DIY: Audio upgrade part 1

[crammond]

Considering that I have not found any DIY articles about the audio upgrade I decided to write my own.

Since I didn't have enough time today, this is part one, which includes changing the front speakers with new wires into the doors and isolation of front doors.

Tomorrow I will hopefully have time to finish the install of the power cable, the ground cable and the cables from the front doors to the boot.

Unfortunatly I didn't take any pictures of the RCA cables going to the headunit (I forgot). The guide to take out the headunit can be found here: rajce.net | place your pictures have to be...

I connected the RCA with the high-to-low adapter:



It's not the best thing to use, but pretty much the only one if you want to keep the original radio. I connected the remote wire to the radio on the connector A, pin number 3



Now, to the DIY audio upgrade part 1.

First you have to take off the front panels.

There are 4 screws and others are just plastic "poppers".

1 screw is located behind the lever for opening the doors (you can see the plastic cover over the screw).

1 screw is located behind the midle of the door, where you grab and pull the door to close (there is also a plastic cover over the screw)



2 screws are located at the end of the doors (to the back part of the car) under a plastic cap - you just pull of the cap and you will see the screws

[crammond]

When you have all the screws unscrewed, it's time for plastic "poppers". I found it the easiest to start at the bottom in the middle.

There are 10 "poppers" to pull out and it's rather easy (I got the doors off in less than 1 minute including the screws and without breaking any plastic "poppers")



Before you take off the panel, you have to remove the tweeter panel.





It's rather easy to remove, but start at the bottom - and pull it towards you and a bit up - on the picture you can see the way plastic falls into the holes.

Than just simple pull the door panel up and unhook all the connectors.

When the panel is off, the doors look like this



Marked things are:

- yellow --> where the poppers are
- blue --> the side screws
- red --> 10 screws that hold the inner plate (the silver)
- green --> plastic covers used for getting the window/glass out.

I decided to isolate the front doors with damping material.

First I opened the plastic covers (green on the above picture), reconected the door panel on the conectors and lowered the window down to about the midle position (half open/half closed).

Than trough the holes where the plastic covers were, I unscrew two screws and trough the hole to the front of the car I unhooked the window (rather simple but impossible to take a picture). Than you just pull the window upwards and out.
IT IS IMPORTANT THAT SOMEBODY HELPS YOU WITH THIS AS THE WINDOW MAY FALL INTO THE DOOR AND BREAK - SOMEBODY SHOULD HOLD THE WINDOW WHILE YOU ARE UNSCREWING THOSE 2 SCREWS AND UNHOOKING THE WINDOW.

[tim_p]

Are you keeping the original radio and replacing the rest of the stuff?

[crammond]

Before removing the inner silver plate you have to remove the speaker. Unhook it from the wire installation and than drill trough the marked areas.



It's a rather crappy blaupunkt speaker with no magnet (the irony is that I work for the main importer of Blaupunkt in my country )



Next thing was to remove 10 screws marked with red and to remove the silver plate. I had to unscrew 3 screws to the right of the picture, where the door locks (I forgot to pinpoint it on the picture). I was unable to get the plate out, but was able to pull it away from the doors enough to isolate the doors.



Isolation/damping material - buttyflex

[crammond]

Original doors



halfway done



Isolated/damped doors



After the isolation I put the inner silver plate into it's position and screwed back the 10 screws and installed the window back in - about 2 minutes of work. Not hard, but again, SOMEBODY MUST HELP WITH THE WINDOW.

Than it was time to put in the new speakers. I had to find the appropriate speaker holders/rings. Since there are non for the ceed/pro_ceed available at the moment (at least I couldn't find them) I had to find something that will fit the original holes on the doors.

The closest I came with speaker holders for the Alfa 147 by Phonocar.

[tim_p]

'no magnet' ? how do they work without a magnet to bring the cone back?

[crammond]

From the top it looks like this



I than used a tool for making holes bigger (every step on the golden tool means 2mm bigger hole) and some plastic "holders" (you will see later what I mean)



I made the original holes bigger (they were about 4mm big originally and I made them 8mm big) and inserted the plastic "holders"

[crammond]

This plastic holders are used to screw in the speaker adapter



To make the install better I used a sponge-like self attaching thing and put it on the speaker holder, so there is no air leaking / space between the speaker holder and the door frame.

[Drakey]

If anything...what a fantastic guide.
Top job.

[crammond]

For the speaker upgrade I went with the MB Quart RVF 216 speaker system that I had in my basement.

Comparisment between the new and the old speakers.





Than it was time to get the new speaker wires into the doors. Considering that I will have 4x130w rms amplifier for the front system (2 channels for the front and 2 channels bridged for woofer) I couldn't use the original wires as they are too thin (I presume about 0,75mm2).

The wires I used are:

- 2x2,5mm2 from the amplifier to the crossover
- 2x2,5mm2 from the crossover to the midbass speaker
- 2x1,5mm2 from the crossover to the tweeter

First I tried to get the cable into the door trough the original cable canal. But considering that that would involve drilling trough the original connector I gave up on that option.

After looking at the doors I found 2 holes on the car - 1 on the outer part towards the doors and 1 inside (under the plastic).

To make the installation of the cables as easy as possible I removed the plastic under the drivers legs.

There are 4 screws:

Two from the side ( you have to remove the side plastic first)


And two under the steering wheel (unfortunatly no picutre - they are at the bottom of this plastic, you cannot miss them).

Unscrew them and than you have to pull the plastic at the top (there is the same metal popper on both sides of the steering wheel)