Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Hi all,

Had my doorcards off today and thought I'd see it was possible to put 6inch speakers in. Turns out it shouldn't be to hard, but it will mean cutting some metal out of the door (not to much!) and cutting a section out of the doorcard.

But it does mean theres no way back when done

Anyone else taken the leap?

Why don't you fit them in the door well under the arm rest? Were the factory ten speaker upgrade is? Would only mean a hole 4 wires.

Somebody had the same idea with my car and they did a pretty shoddy job. Luckily instead of cutting the metal they bent it about so I managed to get it mostly back in the right shape for the original sized speakers. They also ruined the doorcards sadly.

I'd be more inclined to put beefier speakers in the back to fill out the sound and leave the fronts to deal with higher frequencies.

T3rra, not sure what you're using to measure but thers not 6 inches available under the door handle.

madrob6, yes the challenge will be to make it look good and reversable, although picking up doorcards in the future shouldn't be a problem but i'll give it some more thought, thanks

I didnt check just stating weres theres room 4 depth, possable easyer then enlarging the exsiting opening. There's 6" from left 2 right. Maybe add smaller ones here and keep the other ones, When iv removed mine there's 3 different ones side beside in one unit. There's also a small one above the window switches.

The problem is lack of depth within the door cavity to allow a good quality speaker to be fitted .There is a 1/2" deep spacer which was supplied by porsche for some of the later models which allows you to fit a 6x4" with a deeper cone.It fits over the original hole in the door card and the deeper speakers fix to the standard holes. You then fix the grilles over that. I saw it on one of the forums recently somewhere.

Heres a useful link to 944 ICE

http://www.connact.com/~kgross/FAQ/944faqst.html

the relevant bit is copied below from the connact.com site
A second style of 4x6 mounting was used in some later cars. This is a two-piece assembly consisting of a thick plastic frame and a snap-on grille. The grille area is made of metal with a plastic surround. Using this grille, it is possible to mount speakers as deep as about 2". For example, an Audax VE4X6F0 mid/woofer, which is 52 mm deep, barely fits.

The parts list for the later grille assembly is:

944-555-149-00-01C Grille (2 needed)

944-555-159-00 Frame (2 needed)

477-035-375 Bushing (8 needed)

043-938-3 3.9x22 lens-head sheet metal screw (8 needed)

011-522-7 Washer (8 needed)

Note that the bushings are important to space the frame out far enough from the door panel to allow the grilles to snap on. Also note that the replacement speakers MUST be the European oval shape – not rectangular. The replacement speakers must also have a thin steel mounting frame like the OEM speaker - not a thick plastic one.

The least expensive approach to mounting a deeper 4x6" speaker may be to make a simple spacer out of, say, 1/2" MDF and use the flat waffle grilles. Spacing the speaker much further out than this is not possible as part of the grille is covered by the dash when the door is closed. (924 and early 944 have more clearance than later 944 and 968.)

If you are installing coaxial speakers, also make sure the tweeter does not protrude too far. For example, certain Infinity speakers have this problem. The JBL GTO-462d does not.

Last, many people have replaced the oval 4x6" speakers with ‘4x6 plate’ or round coaxial speakers. All other things being equal, which they aren’t, a 4x6 woofer should be more efficient at producing bass than a smaller round speaker. So if you do not plan to use a subwoofer, you may wish to stay with the oval form factor.

Thanks for all that info, I've got a set of infinity separates from a previous car I'd like to fit. Ive also got a 12inch subwoofer I'd like to shoehorn in somewhere. I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to lose the rear seats and make up a box and put it all in there, it would certainly make wiring easier.

I still like the idea of having the speakers in the doors as i think the sound quality would be better but I would have to upgrade the wiring as well and that looks a complete pita! I'm thinking I could get hold of a cheap set of doorcards and recover them with spacers in situ.

Anyway, I've a got a nice winter project to get on with that doesn't involve crawling around underneath the car this year! providing the mot on wednesday doesn't throw up any nasty surprises. fingers crossed.

Do some shearch at rennlist.com.

Seen all sorts off rear seat delted turned in 2 sound systems over there.

Plus u got the rear wheel wells.

( very good reply from penut! )

Hi, i made a sub box for a 12" that sits in the boot and comes up to the same height as the rear seats full width and with the same incline angle as the side of the boot. put the sub inside the box and carpeted over it. i wanted it to look pretty stealthy and with the boot shut to the untrained eye it just looks like the shape of the inside boot and doesn't really stick out for people who like to nick stuff.
rich.

Pics?

Yes, I,d like to see some pics too please! theres not a lot of depth to these boots so I,m guessing it must pretty much fill the boot. Also, what did you do about the high frequencies?

p.s. my car passed its mot

Ok I'll post one up tomorrow. It's literally just a box that's as wide as it can go pushed up against the rear seats. You could make it smarter by cutting the contours around the side to go right to the edges. But I did it like that so I can take it out easily. It's doesn't take up that much boot, only about a foot and a half deep. Just wide.
I'm just using standard speakers for mid range which are pretty good and a pair of 1" alpine tweeters.

hope this works. to be honest it doesn't look that great in the cold light of my garage and bad phone camera (neither does my paintwork! i assure you its bright red!)

Thanks for that, I've pretty much made up my mind now that I'm going to lose the rear seats and make up a box for the sub, mids and tweeters. That way its totally reversable, if I ever want to sell (although looking at prices at the moment I can't see that happening any time soon ).