speaker Kick panel....bummer

[greasemonkey]

Here's my passenger side kick finished up, I am going to cover it in vinyl but I haven't found any to match my interior yet so I just painted with black rattlecan. Now all I have to do is make the driver's side.

[4x4Poet]

Looks good, greasemonkey. I like that you retained the air vent. Do you think you'll have any floor-mounted dimmer switch clearance problems?

What is the size and mounting depth of the larger speaker? And the brand and model?

[70c10]

Nice job Greasemonkey!. Did you build it from scratch or use the plastic base panels?. I like it.

[GreyHoundSteve]

GREAT job on those kicks!

[greasemonkey]

I made the kickpanel from scratch out of fiberglass, it is time consuming but not difficult.
The speakers are Orions (made by Directed Electronics) they don't have that much lowend bass but after hearing the amazing clarity of the midbass and highs I was hooked. I am going to add subs later anyway. They are a very deep speaker, over 3". The tweeters swivel, you can aim them to where the sound is best. I bought them from a shop here in P'cola for $189. I have spent several thousand dollars at this shop over the last few years, they love to see me coming, lol.
Here's some pics of the process of making the kicks.

[muddpile]

Greasemonkey, is that a 6.5" midbass? It looks like it is, but I didn't think you could fit more than 5.25" without covering the vent. That looks really good. I can't wait to see pics of it installed in the truck. Have you taken a test listen yet?

[greasemonkey]

It is a 6.5" mid. I put them really low in the kickpanel for two reasons, so they could angle up toward the riders without reflecting off the bottom of the dash (I had tried to locate it higher, but at the angle I wanted, it would not have a clear shot toward the listeners) and also so I could keep the air vents since it gets kinda hot here in summer and I don't have AC. I will have to relocate the dimmer switch, I like Chevydude's idea so I might just steal that from him. Not sure about the e-brake yet, it might clear since the speakers are so low in the panel, but since I haven't made the driver's side yet, I can't tell for sure.
I haven't listened to it yet, just the ones in the shop running off a headunit like mine, and they were awesome.

I do have a question about wiring them though. The crossovers have a +/- tweeter input and +/- woofer input. If I just have one pair of +/- speaker wires coming from the headunit, how do I hook it up? I am kind of confused on the wiring part, if you guys could help me out that would be great.
Thanks,
John

[muddpile]

So, your crossovers have a separate input for power to the tweeter and power to the midbass? That would be for bi-wiring likely (amping the tweets and mids seperate of each other). There should be something in the manual or on the crossover about wiring up them off a single channel for each side. You are running them off of deck power you say, but wouldn't your deck have 4 channels of output and not 2?

[greasemonkey]

There is nothing in the manual about it at all. My stereo has outputs for two front speakers and two rear speakers, you mean I could run the wires for the fronts to the tweeter inputs and the wires for the rear for the woofer input, or something like that?
Thanks, John

[muddpile]

I think that would work. I don't see why it wouldn't. I would check with the place you bought them from first and make sure, but I think it would work that way. Kinda an odd setup that way.

[BobbyK]

Just installed a JL system in my wifes Grand Cherokee.
Up front I used a 6.5" mid woof with a 1" tweeter and in the rear are 6.5" mid base with center mounted tweeter.Then a Big 10" JL sitting in a form fitted box that mounts to the inside rear wheelwell.

With a 4 channel 300/4 running the 4 speaker in the door and a 250/1 running the woof it really freakin booms!!

Anyway,I mention this as I just got through doing all this wiring.

Each of the 4 door speakers used a crossover.

If your going to power the speakers with just the head unit it simplifies things a bit.
Take each "+" and "-" wire from the H/U(head unit or the actual stereo) and run to where the speaker are.
Now if you're going to use a crossover attach said wires to the "input" terminal on the crossover.
From the crossover you'll have to run 2 more wires,a "+" and "-" for the mid woof and a "+" and "-" for the tweeter.

Repeat the above step at each speaker.

Now some speakers may have inline filters already installed.
A high-pass filter will filter out low tones and are used for tweeters.
A low pass filter is used for woofers and ,of course, block the high frequencies.
A typical 6.5" mid base would use a a combination of the High pass and low pass filters.

If your speakers already have this "extra" wiring on the speakers you can connect the wires comming from your H/U directly to each speaker.

Hope this didn't confuse you too much.

[BobbyK]

Here's a basice wiring schematic to help you out a little.

