I'll have some pictures up later tonight or tomorrow if all goes well. I still had the MB Quart 3 1/2 speakers from my old car. I decided to use them up front. I took apart the Bose enclosure and removed the 4 inch speaker and the amplifier. I left the small speaker in place simply to block the hole, it won't be connected.

I then had my dad make a wooden adapter ring with which to bolt the 3 1/2 speaker in the 4 inch hole. That was actually very easy and completed in about 30 minutes. For the last several hours we have been working on a new face setup for the rear. The idea is to mount my pioneer 6x9's that I already have back there, and make it all look stock. So far so good. These speakers sounded outstanding in my old car so I can only hope they sound as good in the Vette.

Later if the bass just isn't doing it for me I'll probably go with a single 10 inch sub and a small amp because I can get it very cheap from work. About the amp though? I've got my eye on a very small amp that I was hoping to mount under the dash in place of the factory radio reciever. Unfortunately the reciever is a lot smaller than I remembered it. Any good out of site places to put an amp that doesn't take up any storage space?


[Modified by Nathan Plemons, 4:02 PM 11/18/2002]

 

Nathan-

Sounds like its coming along nicely. As far as the amp, I've seen some cars with the amp mounted on the back wall of the storage compartment. No space taken up, and if done right, looks really good. Might be an option.

As far as the sub, I've read and participated in your other posts. You will not fit a 10" in the storage lid behind the passenger without making a small raised lid to go on top. You can, however, put an 8" directly into the lid, mounted flush.

You should decide on the sub now, because it affects your choice of amp. If you go with a sub, you'll need a 5 channel amp. Otherwise, get a 4 channel. This keeps you from having to find a space for TWO amps.

 

Sounds like things are moving along nicely!!! Great!

As for your question about the amp. If your going to use a mono amp, they are rather small, compared to multichannel amps, or, can be.

I would consider putting it on the rear bulkhead behind the passengers seat. The only problem might be a loss of seat travel. The thickness of the amp + .5 inch, all things being equal.

There are some amps that can fit under the seat - but I think that requires a manual seat. So the seat mechanisms do not get in way of the amp.

You will have to drill a hole in the firewall. The best place is right behind the battery. Remove the battery and drill a big 'ole hole there. Feed the wire down the drivers side sill. There is a channel down where the sill meets the floor. It will safely hold 2 4 gauge wires.

I would recommend running the RCA wires down the passengers side of the transmission hump. Same with the remote switching wire.

***EDIT***

I just read Fullboogies reply. This is important - what head unit did you get? The newest Alpines will run a sub out of the rear channel, without effecting the fader control of the internal amp.


[Modified by bogus, 5:41 PM 11/18/2002]

 

Nathan, I was able to squeeze 2 amps under my non-powered passenger seat without affecting seat travel. It was an old, small Autotek amp pushing the rear 6x9s and a long, relatively thin USAcoustics amp pushing kicker components in the doors (very powerhungry speakers, wouldn't recommend when short on amp room. I also have 4x6s in the dash. I highly recommend using these. They can be purchased cheap and can be powered by most radios. They really fill out the front nicely.

If you purchase a larger amp that will not fit under the seat, I recommend mounting it behind the passenger seat. It doesn't affect seat travel much and is difficult to spot by the casual passerby. If you put the sub in a box in the back, you can also mount the amp to the box. If you ever remove the sub to make more room or whatever, the amp comes right out with it.

You really don't get a whole lot of sound out of the rear 6x9s, since they are not really pointed forward towards the listeners. They do, however put out a decent bit of bass if well sealed. I have grown tired of it, though and have tried an 8" sub in that compartment. I was not happy with it, mainly because it's very difficult to make look good and to seal well. I plan to put one or two 10s in a box in the rear, as I'm sure you will.

Hope it turns out nice. Good luck

 

On the amp I'll be going with that just for the subs. I'll be running all the speakers from the deck alone. This speaker combo really did very well with that before so I'll try it again.

Should be fairly decent especially if I go with a sub because then I'll just be getting highs out of the others.

 

Alright, lets see how the new forum software handles my images.

Here are a few of the speakers





And a few for the amusement factor. One cat being cute.

And Kitty looks like she's drunk. Poor girl.

The rear speaker's aren't finished yet, but that's is where we stopped to eat.

 

All the speakers are installed and bolted into the car. I don't have any speaker wire to connect them with right now so that'll have to wait. I might be able to do that tomorrow night. I'll probably get a little bit of dynamat just to seal the rear speakers with. The stock enclosure had a foam gasket so I think a coating of dynamat on my new wooden board should allow it to seal nicely.

