I wanto to upgrade my system

[Mike 92 XLT]

The 6.5s wouldn't fit in the door? Mine fit fine. I made a custom adapter plate out of MDF and wrapped it in sound damping material that I mounted to the original opening and then mounted the new speakers in it. Worked great. If you don't want to make your own, Metra sells adaptor plates for Ford 5x7 openings that will let you put either a 5.25" or a 6.5" speaker in there.

peace

Mike

 

[4Wheelin]

Where can I buy some of those plates? Because I would rather do the work on my system myself, instead of paying someone like $100 to do it.

 

[mrsteve]

I got my plates from Crutchfield. $10. They included them free with my speaker purchase.

 

[rock883]

I e-mailed Crutchfield already and they said that they didn't have an adapter for the 6.5" speakers, only the 5.25" ones. I will probably just go with those Massive Audio speakers, they had a stiffer cone and the crossover wasn't huge like the RF one which was almost like mounting an amp. But I am probably going to be able to make the 5.25" speakers fit w/o an adapter, because the 6.5 almost fit (except it would have hit the window and door panel). So the 5.25 should be fine. I was looking through this kids car audio magazine, and there are a bunch of hondas in there, but they had some kind of kick panels made, they went on the tranny hump instead of on the door side w/ the mids and tweets mounted in them, looked pretty cool.

I am gonna go get another RCA cable on Sat. and tomorrow I am gonna run the power wire, ground wire, put a relay for my turn on leads (2 amps and lights), and run my speaker wire. I tried putting a 4-channel in before, but it didn't work, and so I still had the wires run for the driver's side speakers, so I only have to run the passenger side speaker wires. I will probably just hook the coax's up to the amp for now until I get my cd player, changer, and the Massive speakers and figure out where to mount the tweets. I was thinking of flush mounting them in the kick panels, what do you think? Either that or surface mounting them on the A-Pillar. Oh and that guy finnally got ahold of the guy that had the brush guard and he is gonna sell it to me for $50, and the guy swears that it is almost brand new, so thats cool, just another thing I gotta do. MAn, I am basically telling you guys the same thing over and over, I am just excited.

Does anyone know how boring it is do go without a stereo for 2 weeks? Well, I have been without one for less than a week and I still have to wait till next Saturday to get my cd player and changer back, it really sucks. I wish I at least had a radio or tape player. Maybe the stor by me has some clarion cd players they have sittin around they'll let me borrow.

 

[FlyingButtmonkey]

I would go with a 400a4 or a 360a2 for compnents. a 800a4 is too nuch power for fanatic x's and would be pushing q's to the limit. Remember the x's are like 125w rms (I think maye max) a side so that means you only need a 250w amp for the best sound out of them. And remember a good rule of thunb for sound structure is a pyramid with a base of bass it useally is set up 9 watts of bass to 3 watts of mids to 1 watt of highs, So technicsly you only need about 200 watts to power compnents, But a little more would be good to have for tuning purposes. I would get one of the smaller amps it will save you some big bucks. Or another way of doing it is getting rid of your mtx and get a 800a4 run the 2 rear channels brided to the sub, about 500 watts, and run the front channels stereo about 100 watts a side, unless you can hook it up 2 ohm stereo and get 200 watts a side.

 

[rock883]

I already got the 600a4 amp. I didn't get the 800 because of the dual power connections and that would just be extra cost. The RMS on this is 75x4, so I think it should be fine. I got everyhting the way I like it right now, but I just have to figure out how to mount this amp. Its not tiny like my MTX. I may see about mounting it on the driver's side of the rear seat. But I have it on the back of the rear seat right now. But yesterday I got the power, ground, and all the rca's run. And I am gonna do the remote relay, and the passenger side speaker wire to the doors, shouldn't take too long, hopefully. I am also probably just gonna go out and buy those Massive Audio comp. sets to put them in today and try to sell these rockford q components. Anyone want to buy them from me for $200? I thik they go for well over $300 usually. Well, I will update you guys later on on how everyhitng went. I may ask that shop if they'll let me borrow a cd player of theirs to hook up real quick to make sure everything is working fine.

