ok, basically through my various posts i've had a few people pick up on the fact that i've put Type R's in my 1996 VS commodore. Im have not yet completed my install but these people are interested in how i went about it. This is my first go at anything like this and I dont want to give anybody the impression I know what I'm talking about

My goal with this project is to do a stealth install into my car. I want it to look exactly the same at the end of the project.

Everybody seems to have the same story of molestering the original speaker pods to a point where there just not going to hold the weight anymore. This speaker weight was my main concern in the design of my pods (each speaker ~2.2kg).

So Basically my first step was to get an original speaker pod a trace the base outline onto 3mm MDF.

I originly followed the angled speaker tutorial because I belived I would not have to fibreglass, but in the end I did. Heres the tutorial:

Speaker spacer tut


I cut one normal ring out of 6mm MDF and used a planer and sander to angle two rings out of the same 6mm MDF. So far each pod now consists of a base 3mm, one 6mm ring and two angled 6mm rings. (The height and angle of the design is entirley up to you and your speakers, thats why i cant be much more specific).

Like i said I was not going to fibre glass but i was concerned about the weight. That is why I have ran long bolts through the pods and simply cut them to length on the other side. (The bolts arent centred or spaced in any way because the rings were slightly out of alignemt to fit the base. You can see this down at the bottom of the ring. They simply didnt fit quite how i thought they would which is why it is important to do many test fits).

This picture shows the base shape (traced from the original pod) and the bolts i ran through the pod for support as well as my miss alignment:



Basically once i knew how the speaker fitted in the door I ran the screws through the pod and then liquid nailed all the rings and the base together.

I then did a test fit with my trim back on only to find that i needed to remove some of the top of the pod because the trim didnt fit. (it didnt fit because the pod was slightly miss aligned to fit the speaker properly). The speaker didnt fit properly initialy because the magnet was so big.

This picture shows a a black line at the top of the pod where I had to trim it. (The pod was trimmed before it was glued to the base. I used a drop saw to trim the pod.). You can see the top of the speaker is flush with the pod while the pod hangs out around the rest of the speaker. It also demostrates a test fit:




I found an old fibreglassing kit in the garage and thought "why not". Certainly was not going to hurt.

You can see the angle and the fibreglassing job:



All that was left to do was a bit of paint and foam gasket. (foam is self adhesive from clark rubber). Not shown is the foam gasket i used between the speaker and the pod.



And thats about it!!

To finish off I sound deadened:



At the moment I'm in the testing phase buts its sounding very good!

Im yet to finish sound deadening properly, atm its just the dynamat over the holes, will cut out MDF later.

I was worried about half way through that i was going overboard but im happy with the end result, peace of mind is priceless.

Some interesting problems i ran into:

The actual speaker needed to be mounted in the door so that the original trim could fit back on. However, the magnet on the speaker is so big that it did not fit through the hole in the door. This involved me having to cut the flange of the door to mount the speaker in (i used a rotary tool and cutting disks). You can also see I siliconed some rubber on there to make mounting the speaker easier and to prevent rust.



Another problem is at the moment with the trim on there is no more then a 1mm gap between the speaker grill (holding the speaker in) and the speaker grill on the door trim. You may say " why not push the speaker further in to the door?". Well this was why:



Its quit tight! (picture taken from inside the door, thats the magnet.

And one last picture just out of interest heres my stealth tweeter install:



The demister grille fits back on, just.

Anybody who nows what there talking about please feel free to correct. This is my first go at anything like this. Its been a big learning curve and ive learnt heaps from my mistakes.

Currently im battling with noise in the system when the engines running, I notice that it gets particularly bad when the air conditioner is on. Once i fix this my system will be finished (till i get a sub ). Apart from this everything is working well, even the speaker pods

Hope you guys who requested it find it useful. Please ask any questions in the forums so others may learn, no pms, thx guys.

thanx for all this vsMickk. i had to molest my door pods so that i could fit my type r's in my doors and im not happy with how they turned out so im gonna give this a go. ill let you know how i go. this is a great write up and should go in the tutorial section i rekon. good work!

-George

although you didnt take much metal away from the door, i would suggest to anyone fitting speakers not to take any metal away at all.... it was discussed in another thread about installers chopping and hacking cars, i know you didnt take much away and im sure it wont actually matter, but you are actually able to fit type-r splits in the factory location without cutting any metal away from the door

apart from that, the pod looks very sturdy and your dynamatting looks a treat

Yea nice post up dude,

I might look at the same sort of thing, however im hoping i wont have to cut any metal (HSK165's). But we'll see how it goes.

Great reference, cheers.

thx guys.

I asure you all if there was any way around removing the metal i tried it. There was no way that magnet was going to fit through that hole. These are the second pods i made. The first were made to to avoid removing metal from the door. However, the speaker ended up to high (even though the magnet was angled into the hole a bit) and i could not fit the stock door trim back on. I gave up in the end.

Why dont you recommend removing metal from the door, rust/structural integrity?

(that was also a photo of the dynamat before i trimmed any of it but thx anyway. It looks much neater now.)

basically all of it, structural integrity, legality, rust etc.... its probably not much of an issue where you took metal from but its a general rule of thumb not to take metal out as certain parts of the car may not look like there much but will greatly reduce structural integrity if removed/cut in to...

seems strange that you could fit them in as i managed to fit mine in first go every time and ive done mine about 6 times now with just ordinary spacer rings..... if you've built your pod in a way that the magnet could go in further i dont see why you would have had a problem

its not a big issue, not like i would recommend you re-installing them or anything mate, just remember for the future

yeah, thats what i thought.