So far the total cost for the project is $0.00 since I already had the speakers and the wood. Some speaker wire and some time whenever I get the chance should finish round 1 of the project and I can at least have some music again.

 

those enclosures look very nice!

and the kittys are cool, too!

 

Are those your front speakers that go by your feet? I didnt have the bose in mine so i have these little speakers up front by my feet? How did the magnit fit without hitting the side wall?? :confused:

 

Nathan, bogus hit all the good spots for amps. I'd stay away from tight spaces like under the dash and in storage compartments. I have an amp that was installed by a friend in his porsche. He put it in the spare tire storage area. It ended up melting the spare tire. In my car, mounted properly, its barely warm to the touch after hours of use.
One more tip, on the bose boxes for the front speakers, seal the adapters with some double sided tape and plug the port. The box is ported out the back with a hole about the size of your thumb. This is part of bose's magical pipe. The speakers will sound better if the box is properly sealed. You may want to look for a good quality low profile amp to fit under the passenger seat. I would say an A/D/S powerplate 450 would be ideal but it is pricey at $500. Check out some amps at an audio shop and see what you can find.

 

You can't really tell from the picture, but that is actually a box type enclosre that has some depth. The magnet is completely enclosed and the body is actually molded to allow this box to fit perfectly. BTW, if you don't have BOSE, what kind of speakers are in the rear? If it's a set of 6x9's I'm gonna be mad if I could just buy a pre-made non-bose mounting board.....

 

as long as we are posting our cats here is mine :jester

 

As for the sub, Yes you can fit a 10" sub under the lid. I presume that you are putting this in a 92. If you look back at your original post, there is a link to my 10" if you are curious. It looks good so far. You might not be real happy with your front imaging though. Good luck.

 

Nathan,
How hard was it to get out the front bose enclosure and take it apart?
Also...would you dad be interested in making more of those adapter rings for the front. :D Looks real good dude. In our old 92 (Exact same color as yours too!) we TOOK it to a stere shop (Had to spend a certain amount of money for my granma's business through this weird barter system thingy.) But anyway, the guy put all JL Audio speakers in it. He put a 4" in each kickpanel and then a 6½" on each side in the rear. Then he wired them all to a 4 channel Arc Audio amp, and I also got a JL W7 12" Sub wired to another Arc Audio amp...lemme tell ya..that thing was TIGHT and CLEAN!! Best thing of it was, it looked ENTIRELY STOCK! (Except for the Eclipse HU.) He even mounted the HU so nicely, that it looked stock too! (He put a dash kit on it that had a little cubby under the HU, and it was just NICE!) If he's still in business when I get my ZR1, I will DEFINATELY take it to him and let him hook it up fat style.

 

i replaced all my speakers in my car witha head unit.. my car did come with stock 6x9s in the rears... I replaced the ac delco or whatever the stock was with Polk Audio...I didnt have the bose so my fronts where those wierd square ones.. i forget the size but they were not 4inch round speakers.. Polk audio sounds ok but im looking to upgrade... So can i fit 4inch speakers in the front be my feet? Do i have to make a speacial incloser?? since i didnt have the bose system??? thanks guys :cheers:

 

Nice work! It should last forever now. :cool:

I'm just now getting around to putting my rear speakers in. The fronts were such a pain, having to fabricate new speaker mounts from scratch. I put component mids in the doors and the tweeters in the dash.

 

I would like to see the pictures. I am thginking of taking out the Boes system

 

You talking to me or one of the other guys? My pictures are further up in the thread.

 

Hope your not going to play that dumb rap crap with this new system.
That would be a waste.
I like my original Bose system just fine. I have had no trouble with it yet.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

Is that what the front speaker enclosures would look like on my car? I had the bose system, and I had 5 1/4 (maybe 6 1/2) but I took those plates out and put in 6X9 plates from an 89 vette. My bose system didn't work when I bought the car and all I had was 6x9 Phoenix gold speakers and wanted music pretty bad, so it all worked. I am going to put a set of MB Quart component set up front but Im not sure how big of a woofer I could fit in there? 5 1/4? I could do some custom work to make a bigger woofer fit in there, 4" is too small for me. Also does anyone have problems fitting a stock DIN size head unit in their dash? Mine didn't fit width wise. So right now I made a custom enclosure which has the amp on top and the headunit mounted flush on the bottom. I was going to trim up the dash a little bit and make custom pieces to attach it to the inside of the dash.