For my 89, my 92 has a nice system already that I had built. This one I'm doing on my own with some advice from a couple of installer friends of mine.

For this system, I'm keeping the entire well and putting a pair of 8" woofers (Kenwood KFC-XW800F) in the sail panels, I know, not much but will sound good over road noise, and that's what I want. Also, I'm keeping the stock looking head unit, the only thing in the dash that says aftermarket will be the satellite receiver mounted over the radio pod.

To mount the woofers, I had to remove the plate with the 6X9 hole and make one to fit the 8" round woofer, deadening vibration was also important.



Also, these require .5 cf of air space, which is quite a bit for the sail area, if I come up short, a little poly-fill should trick the woofer to think it has more. More sound deadener and some expanding foam should do the trick.

This is looking through the vent in the door jamb, one of the two remaining holes I need to cover and seal, the other is the access hole for the GFX bolt in front of the rear wheel. Expanding foam between a support beam and the sail panel outer skin.



Looking straight up in the sail panel, not much to see except the foam that oozed down after I squirt it into holes I drilled at the inside roof line, just below the seat belt reel.



And the rest of the sound deadening treatment around the "enclosure" inside the car.



I'm still hoping the stock plastics will fit with a little trimming around the speaker hole, I'm pretty sure they will with just a little bulge.

Later the amp install (Kenwood KAC-8405), which will take speaker level inputs from my Delco deck. Possibly in the spare tire storage area, I don't run a spare as it won't fit over the brakes I have.

 

Nice Al.....here are few pics for ideas...you may have seen these already









Couldn't resist...

 

I've seen both the amp rack and that bucket sub before. That bucket sub I've seen in person, belonged to Xophertony of my own Cascade Crew. I'm likely going to steal the amp rack idea and use it for my own purposes, one amp and possibly a processor from JL (Clean Sweep) to change speaker level to preamp as well as flat-lining my frequency spectrum.

I temporarily reassembled the passenger side plastic trim to see how everything fits, and I was quite happy with the results. After opening up the 6X9 hole in the sail panel plastic and removing the "grille" in the fiber board with the fabric cover, there is only a slight bulge where the speaker surround touches the fabric.







Before putting this all together for real, the fiber board grille will most likely be reinforced with fiberglass resin and new fabric will cover it up.

 

Looks good... just one suggestion: Make sure it's sealed well toward the back too. That's a wide open space between the backside of the speaker and where your amps are mounted, and the subs won't get any low end at all unless you're able to adequately seal it up. Maybe you did already, I can't tell from the pics, but if not, spend some time in there making sure it is.

 

great work, i've been thinking of doing something similar when it comes time to do up the stereo.

another route you can go for the amps is inside the top half of the rear seats. I had done an amp rack with 2 amps while still allowing it to be somewhat useful (like the rear seats are useful to begin with.....).

 

Looks good Al. I'm curious to hear how it sounds.

 

The good ole bucket sub lol I forgot about that. what ever happened to him he used to post all the time

 

It probably won't be perfect, but the plan is to get as airtight as possible. The first pic at the top shows the division at about halfway over the wheel well, I filled that big space between the roof support and the outer skin of the quarter panel. Once I get it all closed up, I'll try to slowly blow some air in there and see if the speaker cone moves out, I'll be happy if I can do that. Right now, on deck power and no crossover, they sound OK, there's no thump due to no real power, but definitely a much lower end than the 6X9 speakers that were there. I can't wait to get them properly powered and crossed over, should happen this weekend.

He's still active on the Cascade Crew, though not as much as he used to be. He moderates our Event Calendar.

 

A little more work today. As much as the weather would allow. I acquired a piece of scrap MDF from Lowe's which happened to be about the size I needed, then had it cut to length - Freebie

The board is a little larger than necessary for the amp, but I have plans to install a second piece next to it and measured the board accordingly.





I have since attached the power, ground and turn-on leads, but only the ground is connected. Since I have a Delco deck, there are no pre-amp (RCA) cables to run to the amp. The amp is capable of speaker level inputs and I have run my speaker wires from the deck to the amp, to be connected tomorrow or when weather permits this week.

 

A couple more. It's been nasty and cold out, and the car sits outside so it's difficult to get anything done. I've got all the speaker leads hooked up, from head unit to amp to speakers (amp is capable of speaker level inputs and I have a deck with no preamp outputs). All that's left is to connect the remote lead to the radio and the power cable to the battery.



And the trim panel in place. Needs cleaned really well when all the work is done.

 

I'm pretty much through with this now. About all I have left is to replace some plastic trim, install the back seats and button everything up. I am quite pleased with how it turned out and with the added volume and bass. My car seems a bit quieter too, every bit of sheet metal I could reach while the plastics was off were covered with pseudo Dyna-Mat (Peel-N-Seal), as were the back sides of the plastics. Not sure about road noise yet, but the exhaust note was quieter inside the car than it used to be.

The woofers could hit a bit harder than what they do, but I'm only feeding them 60 watts RMS each, less than half of they're capable of. The fronts sound a whole lot better now that they have a more powerful signal than what the Delco radio alone could supply without distorting. I have future plans for a piece from JL, CL441dsp ( http://mobile.jlaudio.com/products_c...hp?prod_id=369 ), the reason for the space to the left of the amp on the board.

 

For those with the amps mounted in the spare tire location: Do you ever have heat issues? And where did you mount your ground?

 

Though the air doesn't circulate, there is lots of space for heat to dissipate, so no problems for cooling. As for my ground, I just drilled a hole in the base of the bracket, scraped the paint off around the hole, then used a nut and bolt with a star washer on the bolt.

 

Agreed, there is plenty of airspace inside the spare tire area to keep things cool. I bolted my ground to the metal area above the wheel well.

 

id watch that area for water drippage..looks good tho

 

Can someone tell me the bolt size used to make this board? I cant find mine and so its a time for a trip to the hardware store. Just need to know the size and length.

Great looking results.