S14a front speaker removal and swap

[Spinner]

It is easy? Heard it can be a bit tricky. Got the rest of the system sorted just the front speakers remain standard, not bad but they will be changed, oh yes they will, just like everything else.

BTW got a Alpine 10" SWS sub, decent box, 240W Alpine AMP, and wiring kit for £159 at Hendon car audio. Sounds great, must be the bargain of the month.

No doubt some one got it cheaper though ;)

[dano]

I have just stripped a s14 - 95' once the door trims are off the speakers are fitted in to plastic door pods. All you have to do is pick speakers that will fit these pods!

Should be simple, he says

Daniel.

[Spinner]

Cheers. You sound like you know what ur doing ;) either that or your ahead of me in the I'll just have a go and see what happens approach :D

[dano]

Honest, the hardest part is removing the door panels. Then you have great big pods. but you may have to cut the connector off to wire your new speakers.

Did you put the head unit in with the screws in the side or cut the fascia panel, I am not sure which way to go.

let me know how you get on.

[Spinner]

No cutting required. You should be ok just to take all the placky surround stuff out the way and then the 4 screws out which hold the stereo mount in place. This reveals the screws which hold the original in place. Pop those out and slide it out. Slide in new unit, replace screws and replace placky facia bits. Job done.

I would only resort to cutting if you REALLY have to. It can be done without

Good luck. Try not to scratch or (god forbid) break the plastic facia bits when popping them off.

[mrcollins]

Are you removing the tweeters also?

If so how easy is that?

[dano]

The tweeters are covered by the plastic strip up the pillar.
Pull this off andthe tweeters are sat there ready to be remove, two bolts!

easy!!!

[Diddn]

I've relocated my Tweeters next to the Mid in the door, facing up toward the cabin on the angled bit of the door panel.
Sounds much better from down there (IMO). Mind you, I'm pushing 150W RMS thru each door so tweeters on the pillars would probably pierce my ear drums.

[mrcollins]

Ok then anyone got any replacement recommendations for the front speakers????

WOW the sun is out, the roads are dry and I am stuck at my PC

:cool:

[Diddn]

Depends on whether you're driving the speaker off the Head unit or an external amp!
If you're running off the head unit, stick to a fairly low power rated one like 30-40 watts RMS.
If you're going with an external amp, then go with one which is rated at 50watts RMS or more.
Next question is how much you wanna spend and whether you're gonna keep a seperate Mid/tweet combo or go with a coax (mid & tweeter combined in one unit).
The door speaker are 6.5 inch so you have quite a few to choose from.
The more you spend on the speakers, the more power you are likely to need to power them (external amp in this case) to get the "right" sound out of them. Under power them and they'll sound poop.

Hope this helps.

[mrcollins]

Didin

Price is not a big prob, I already have a pioneer amp in place putting out 100w per ch but not used at the mo, does the standard install use a crossover or can I use the wiring as it is??

:cool:

[Diddn]

MrCollins,

Not sure about having a passive crossover built in. I would guess it has a capacitor on the tweeter branched off the wiring for the Mid, but when I took the standard speakers out, I didn't see a cap or a crossover. Its probably sitting behind the dashboard somewhere.

The Tweeter is defo. high passed but I don't think the mid is low passed to Xover with the Tweet, however, a 6" mid will have a natural low frequency roll-off and won't play the higher frequencies perfectly anyway, so you can get away without a low pass filter for the mid.

You can use the original wiring and simply swap out the speakers with new ones if you're running them off the head unit.
If you're running an external amp and going with 2 way components, I'd recommend rewiring.
Whether you're going with a co-ax/tri-ax speaker in the door and doing away with the pillar mount tweete, or retaining a 2 way component system, you can use the existing wire if running off the head unit, or if from the amp, run the wire to the back of the head unit and cut the wire from the head to the front speakers and join it to the amp wire. (this will also work if you're retaining the 2 way component system running off an external amp as the wire splits to the mid and tweet anyway). This way, you don't have to run new wires into the doors and to the tweeters independently.

Now if you're gonna run a two way component and you want to use a passive crossover, you will need to re-wire each speaker independently.

Hope I haven't confused you. :rolleyes:

Didin

[mrcollins]

Thanks for your help mate.
I think I will have to rewire the lot, I did with the rears but that was nice and easy with the amps in the boot. Now I have to decide what speakers to buy for the front and also cure the problem of my back shelf vibrating at certain frequencies.

Mike.


:cool:

[Diddn]

The back shelf is no problem.
Just dynamat the underneath of it (i recommend dynamat super or extreme). Does the job nicely. :)