Anyone want to beta-test some door speaker spacers?
 

With the reported specs on the OEM door speakers, I am looking to fabricate dome door speaker adapters/spacers. I use PVC for my spacers to prevent all kinds of bad things that happens with MDF- rotting, splitting, cracking, mold, etc.

Here are pictures of a set that I made for my WRX:

Front

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...o/stereo39.jpg

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...o/stereo40.jpg

Rear

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...651spacers.jpg

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2.../wrxrear05.jpg

The top height of the OEM speaker is about 1 1/16" and the rear mounting depth is currently about 2" from the inner door skin to the window (when lowered).

Based on these measurements, a 3/4" spacer shoudl fit in the cavity between the inner door skin and the inside of the door pane and should result in about 2 3/4" of mounting depth.

I will be making a template this week to make adapters for the car, but I don't have a BRZ/FR-S available to do fit testing. If someone wants to do some fit-testing and has a pair of speakers that they want to use, please contact me and we can discuss getting these in your hands for testing.

I will update this thread with pictures once I get them fabricated.

Wow, when I saw this thread I was thinking like deletes or something. Why would someone do this to the car?

I use hardwoods instead, I agree that MDF is absolutely the worst material to use for door speaker spacers :thumbup:

Are you asking why someone would replace the cheap-o OEM speakers with upgraded aftermarket speakers? Does that question really need to be answered?

Assuming that people want to upgrade speakers, there are many reasons for adapters like the ones that I made for my WRX (and for every other car that I have owned in the last 10+ years...).

Stock speakers have an odd shape. The speakers are contoured to fit the door, and the mounting holes are 3 holes in a roughly triangular shape where the screws go into a nylon insert (as opposed to the inner door skin). This helps prevent the screws from backing out too easily. This is a good thing, so you should try to re-use the stock mounting points. This means that you need some sort of an adapter, because aftermarket speakers typically use 4 mounting holes that are on a different mounting pattern than the stock circle.

In addition to an adapter for the mounting holes, most aftermarket speakers are more robust than the stockers. This means bigger baskets, bigger magnets, and an overall deeper profile. Sometimes, the basket diameter is much larger than the stock ones. You need an adapter that has a larger cutout diameter.

You will also need something that will allow your window to clear the larger magnet assembly on the back of aftermarket speakers. For this, you need a spacer.

If you look at a stock speaker (or a picture of one), you can see that it usually has a built-in spacer. If you subtract that extra depth and just screw a replacement to the door skin, you lose a lot of mounting depth.

I'd like to help you out. I got some 6.5" Polk Audios from a friend of mine that I'd like to put in.

Got your PM and replied. Let me know about the speaker model and we can go from there.

Man, looking forward to these! My speakers have a mounting depth of almost 2 3/4", so this is a necessity.

Slight bump in the road...

The distance measurements that I got from another member do NOT match up with anything else made by Toyote or Subaru. With the body being a Subaru product, I assumed that they were at least similar to other Subaru mounting configurations.

He posted a model number for some universal spacers that worked (though they were thin and made of cheap ABS), btu the measurements for those universal spacers do not match the hole-to-hole measurements that he sent me.

The cars are so new that Subaru and Toyota parts departments don't even have/stock replacement speakers that I could buy to make a template.

Doing more research tonight.

so how much are you wanting for a set of the fronts? I was gonna make some but if you already are i may as well get them from you. Im running Hertz Milles dont have specs in front of me but can get them later if you need.

I don't want to get in trouble with the mod staff/management, so I'll send you a PM.

I will be approaching the site management about vendor status if/when I can verify that I can make something that will benefit the community.

My other Subaru spacers (and info on what I charge for those) is on www.subaruaudio.net

may be interested in these. i have a set of CDT Hd's sitting around. they are oversized 6.5's so more like 6.75's.

very interested!!

Which ones?

http://www.cdtaudio.com/hd_series.htm

The HD-62US mids have a cutout of 5.87", which is fairly large but do-able. I have made adapters up to a 6" cutout to go in Subarus.

Still trying to verify measurements on the mounting hole distances.

I was told initially that the triangular distances were 7 5/8" apart with the bottom one being 8 1/8" from the top 2, but then I was told that there was a Scosche adapter that bolted right up. I have that adapter (supposedly it was a direct firt for my Subaru as well, but it wasn't) in my garage and the measurements off of that adapter don't match up with the measurements above.

The plan today is to call tuning shops that I know to have a BRZ or FR-S in the shop for R&D and see if they will pull the measurements for me.

