DIY: Front Component Speakers for dummies...

[Smeee]

What up what up, I'm new here and will get to that I reckon in another thread. Anyway, I have been lurking yall's forum for a few weeks now researching and what not. My new ride came with the factory 6disk changer buuuuut quite a few of the buttons were broke off and I couldn't even get out the cd's the person before me had left in there. Anyway, I was hype b/c this was the perfect excuse to convince the wifey our need for a new stereo. Ended up going with the Alpine CDE-102, nothing fancy at all, just something to play my tunes and allow me to hook up the ipod. I didn't think while installing that to take pictures of the install buuuuut it was pretty straight forward. The front component speakers on the other hand, a lil trickier. This Thread is to give pretty detailed instructions on installing component speakers up front. I went with the SPS-600C, just normal components with inline cross-overs. This job took me a bit longer than it should of because I had to figure out how to rig things up and spent a butt ton of time fighting with the door handle, buuut hopefully with the directions you can knock both doors out in under 2hours, give or take. So away we go:




These were the tools/things I used:
A trim popper-offer thing-a-ma-jig
wire cutters
Phillips head screw driver
Kleins aka pliars
Quick Disconnect Terminals big-uns n lil-uns (not in picture)
¼ in or so nuts w/flanges (not in picture)
Drill w/ 5/32 drill bit (not in picture)


Firstly I would put both front windows down before disconnecting the battery. With the windows down it will be easier to take off the door trim as well as you will know how far you need to space out the speakers from the window.

Then you are going to want to unscrew the plastic piece in the door with the lock and window switches.


Once unscrewed, pull out the piece and unplug the switches.


Then take out the screw under the plastic piece you just removed.


Then snap out, NOT OFF, the trim around the door handle. This is HUGE, the driver side door I did like I used to on my honda and undid the handle from the door and fought like a mad man trying to fix it, ONLY to find out that the trim piece snaps on and off, but take caution.


After these are removed you can take the trim popper-offer thing-a-ma-jig and squeeze it in between the door and the trim piece. I found it easiest to start at the top of the outer edge. Once the first couple clips pop, the rest should come undone all the way around. Then you should be able to slide the door trim off.



Hopefully you aren't super lucky like me and find broken glass inside your door.


This is probably your stock speaker setup


Unscrew the tweeter bracket


Unplug the tweeter


Then you can go ahead and cut the plug off the two wires, UNLESS your components do not come with wires to run from the woofers to the tweeters (which sounds absurd), b/c in that case I guess you would reuse them, for these speakers I cut them off.


Now you can go ahead and unscrew the stock door speaker mounting plate


Unplug that jizzoint


This is where things go interesting, the plug going into the stock woofer has 4wires, so obviously the two that were running to the tweeter, I don't need anymore, BUUUUUT the other two are running to the deck and are incredibly needed. Anyway, I cut a little tape away to pull the wires through a little more.


From here it's almost a straight line down to the bottom plug


Down here I had to pull on the wires to figure out which were running to the tweeters


Once you have pulled both the tweeter wires down and out, you can snip the plug off just leaving the wires to the deck


Strip these badboys


Now its tweeter mounting time! Quite a size difference, and as you will soon see, sound difference as well


Unscrew the bracket from the stock tweeter


The bracket has a piece protruding from the front, this needs to be flattened, I used a vice


flat as pancake, no?


Now the back plate on these Alpine tweeters has a hole in the middle, this is where I used the 5/32 drill bit and widened the hole a little.


Just enough to screw in the stock bracket using the stock screw


perfecto


mount that joint back up and run the wires down the same route as the stock wires for the tweeter. I used a zip tie or two to hold em close


The alpine tweeter wires connect to the woofer wires


Snap on some quick disconnect female terminals onto the wires from the deck. On the driver side of my 2002, the red/yellow was positive and the white/black was negative. On the passenger side, the brown/white is positive and the green is negative.


Alpine mounting plate mounted onto woofer

[Smeee]

Here is a diagram I found online explaining how the wires hook up, THANKS ALPINE...NOT! Basically the wires running to the tweeters go on the outside plugs and the wires running to the deck go on the inside plugs




These are the nuts I was talking about with the flanges, I also used a washer or two. Eh, some people pay some guy 20 bucks on ebay for them, I didn't feel like spending the 20bucks or waiting the week to get em. I have gotten used to rigging stuff up to last in my 8years of tinkering with hondas.


The nuts are placed behind the mount to act as a spacer b/t the speaker and the door, allowing the window to roll down without hitting (found out the hard way on the driverside door, fixed now tho)



All installed =D


Door trim install is the opposite of removal


Lastly, smile at a job well done




DANG, that better help somebody! The picture taking was no big deal, buuuut the friggin copying and pasting of pictures SUCKED! Anyway, I did it b/c i know a great fear in doing mods is the unknown, i am always alot more eager about a project when i know what I am doing and even though this is crazy simplistic, as i learned, it can be a bit lame. Anywho, its done now and rocking, i love it! It ain't the system in my honda buuuut it will do, this car is for speed not boom boom thump thump.

[RippinWRX]

That beard is GLORIOUS!!!

[phenryiv1]

2 points:

1. Where are the crossovers? Are they mounted onto the frame of the midrange?

2. You should probably seal off the woofer from the door frame with anything- even foam camper-top tape or scrap weatherseal. When the front wave from the speaker and the rear wave from the speaker are not isolated, speakers tend to sound like crap. They may sound better then tired stock speakers, but they won't sound as good as they should.

[Smeee]

2 points:

1. Where are the crossovers? Are they mounted onto the frame of the midrange?

2. You should probably seal off the woofer from the door frame with anything- even foam camper-top tape or scrap weatherseal. When the front wave from the speaker and the rear wave from the speaker are not isolated, speakers tend to sound like crap. They may sound better then tired stock speakers, but they won't sound as good as they should.

"In-line" crossovers. They are ziptied up towards the top of the door. according to Alpine they don't need to be 'mounted'.

And yeah I thought about sealing it off after everything was put back together and I was going through the DIY, buuuut the sound is great so i just figured i would get to it sometime. I imagine that on a cold saturday this winter i might pull the door cards and seal it up, but for now its all good.

Thanks though