 

[rock883]

Well, I went ahead and bought those Massive speakers today. I had to make little templates to make them fit though. All I did was take out that little "tray" that the 5x7's mount to, trace the bottom of it on this hard cardboard type stuff, then trace the 5.25 speaker in the middle, and go to town with the knife. My hands are killing me from pushing down so hard n that knife, and running all the wires and getting everyhting looking good. I put my MTX amp under the small portion of the rear seat, and my Rockford fit under the bigger part. I had to re-route a bunch of wires because I had the MTX under the big part before. But, the guy that sold those speakers to me has a used clarion cd player sittin around, and he is gonna let me plug it in to my car to test out to see if my amp is working and to see how it sounds. The clarion is a newer proaudio version, and I would like to get it and sell mine, but it only has 2 RCA outs, and mine has 3 and I need 3. I ended up mounting the tweets up in the corner of the A-pillar and the windshield, nice and descrete. I asked my brother to find tem and he was looking for a while. I am sure they will sound goo there too. I want to get some q-form kick panels so bad though, that would be so much better. Maybe I'll ask for those for Christmas. I am gonna go down on Monday and pick up that brush guard, at least if I like it. Well, thats what I've been doing all day, well, that and working. MAn, while I was working on my car, I was pondering the idea of making some sort of toolbox for the back. Somehting sort of light so I could take it out easily. I was thinking of making it go all the way across the back of the seat and up to the top of the seat, and about a foot-foot and a half sticking out. That way I could put all my crap that I have sitting around the back in there and not worry about it sliding all over the place back there. Oh, now I have some stuff for sale if anyone is interested. I have
2 Pioneer 3 way 5x7's (last years model, similar to this years just not as flashy) Great condition. $60 for both
Speaker harnesses to put aftermarket speakers with the stock harnesses. (All of them) $15 for all four.
Rockford Q-Component 6.5" set--$200 Used but work according to the guy I bought them from.
And last but not least, I also have an Alpine Flex 5, 5 channel amp for sale on ebay, go here to check it out--> Dead Link Removed

I am gonna put this stuff on ebay if no one here wants to buy it, just thoguht I'd give you guys the first shot at this stuff before I went on ebay.

 

[4Wheelin]

What kind of speaker harnesses are they? And if you are getting kick panels, i would keep the Rockford set and put them in there. Just an idea.

 

[rock883]

The kick panels only fit the 5.25, and I already bought the other comp. set.

The harnesses are just the ones you plug in the factory speaker wire plug, and then it has two wires coming out of it and you run those to the speaker clips.

 

[mrsteve]

Don't use kick panels and factory speaker locations together. Since the speakers are different distances from your ears the sound isn't as clear as it could be. My friend did it in his Explorer and eventually got rid of the speakers in the doors cause the sound just wasn't sounding right. It's kinda hard to explain.

 

[rock883]

Oh I wasn't going to do that, I was just gonna use the kick panels. Oh, does anyone have the kick panels in their explorer? Is it hard to bend the parking brake over to clear the kick panels? I really want to get these, because they are made to "set the stage" perfectly and they aim the tweets right up to you. My car is once again out of service for a few days, maybe just for tomorrow, but still. I had to take the battery cables out, and I got them out too late, because all the stores closed at 7:00. Oh well. I am very excited to hear my system, I can't wait.

 

[rock883]

Hey guys, I have gotten everyhting hooked up,and I am supposed to get my cd players back on Tuesday, so I will tell you guys thne how everything sounds, and will be asking some questions if it is not working. But my car isn't running, so that sucks, but tomorrow, I may call up a tow truck to tow me to some local shop and have them fix it up cause I am sick of making runs to Auto Zone just to have them tell me its somehting that its not. Oh well.

 

[explorer93xlt]

http://home.att.net/~riccardis/Explorer1.html

http://home.att.net/~riccardis/Explorer1.html

 

[rock883]

