencies do not "bounce" so you will never hear the tweeters anyway.
So you would be well ahead to use some frequency blockers to cut the bass to them, and the tweeters, then at least the mid range will be crisp. A head unit that has frequency crossover settings in it works even better than bass blockers.

Tweeters must be in the dash, so they can bounce off the hard glass windshield, and go straight to your ears.
Any other location is basically pointless for tweeters.

Those dash speakers are medium size, so I would still use bass blockers on them for crisp sound. That is a good location for mid-range too. If you use two cone speakers, with separate tweeters.

For good bass, you can mount it anywhere. (2) 6*9s in the back works well, just block the tweeters, for crispness. I left the mid range on mine.
Better bass would be a small ~8" subwoofer, which will fit in the jack box.

Then you just need a little more amp to hear it all above the engine.

Trying to do all of this with a factory system is pretty pointless tho, since no one makes decent quality speakers in that weird factory OHM rating.

I played jazz trumpet thru College, so I want to hear all the octaves, and for them all to be be clear. It can be done.

I basically did the above in both my 75 C3 and our 93 S10. The minisub fit under the bench seat in the S10. But even the best 4*10s I could find for that were pretty worthless. I blocked the bass to them and then they were much crisper.