When i had finished cutting the "ring" out of the door you see in the picture i put it over the magnet to make sure i wasnt going crazy. The ring was at least 3mm to small the whole way aroung so there was no way the speaker was going to directly fit in there. Not unless i angled that and I'd already unsuccessfully tried that.

motto of the story: remove the trim and size the speaker for the door, dont just assume the common size speaker will easily fit . Lesson learnt.

sorry to keep going over this mate, but you didnt need to size the speaker for the door as the type-r splits WILL fit in to a VS door WITHOUT any metal being cut out, thats without even making special pods to make it fit better.... if you put speaker spacers stacked on top of one another e.g. no special angle... the speaker will! fit in the door without any modding of the door or trim.... i have the exact same speaker in my door and i have successfully done that without any modding of the door or door trim....

just a little more looking at the way you have to do it to make it fit and you shouldnt have run in to any such problems

not trying to have a go mate, just so other out there also know that you dont have! to cut metal out, if done correctly they should fit in without too much trouble at all

apart from that well done on the tute mate, atleast your getting off your asse and trying to help others in the CAA community... i applaud you on your tute as a whole mate


cheers


skitzo

skitzo, how many spacers did you use and how thick were they?

so your speakers running perpendicular to the door, that is no angled speaker spacer? When I was first looking on here i found someone who had almost the same speakers has us and mounted them fine at 90deg to the door.

I didnt even look at mounting speakers perpendicular to the door because I was keen to see if I could get angled speaker spacers to fit in there. (dont ask why, personnal challenge i supose)

And like i said, this is my first go at anything like this and im more then open to constructive critisism, and if your able to add to my post and help others out then thx.

I have to ask the same question above though, how many spacers did you use and if more then one how did you connect then to handle the weight? There heavy speakers ay

thx

EDIT: skitzo just a few questions since i get the impression you have finished your install while im still working on mine. Did you do a stealth install like im trying, or can you see the tweeters or generally notice that the cars been worked on? Where have you mounted your amps, crossovers and ran wiring from the amps to the headunit?

thx mate, just interested to see how you tackled the install. Atm im having a few problems with engine noise but i dont have enough time for the next few weeks to sit down and properly dignose it. Im pretty sure its just poor wiring or crossovers in a bad place etc so im hoping seeing your work will help me find my problem quicker.

thx

im not sure how many speaker spacers i used as i cant see in the door now, they need to be fibreglassed together or a mould made out of them with a backing to hold on to the door as at the moment there only screwed in to each other (gives a bloody strong hold mind you) so i wouldnt say my isntall has been finished... my splitters are in the pocket of the door... all the wiring is inside the door then a small hole was cut to allow for speak wiring to go through and splitters are sitting in the front (barely noticeable and allows easy access to them)

the tweeters are mounted on the door aswell, they are on the plastic part just above the air con vent on either side... so yeah its not total stealth as by looking inside the car you can see the tweeter sitting there so its not a complete stealth install at all, although standard dor pods were used etc etc

im doing a false floor at the moment, but everything seems to be holding me back, one thing after the other.... when i get a chance i will take pics of everything and post them all up here, hopefully of the speakers aswell as the boot but i will see how i go

heh, i know what you mean



awsome

Do you reckon the angle has much effect on the sound/performance of the system? Just finding it hard to make the angled spacers, made some, just not on much of an angle, Just wondering if its really worth it?

no idea, just saw it on some other ppls installs and wanted to give it a go. If i had to give an answer i'd probably say not really, it was just something i wanted to try. Its a very tight fit when angled.

The angle makes a huge difference to stereo imaging as the speakers r ment 2 be facing you as higher notes are directional... Type r's fit in the standard pod wit a 3mil spacer ring... Great work hey although im steering away from alpine...

thx man. we mutilated the standard pods to much to re-use them, plus i wanted to have a go at my own

should rename this thread "splits in a VR-VS commodore"

it certainly got me going in the right direction with my VS ute any way....

with the pods, I used 6mm for the backing and then 3 rings of 18mm MDF (you could angle it if you wish), nice and sturdy. Initially I used 3mm MDF to cover all the service holes but found even with dynamat it still had to much flex in it, would balloon/reverberate quite a lot on the right freq's (with door trims off)... so I stepped it up to 6mm MDF to cover the holes.... its a real squeeze getting the door trims back on a double helping of dynamat on each door skin makes for absolutely zero rattles. try driving with the doors locked for less lock rod rattle. oh and a cable tie around the base of the knob on the window winder stops it rattling... dodgy, yes... temporary, probably not...

if you're really serious about minimising flex, the steel the doors are made of is pretty weak... I braced mine with a few lengths of DIN rail screwed in, fits nicely and still lets the window go up and down... MUCH more solid now. heres some pics:





oh and keep your tweeters away from the stock location on the dash, the imaging is piss poor and your ears cant take more than 20 minutes.

That all depends on speakers....
I had my focal tweeters in there, and did well at comps (not to mention, sounded good)...

hey , i hav a vn calais that i wish 2 fit tyoe R's 2, the only problem iv had is getting the door trim off... all the clips unclip and then i get 2 the door lock (push down button) and i cat seem to get it out, how is this dunn??

If they are the same locks as in a VS Commodore, with the red rectangle part, then getting them off requires two screwdrivers, a lot of swearing, a lot of frustration, and cracked plastic...too easy.