Speaker Pods

[timmsy19 3]

Hi all

 

ive recently replaced my HU with a Pioneer DEH-5000UB and also replaced the front speakers with a set of Vibe SEK50 components

 

ive not installed the cross overs or tweaters yet but getting quite fair bit of vibration to the front left speaker

 

what im thinking of doinf is putting the 13cm speakers in a speaker pod at the bottom of the door by the door bins and also puting the cross over in the door bin

 

on the tweaters side of things im thinking of making custom front pillar mounts

 

does anyone have any pics or know of a guide for them?

 

pics wuld be great if somone has already done this

 

thanks

[Paintguy 0]

I've done both, and if you give me a bit of time I'll get some pictures sorted out for you Solid mounting is the best thing you can do for a set of speakers. A cheap set well mounted can easily outperform an very expensive set that have just been thrown in

 

I'd offer you mine, as they are coming out very shortly, but the A pillars are custom built for some JL Audio tweeters, and the 'pods' are for 6½" speakers, so wouldn't be suitable.

 

In the meantime, you could have a look over at the Talk Audio forum, as there are loads of useful guides on just this sort of thing.

[timmsy19 3]

pics would be great paintguy

 

thanks

 

on talk audio now. feel a little out of my depth though

[DrSarty 90 1 Cars]

I'm not going to say this is easy, but it isn't as hard as you might think either.

 

As with most manufacturing, it involves careful planning (eg checking your doors will still close and not foul on the dash or glove box, or even your leg when driving), a simple build up which looks a bit basic and naff, followed by 'oh God what have I done' as it looks worse, followed by some trimming, fine tuning, fitment and utter amazement at the result. It's certainly worth the effort if you really want to do this.

 

What you need:

 

1) a good, well ventilated work area (you're going to be using hot melt glue, MDF & fibre glass resin)

1.5) a hot melt glue gun with sticks

2) some 4-6mm MDF (the base plate) and some 12, 15 and/or 18mm MDF too

3) a jigsaw & good blades

4) some speaker grille cloth. Colour doesn't matter at first. Choosing to make a new grille after does.

5) a robust staplegun with spare staples

6) scissors & craft knife

7) several cheap paint brushes 2" width with mixing sticks & containers for the...

8) glass resin with hardener; you'll need a litre plus.

9) a trimming material such as vinyl or the multi weave stretchy carpet stuff you can get from car hifi places

10) black/grey spray paint (car dependant)

11) a variety of screws/washers to fit the pod to the door

12) wet & dry multi pack & sanding block

 

One already assumes one has decent speaker wire to go with one's speakers?

 

If you want me to continue, let me know.

Edited September 19, 2008 by DrSarty

[timmsy19 3]

yep continuation would be good.

 

really wanting to get this done and have a half decent sound from the audio stuff i have

Edited September 19, 2008 by timmsy19

[cybernck 400 1 Cars]

http://www.205gtidrivers.com/articles.php?data=i-doorpods

[timmsy19 3]

seen that and know the guy that did them.

 

looking for a bit more of a "standard" look tbh

 

bit like most recent cars. i did find a website that sold them for £270 but cant find the link now

[DrSarty 90 1 Cars]

The link Cybernck's put up actually describes the process pretty well; what the finished product looks like is up to you. They don't have to look showy like that one;it's just what the owner wanted.

 

I'll describe it again, which is how I made my pods for my BX16v. They looked totally stock and housed a 6" & a 5.25" mid woofer, and really, really thumped; no rattles, just awesome, punchy sound. I'll also try and find some pics.

 

Here goes:

 

1) sit in the motor and with the door closed, plan and measure how much clearance you have which will dictate how deep the pod/enclosure will be. Also decide if it's going to angle the speaker kind of back and up (towards your ears) or just fire across (like the speakers in the above link). Angled will give better sound, as your ears - contrary to popular belief - are on the side of your noggin' and not in your shins. On that basis by the way, the tweeters can be co-located next to mid range rather than separate on the dash. Both sound good, but ideally the sound should be coming from one location, so that might be worth considering.

 

I've waffled on about planning and measuring simple because 'measure twice - cut once' is the second best rule in the universe; the first being 'don't eat yellow snow'.

 

2) Make a back plate/board out of card, holding the card up to the door trim, still fixed to the door. This will eventually be firmly fixed from behind to the door card and be the foundation of the build. You will be making this (TWICE) out of 4-6mm MDF once you have the template correct. Now you're good to strip the door cards off and work in the garden, garage, dining room, lounge.....

 

3) Make the back plate out of MDF (always test fitting) making it follow any lines on the original door card to make it look OE. At this point, measure the depth of the speaker you intend to fit, angled if that's what you want to do and se if that meets your clearance criteria. REMEMBER, you will need to measure the entire height of the speaker. What I mean is, the depth is what normally sits through the speaker hole, but your pod build needs to cater for all of it, and possibly even the standard or custom made grille. I did tell you a lot of planning and measuring was involved.

 

4) If clearance looks adequate, then you can make the baffle board for the speaker. This is just a piece of MDF (12,15 or 18mm) which has a cutout for the speaker. Its profile is up to your skills. As you can see from the above link, they've just made a round baffle board; but you can make yours whatever shape you want. I would suggest - to make it look stock - a slightly smaller version of the back plate. A picture will paint a 1,000 words trust me.

