Icehawk's "OEM+" speaker upgrade

[DeathB4Dishonr]

If you think it's worth the hassle, I can potentially help out by printing stuff and sending it to you. You'll have to supply files/direct me to the files you want printed. As long as I'm not sending a bunch of stuff out multiple times, I don't mind paying for shipping a couple of times. Consider it a tip for you doing all the work figuring this out for the rest of us.

Shoot me a PM if you want to pursue this.

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[Icehawk]

Took apart the rear door, the 5.25" drivers are 4ohm - my measurements show only the front door drivers are 2ohm which makes life a LOT easier IMO. After looking at the tweeter mounts for the rear I'm going to take the car over to my installer to do all the tweeter mounting for me as they'll do a much better job than I ever could. I'll order up the rear stuff this week and just get it all done, should be able to stop over there this coming Friday.

The tweeter/center harness adapters I bought are incorrect, off to Amazon again to try and find the right ones along with an adapter ring for the 5.25"s. Will post once I, eventually, get the right stuff. The 5.25"s use the same harness as previously used for the front 6.5"s.

Anyone know what the heck the tweeters and center use? They're different too.

 

[JDM_DOHC_SiR]

The adaptors are incorrect?
Maybe the sent the wrong ones.?
Did you take a picture of them… would be interesting to see which ones they send.

 

[Icehawk]

Doesn't fit anything in our car.

Truth be told I'm not going to worry about it - let my installer deal with this. If I sell the car at some point I'm not going to bother swapping back to the OEM drivers so retaining the harnesses isn't something I should worry about.

 

[MERAKIAUTOWORKS]

Something I'd like to do, but do I have the knowledge for.. No. lol

-Josh

 

[Icehawk]

This morning I played a bass track that calls out the hz as it goes through a range from 360-10hz in 10hz jumps - very strong bass from the new door drivers down to 160hz. I'm guessing there is a cutoff at 150hz based on that. The total system has pretty much nothing below 150hz, the sub starts breaking up right around 150hz and gets very bad at 120hz, below that it's just woofer flutter basically.

 

[JDM_DOHC_SiR]

Do you have access to a RTA with the ability to play pink noise through the system
would be interesting to see how the curve of the system is.. I recall somebody testing the 10th gen system but nothing for the 11th gen system..
On a side not I have noticed similar finings to what you have heard as well…
150hz down in our cars is very lackluster at best

 

[Icehawk]

I don't have an RTA setup but I think there are free apps to take readings. I will admit, I'm just an "ears" guy even on my higher end setup at home.

My test earlier was at max (40) volume, for giggles I just tried at half (20) and the sub starts breaking up at 180hz and just gets worse as the tone goes lower. It is probably the single worst driver in the car. I wasn't planning on upgrading the subwoofer but now... I may try just a driver swap (FK8 owners report very little improvement) before throwing more money at it with an LC2i & amp. Getting those last 200hz will likely cost as much as all of the other upgrades combined so I'm not in a rush here.

I also noticed that the 3" rear hatch speakers put out some sound, I cannot tell though how audible they actually are from the rear seat - if you open the hatch you can hear them but the way they are positioned... I doubt they are audible from the back seat.

 

[Icehawk]

Sent back the 3" DVC driver, stopped by my installer, and ordered the remaining drivers needed for this phase.

I bought all refurbs:
AF-256/3, 3" dash driver
ES-5, 5.25" driver
DRT25 1" tweeter

These will pair to the existing ES-6.2 & HS-1200i I have.

Total cost to replace all drivers except the subwoofer and rear pair of 3" C pillar speakers is about
$600 with shipping. I'm eyeing an inexpensive ($120) Pioneer shallow mount sub to swap, I should be able to find time this weekend to pull the subwoofer out and see what that all looks like.

My installer guesses $3-400 for his work so I'll be all in for $1k or so. I could save a ton of money by just doing the front but... I can't help myself. BTW, he agreed with me that the C pillar speakers are not worth doing anything about - we're both convinced that a) you can't hear them now and b) once better drivers are everywhere else you REALLY won't hear them.

My installer is booked up, it's high season here, so probably mid December or later to get his work done.

 

[Icehawk]

Installed the sub today, a Rockford Fosgate PS3D4-8 which was recommended in a bunch of FK8 threads I researched, I figured it was more than I wanted to spend ($180 delivered) but it would save me having to buy several and fiddle. It did require cutting off one of the mounting ears and hogging them out a bit so I could fit 4 mounting bolts, the "box" had two small mounting locators (plastic pegs) that I snapped off too. I need a new dremel!

I used posi-connectors to pigtail from the OEM plug to the driver, you can see the blue peeking out from under the gorilla tape. Driver is wired to 2ohm, I measured the OEM driver at about 1.4ohm.

It is better... but like the FK8 pioneers before me I'd probably recommend not bothering, or if so getting the cheapest driver that fits or just flat-out going amp & custom. I know my guy could do a custom enclosure in that space. One thing to keep in mind is this is an 8" driver with not a lot of power so it just doesn't go low, its sweet spot is 120hz+. Still, I can hear a difference and wow my car is unbalanced as hell right now! Can't wait to finish this up in a month or two once my guy is available.

While I was back there I saw how easy it is to get to those useless rear 3"s and I think I might throw some cheap Daytons in just so I can sleep at night knowing there are no more ten cent drivers in the car.

 

[JBO]

Do you know what the maximum mounting depth would be for the front door speakers? If anyone has measured this please advise.

 

[Icehawk]

At least 2.73".

 

[Icehawk]

I've got all the drivers inhouse, I did buy a set of Dayton PC83-4 3" drivers for the rear hatch
but don't be like me, I'm 99.9% sure that's a $40 waste plus whatever my installer charges me.



Now I just need my installer to have a slot, he said "December" so it may be a good 2 or even 3mos before I can finish this up.

To reiterate this is what I bought:

CDT:
ES-6.2 front door
ES-3 center/dash
HS-1200i front tweeter
ES-5 rear door
DRT-25 tweeter

Rockford Fosgate:
PS3D4-8 subwoofer

Dayton Audio:
PC83-4 C pillar/hatch

Total Cost is roughly $700 for all the drivers.

Installation of the speakers should run me around $3-400 so all-in about $1k, let's call it $1,200 with incidentals, shipping, etc. Any sane person can save $220+ by skipping the sub and hatch drivers. This could also be shaved down another few bucks by choosing lesser quality drivers but for me the difference between say $700 or $500 of drivers isn't worth doing since I'll keep the car long term, maybe if you are self-installing everything and really want to minimize outlay...

 

[Yorkman1]

@Icehawk

all of the information you’ve posted has been absolutely wonderful. I cannot thank you enough but I still had some questions about what’s going on with this car and the factory subwoofer. I took delivery of my car a few days ago and this is what I found so far. I’m sure someone was smarter than me can figure out what’s going on here with the wiring and the coloring.

when I tell you the factory sub is cheap wow. It’s like nothing. The box has a surprising amount of room as seen in the photos.

 

[Yorkman1]

One more thing. The know the man here also measured his OEM sub at sub 2ohm. This is what mine shows. She with this information could you buy a 2ohm DVC and run it in parallel?

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