I woudl gladly BUY a set of speakers (all 3 of the major ones- front, dash, and rear), but nobody will come off of a set long enough for me to make templates.

If I could get my hands on them I could make tweeter mounting plates for the dash, 6.5" adapters for the doors, and 6.5" or 8" adapter plates for the rear.

If I had my car id help you out

If you were local I'd let you take all the measurements you want on my car. I don't feel comfortable enough taking off the door cards blindly (I've never taken door cards off), but if you got a guide or something I could take a shot at it.

I resolved the front door speaker measurements and will be cutting a template tonight. I'll snap pictures of them and post tomorrow. Wroking on the dash/3.5" speaker measurements. They REALLY look like a Toyota product similar to what is in the Tacoma.

I don't like cutting the main shape before I cut out the speaker mounting hole (it makes the material much more dangerous to stabilize in the fly cutter), but I will at a minimum map it out and show you guys what I come up with.

If someone wants to beta test I can get the actual mounting hole cut and get them shipped out.

The only restrictions:

1. Please have the speakers in-hand or en route and be able to install them quickly,
2. Please be willing to take pictures,
3. Please be willing to write a review of them for me

I may be able to get my hands on a set of BRZ/FR-S disassembly instructions, but no promises. Working on that as well. If I get them, I will host them on my existing how-to website and share the link here.

If someone wants to beta test, please contact me at patrickhenry at g mail dot com (all together, no spaces/dots/dashes/underscores)

email sent!

do I need to remessage you there or are we good from the pm here

Good from the PM, but please shoot me an email to finalize things.

The ML 1600 show a cutout of 5 11/16" http://www.hertzaudiovideo.com/Doc/H...et_ML_1600.pdf
The HSK 165 midranges are 5 3/4" http://www.hertzaudiovideo.com/Doc/H...rgy_HSK165.pdf

Both of these are close to the mechanical limits of the spacers (they can't support a cutout larger than 5.75" without a serious risk of hitting SOMETHING in the doors). With a 1/16" delta in the 2, the same spacers would work for both sets in the front doors.

If you shoot me an email we can get the ball rolling on getting a few sets of door adapters testers out to a few prople who have contacted me.

As for the rear, I really need to get my hands on an actual vehicle for fitting. I would need to do a blockoff panel that woudl be sealed in place over the cavity and then cut a mounting hole in that location.

Honestly, doing the doors will be the biggest benefit unless you plan to enlarge the grille area in the rear, because all of that sound pressure trapped between the mounting baffle and the plastic inner trim panel could create a lot of resonations.

I am also looking at an adapter plate to replace the OEM 3.5" speaker in the dash with a flat peice that could be drilled out for a tweeter.

Would people rather go with a 3.5" in the dash or have it replaced with a panel where they can mount the tweeter from an aftermarket component set?

My thought is that using the 3.5" location for the tweeter would allow just about any tweeter to be mounted there rather than shoehorning an aftermarket tweeter inthe OEM tewter location.

In other news, here are some shots of my rough first template.

The template it 1/4" lexian, but I will be using 3/4" PVC for the actual production spacers. The prototypes that I ship out will also be PVC.

Drawing of the mounting hole, plus the rough outer shape (the top hole in the center of the template represents the real center. The bottom hole was there to help with layout. The black circle represents a 6" cutout, which is the largest cutout that I have ever done on any spacer, and that was fro a true 7" midwoofer from home audio.

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...template01.jpg

Here is the template overlaid with the off-the-shelf adapter that fits the vehicles. The OTS adapter is abs plastic and has a limited mounting diameter for speakers up to 5" in diameter. There are some that fit this spec, but not a huge amount.

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...template02.jpg


Just for fun, here is the template with some other Subaru adapters that I made last night. As you can see, the scale is similar but the FR-S/BRZ adapters will use a larger peice of raw material than the Forester/Impreza/Legacy adapters. This is due to the mounting hole spacing and the overall size.

If I can somehow shift the mounting hole up slightly, I MAY be able to fit these adapters on my current material. If I have to go with the larger size, the price will be slightly higher for these than it is for the I/F/L spacers.

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...212spacers.jpg

I'm extremely interested in a pair of these.

Got some JL 6.5 C5's coming in with:
Mounting Hole Diameter (F) 5.56 in / 141 mm
Mounting Depth** (G) 2.59 in / 66 mm

Looks like I'm in your parameters from what I can read?

You are within the parameters. I tend to cut the holes for those JL C3s and C5s to 5 5/8" as opposed to the 5 9/16" that they call for. I had some feedback a while back that the 5 9/16" was a little tight. With the 5 5/8" cutouts I have had no complaints.