 

5) This baffle board you will be hot melt glueing to the back plate; the distance depends on your speaker's depth/height and what clearance you have. YOU MAY ALSO NEED TO CUT INTO YOUR DOOR METAL TO FIT THE MAGNET IN IF YOUR CLEARANCE IS INSUFFICIENT. To do this you will need some MDF batons; little sticks of MDF, say 12mm x 12mm that you cut to length (some short, some longer if you're going to angle it). Depending on your clearance, you may need only a short spacer or even non at all to glue down one edge. This quite obviously will be the rear and/or top edge of the baffle, ie nearer the boot of the car, with the opposite edge(s) being further away from the back plate to angle the speaker up and towards you. Again, pictures help here. In fact picture this: the back plate is a floor, and you're glueing on table legs to the table (the baffle) such that the table top is either parallel to the floor or tilted. You use the little MDF batons as table legs, but you can use as many as you want. In fact the more the better TBH. Just hot melt glue them in.

 

Let me know if this makes sense. Pictures will follow shortly.

[timmsy19 3]

yeah makes sense. suppose i just need to hget in the car and start measuring up.

 

1 quick question. how the hell shall i mouint all this to the doof its self. i dont think the 205 door cards are going to be strong enough to hold all the weight are they?

[GTI6BOY 29]

I put my Tweeters where the wing mirror adjusters go, then cut a bit of 6mm mdf covered in black fabric with the speaker mounted on that.

 

The bass that comes from them now is unreal.

 

The crossovers are mounted inside the door

 

[DrSarty 90 1 Cars]

I did exactly what GTi6Boy did & believe us both it works. I used 12mm MDF, cut to the exact same shape as the OE plastic grille. Mine too is trimmed (with dark grey stretchy carpet) and screwed very tightly through the door card into the metal with a spire clip behind to pull it up nice and tight.

 

I used the speaker's supplied plastic grille (Sony) for protection and there is still 20-25mm clearance between them and the dash when the door is closed. My tweeters are in the corners of the dash angled towards the rear view mirror.

 

Part of the reason for better, punchy bass, apart from the much more solid mounting, strong baffle and 100w RMS of power (! ..... ) per channel amp up 'em, is that they are crossed over at around 80hz to ensure they're not trying to play bass they can't really play. That job's for 2 x 15" subs in the boot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Here's a phot of my pods, made as explained above fitted in the BX GTi I also had and with the pop in grille removed. Talk about thump! My mid range & tweeters were up on the dash. A BX is built for great sound.

 

 

I'll continue with the talk through if you want me to.

 

Rich

[Paintguy 0]

Still can't find those pics mate, but I've just taken a few of them in my car and put them in the same album I linked to on TA.

 

 

Simple and straightforward, but they do the job without being too obtrusive

[timmsy19 3]

thats the sort of thing im looking for really.

 

did you just screw the pods to the door cards?

 

Edit: dont worry just checked TA

Edited September 20, 2008 by timmsy19

[Paintguy 0]

Edit: dont worry just checked TA

 

Talk about cross forum posting!

 

Just for clarity here though (and for cybernyk ) the pods are screwed securely to the metal framework of the door, sandwiching the card in between the two. They are screwed in from the back to hide the screws, which was much harder to do than to say! I pre drilled all the holes, then used a tiny right angled screwdriver to get the screws in whilst working through the speaker hole. Not easy, but tidier

 

Screwing them from the outside would be just as effective though, and with some nice torx cap head bolts, you could make a feature of them.

Edited September 20, 2008 by Paintguy

[timmsy19 3]

nice one.

 

might have to get down B&Q for some MDF me thinks and start making something

[Paintguy 0]

I just wish I could find the build pictures for you fella.

 

I'll try and describe how I did it though:

 

I started out with a cardboard template which I cut to make a shape that followed the edge of the door card, and mirrored the slope in the door card and pocket. I cut 4 of these shapes out of 12mm MDF. Two of them than had a hole cut out of the centre that was large enough for the speaker basket to fit into. The other two had larger holes cut big enough for the surround and grille to fit in. This means the speakers would be flush with the surface of the baffle, which not only looks neater, but has sonic advantages.

 

So each side of the car now has two pieces (one large hole, one small) and these were lined up very carefully with each other and glued/screwed/clamped together for 24 hours. Once well and truly stuck, I now had one baffle for each side of the car, and I began to shape them to round off the edges and corners. I used a belt sander, but it could be done by hand with some 40 or 80 grit sandpaper.

 

MDF is very porous, especially on cut edges, so I sealed each baffle with a few coats of PVA glue. They then had a couple of coats of aerosol primer, a good sanding down, and were finished with a black texture finish paint (U-Pol PlastX).

[DaveW 6]

Ive had a listen in paintguys car at fcs and its brilliant and well made tho it does have a headunit from 1994

i think them pics was on Ben Allen's site which has gone offline....

[Paintguy 0]

Ive had a listen in paintguys car at fcs and its brilliant and well made tho it does have a headunit from 1994

It's still younger than my car though, so what's your problem?

 

Most of the stuff in my car was actually available in the early 90's - it was a bit of a period theme I had going. And they sure don't make many headunits like that any more. £699 retail price when new, and it's useless without an external amplifier!