Ok, got the cd players back today, but my car wasn't ready today. so I was sorta pissed. But I have part of the day off tomorrow from work, so I will test it out tomorrow. But, in order for the cd changer to work, they did something to it. The soldered 2 yellow wires and the red (power wire together, and they also sent me a new harness, so I am either going to have to cut all the wires and re-splice them, or I may just cut the power that is already in there, and then hook it into the 2 yellows that are just sort of sitting there w/ no point. Anyways, I sort of need some help on how to wire this thing. They soldered the ends of the 3 together, and I am not sure how they want me to wire this. Should I use a crimp on connector, crimp the 3 wires in one end, and then cut the power wire that is in there, and run that out the other end? I am going to call the place up and ask them if no one on here knows about this. FYI-Here is some info on the 2 yellow wires (according to the Installation/Wire Connection Guide that came w/the head unit. There is one 14 guage wire, and the other is a 18 or 20 guage. They both have a round fuse in a little clip together fuse holder. One has like a 3 amp fuse, the other 15. According to the wiring diagram, the big one is the Memory Back Up lead, and is supposed to be hooked up directly to the battery. The small yellow wire is the Bus Power Lead and also goes directly to the battery. Does the power wire on the cd player also go to the battery, is that why they soldered them all together, instead of running 2 wires to the battery? Hope you guys can help me by tomorrow @ 3:00, cause thats when I get out of school, so.. Well, thanks, cant wait to hear this baby, its been so long since I have had a cd player (that works) do you know how much radio sucks??!! They never p[lay anything good these days, and they almost always are in a commercial. Oh well, they gotta get money somehow.

 

[rock883]

Alright guys, the moment of truth was today. I went and got my car today, $300 to put in a starter. Anyways, I went home real quick t put the finishing touches on the amp, and run one wire. Got that run and I turned the key, and voila, it worked. It sounds AWESOME. The 5x7's in the rear doors even sound really good when hooked up to that amp, I was really surprised. Anyways, I only have one problem. I have a whine when the engine is running. But then thing is, I ran the RCA's on the driver's side for the 4 channel amp, and the power is on the pass. side. I don't know what the problem is, I ran the wires oppoiste of each other, what else could be the problem?? It is very annoying when the soiund goes off (in between tracks, or when I am talking to someone int he car). Please help me out here. But I absolutely love the new sound, and the Massive's sound pretty good, and the bass on them is quite good actually, I can feel it in the doors. But, I closed my door, to look at something, and it seems like I am going to need to put something on my doors, like dynamat, or somehting. But that stuff is expensive, so I am not sure what I am gonna do. Any ideas? Thans for the help.

 

[mrsteve]

Check your ground on the amp. I had the same problem with my subs till I changed the ground point

 

[4Wheelin]

Also, make sure the amp wire isn't run along the engine because I did that and my wire picked up alot of engine noise and made my subs whine just like that. Try re-runnning the it on the passenger side that should work.

 

[rock883]

Ok, I will check the ground for the amp tomorrow and touch it on some different places to see if that will make a difference.

About the amp wire. Which are you referring to? My power is running from the amps under the rear seats, along the pass. side and through a little hole in the floorbard, from there, it goes up along the inner fenderwell to the battery, well, I think I may have forgot to ziptie the new amp's power to the inner fenderwell, so I will also have to do that so it doesn't melt. But, I have my sub amp's rcas running along the pass. side, and the 4-channel amp's racs ar eon the driver's side. I have the amps ground on a little bolt along the "rail" that the back seat "flap" mounts to. Anyone see what I am talking about?

 

[4Wheelin]

I think I know what you are talking about with the ground, its like a body mount bolt that is right next to the seat? I have my amps gounded there. The RCA's can pick up noise from the power wire and should not be ran on the same side of the car. It doesnt sound like its coming from interference with the battery, but I had mine ran from the battery across the firewall and thru the drivers side. That caused alot of noise and was really bad.

 

[rock883]

Ok, I fixed it. I had to turn the gains down a bit to get it to stop whining. It isn't as loud at low volume, but it still sounds better than the cd player, and the whine is gone. But, now, I am wanting MORE!!!! I want to get a bigger amp for my subs and get a better sub. I am thinking of the 500A2 Rockford amp, and maybe a kicker 10" solobaric (round) sub, or maybe an mtx thunder8000 10" and put it in my enclosure behind the rear panel. Anyone know what the volume of those enclosures are? I would love to get a 12", but I don't want to give up space in the back. Or, here's another idea, but I don't know if its better than my thunder6000. When I bought the enclosure (I don't know what brand it is) froma guy used, he had a JL 10W0 in there, that I took out in favor of the 6000, was this a good move? I think it was, cause the W0's RMS is only like 100 watts, and I have a 400 watt amp pushing the 6000. I would love to get a solobaric thoguh, cause they supposidly are supposed to sound like a bigger sub (10" equal to a 12", 12" equal to a 15", and so on.) But I have heard that they aren't really good for small sealed enclosures. Any suggestions??