I don't want to send out too many sets of testers until we get a couple of sets in the car and confirmed to fit. If something happens and thye don't fit, I don't want to have 47 sets out there that DON'T work.

If people can email me directly I will be fabricating this weekend. I talked to an engineer at work and he made a few minor suggestions. After work, I will be making the adjustments and running off some full-depth prototypes. I can ship out Monday morning.

The following people have contacted me:

cruzinbill (Hertz ML1600 or HSK 165, both requiring 5.75" cutout)
Calum (ID OEMs [5.625"] or Boston Pro 6.5 [5"])
Moshpit37 (Polk DXi 6.5" [5"])
TheFuzz (JL C5 6.5s [5.625"])

I am a little nervous about the depth allowance with the spacers, so with the spacers in place I would like it if the testers did their best to put the window in the "closest" pisition behind the speaker location and measured the distance from the front of the spacer to the point of interference with the window.

So if the guys above can email me ASAP to get the detaisl on the beta testing I will do my best to get the spacers out Monday. After they get things installed, hopefully we can make a results thread and I can open up the offerings to the masses.

See this thread

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showt...?t=9676&page=2

Oh nice, my doors are rattling as well. I might try this out this weekend and see if I can secure it better.

First set of beta test spacers completed:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...frsfront01.jpg

That is a 5.625" cutout and the black adapter over it is the confirmed-fit "universal" adapter that maxes out at a 5" mounting diameter.

These will ship out Monday for testing.

Looks good. I'm a little worried that the thin portions may be too thin, but it's hard to say without being more familiar with the material and/or having it in my hand.

I assure you that after making HUNDREDS of pairs of these spacers for the Legacy/Forester/Impreza (WRX) guys, the thickness of that mounting area is more than adequate. I predrill the mounting screws and have run the spacers through extensive tests with large-shank drywall and machine screws and the material does NOT split unless you try to destroy it.

Email sent

Working on a second tester set now. I also hope to finalize the dash adapters for the OEM 3.5" locations and get those out ASAP. For now, just shipping the door adapters.

Any way a 4" speaker will fit in the dash? I have a 3-way component set I want to install when I return from deployment, and it includes a 1" tweeter, a 4" mid and a 6.5" mid-bass. I can't remember the mounting depth. That may be the biggest obstacle to overcome as the magnets are rather large.

The mounting holes on the OEM 3.5" speaker are 4.5" apart. A typical 4" coaxial or component speaker has a cutout diameter of about 3 3/4". That is not counting the diameter of the mounting flange- just the hole that the speaker drops into.

You MIGHT be able to cram a 4" speaker into there, but I have even heard that some 3.5" speakers were not fun to fit in there. I don't know it it was the depth, mounting configuration, or what.

I looked at some 4" compoent systems and it looks like mounting depth on some of them is pretty slim, but I don't know what kind of depth is available. I keep saying this, but if I could just get my hands on one for a day (or even an afternoon) I could give a lot better guidance on what would and would not work.

Someone get this man a car! :thumbup:

+1 please!

Oh wow, wish I would have known ya for my stereo install on my former Si. That thing was a bear and I ended up reusing the stock spacers (just barely).

WV isn't too close to NC but it's not too far either. If you're around this area, let me know. The door is probably fairly easy to take off.

I'm very interested in the dash pics / measurements.......like others.......I'm trying to find a car to purchase. Same dilemma with deciding between fairly easy drop in of my current 3" drivers or making modifications to go the 4" route.

Well, some good news, and an update:

I completed the dash speaker replacement adapters and shippe dout two sets of those, with the door speaker adapters. I had to literally draw them freehand because I don't have a speaker to use as a template, but I think that thye will work as a panel in which a tweeter can be mounted. With the OEM 1" tweeter size, having a blank canvas to mount a tweeter in the dash will be a lot easier than fitting a tweeter in the OEM location.

Here are the pics:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...frsproto01.jpg

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...frsproto02.jpg

And here they are with some adapters that I made for some other Subaru models:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...912spacers.jpg

I didnt know you were doing the dash ones as well or I would have gotten those as well since im gonna be doing those too.

I sent a pair to you. That was part of the delay in getting these out. Yours shipped today with both door and dash adapters.

nice Ill be sure to take pics of both even tho the dash ones wont be in the stock spot in the end

Did these arrive yet? I can't track them and I am giddy like a schoolgirl to see them installed.

they did arrive, i will be installing them thurs, fri at the latest.