TPeye

I have a 92 camaro that came with the bose system, which of course is dead. I have custom kickpanels, and a custom box with subs in the car now, but it's time for a change. I want to get a newer delco cd player and 4 speakers in the stock locations. Anybody done this? Any suggestions?
Thanks

Gummie

People usually tend to go the other way

I guess I can talk about my old stereo (just an alpine deck and 4x6s/6x9s). There was 100% zero bass and midbass was pretty lacking as well. The soundstage was horrible, you couldn’t tell left from right, and everything sounded way too harsh bouncing off the windshield. I was running Polk 2 ways in the dash (not plate style) and Polk 3 ways in the back. Just adding a sub to that made a world of difference and then upgrading to kicks really helped the clarity of the sound. No more listener fatigue was a good thing.

I’m not saying that you can’t do the other direction; I’m just saying that I don’t see why you would. If you’re becoming more space conscious you can always build enclosures in the sail panels and stick some 6.5” – 8” woofers in there and run kicks up front. Kicks can look stock depending on how they’re designed/built and no one will see the woofers in the back behind the cloth grills.

My

TPeye

Thanks for the quick response Gummie. I don't want an aftermarket head or speakers showing anymore. Which woofers would you recommend? I made my own kick panels http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...ye/2005003.jpg but I haven't been able to make new ones that look factory and hide the speakers, while still leaving enough room for my foot to reach the dead pedal.

Gummie

NP on the quick response. I happened to check the board at the right time so call it dumb luck.

That's going to be your biggest problem with kicks - they have to stick out. I completely lost my dead pedal but I didn't really use it much anyway. I usually drive with my left foot on the floor and my knee against the door. I guess you could angle the speakers much more aggressively and have them stick out further and get your foot behind the pod if you wanted to.

I'm running Jim's kicks and think they do a great job of blending in and looking stock. I’m in the processes of trying to recover my first dashpad (I have two of them) and I’m going to be deleting the speaker holes. That should make the kicks look even more stock.



The only thing that really stands out is the speaker grill, which you could replace with something more conservative if you wanted to. You really don’t notice them unless you’re looking for them.

As for speakers for the sail panels, I will check mounting depth tomorrow. I'm sure you could fit a pretty decent set of 8" drivers in there and just run them infinite baffle. The only limitation is mounting depth. If you wanted to, you could toss some expanding foam in strategic places and seal off the sail panel its self and use it as an enclosure (this is actually a decent idea now that I think about it – go me).

Possible speakers to fill the role in the rear are:
Tang Band 6.5"
Tang Band 8"
ED's EU700 (6.5")
The EU700s have crazy excursion and get loud but are better suited for sub duty than midbass duty. The Tang Bands are supposed to be pretty musical so I would call them better suited because you’re probably going to want to cross the rears pretty high to make up for the 4x6s, which really don’t do well below ~200 Hz.

Those are just things that pop in my head. As I said earlier, I will check mounting depth tomorrow and post my findings. Assuming that it’s not to shallow you would probably be able to fit the majority of 8” subs in there and most of these will be able to play to 200 Hz fairly well.

Gummie

I give up on finding a tape measure. Suffice it to say that you've got at least 6" of depth to play with in the sails. You could fit the majority of 8" subs back there if you wanted to.