[NPilot1975]

GreaseMonkey, you will have to help me make some of those when I get to P-cola.

[NPilot1975]

What is the cheapest place to buy JL audio subs? I am looking at getting a set of 10's, I can't remember which model at the moment.

[BobbyK]

Prob. Ebay

[greasemonkey]

BobbyK, thanks for the write-up, it was very informative. My crossovers have two sets of +/- inputs, that's what was confusing me, but I think that muddpile was right in that I run two sets of speaker wires to each. Since I am running only one pair of speakers right now it should work just fine.
NPilot- sure thing.

[longnlow72]

ebay is the cheapest place to get your stereo equpitment, i goy my whole system except for my subs and amp on there for almost half what it would be locally, all new products from companys

[greasemonkey]

Here are some more pics of it mocked up in the cab, I had to tweak the edges a little, trim some and fill some, but it fits well now. Just have to find some vinyl and stick those suckers in there for good. Also there is the pic of the old Custom Autosound pod next to my new one.

[muddpile]

That looks really good man! I may just have to step up to the idea of a 6.5" since it seems to fit so well.

[5150]

Okay guys I'm sorry to open this thread back up again, but I'm not understanding something. Call me an idiot, that's fine. I missed the bus somewhere. If someone could answer this for me and please try to help me understand I'd appreciate it. My truck is still at NADC so I can't just go outside and look at it. I am wanting to put speakers in my kickpanels. Here's a pic of the driver side and a pic of the speaker I want to put in there. I'm not sure why I can't cut a hole and stick this speaker in there.

MSRP U.S. $ $229.95 pair
Power Handling, RMS 55 Watts
Power Handling, Peak 165 Watts
Sensitivity 90dB
Frequency Response (±3dB) 55Hz - 23kHz
Mounting Depth 1-15/16"
Impedance 4 Ohms

[muddpile]

You mean cut a hole in the tin kick panel itself? The reason for this is because the magnet, voice coil, spider and pretty well every part of the speaker would be outside the cab in the elements. I am pretty sure that behind that piece of metal you can get water, debris, etc. You could do it and make an enclosure I suppose, but that is an aweful lot more work than just building a set of kick panels.

And here's a question for Greasemonkey: Where did you get that carpet? It looks like it goes way up the firewall, where most I have seen don't go up that high.

[greasemonkey]

It's from Chevy Duty, it fits really well and looks good too.
I finished my passenger side speaker pod and wired it up. Sounds pretty good even running off headunit power. The driver's side is currently in the works. Now just to buy and amp and a couple subs and I am ready to roll.

[subtle71]

Originally Posted by greasemonkey

It is a 6.5" mid. I put them really low in the kickpanel for two reasons, so they could angle up toward the riders without reflecting off the bottom of the dash (I had tried to locate it higher, but at the angle I wanted, it would not have a clear shot toward the listeners) and also so I could keep the air vents since it gets kinda hot here in summer and I don't have AC. I will have to relocate the dimmer switch, I like Chevydude's idea so I might just steal that from him. Not sure about the e-brake yet, it might clear since the speakers are so low in the panel, but since I haven't made the driver's side yet, I can't tell for sure.
I haven't listened to it yet, just the ones in the shop running off a headunit like mine, and they were awesome.

I do have a question about wiring them though. The crossovers have a +/- tweeter input and +/- woofer input. If I just have one pair of +/- speaker wires coming from the headunit, how do I hook it up? I am kind of confused on the wiring part, if you guys could help me out that would be great.
Thanks,
John

John,
Several of the upper scale component systems are coming with this set up now. I work for Polk Audio. Our new Polk/MOMO carbon series component systems have crossovers with dual inputs. This is recommended when powering your speakers with on amplifier that does not have an internal variable crossover that would allow you to match the optimum settings designed by the manufacturer. This will allow allow you to apply more power to the components by dedicating one channel of the amp to each speaker. If you are not planning to do this, on our system, you simply wire up the inputs for the tweeter and it will play fine. Let me know how that works out for you!

Dean

[greasemonkey]

Thanks subtle71, that explains it then.
I went ahead and just used the front/rear speaker channels from the headunit for now to run to the crossovers. When I amp it, will I need a 6-channel? Four for the speakers and two for the subs?

[subtle71]

As for the amp, you have many options! You could go with a four channel amp for this and get more power to the kicks. You could then add a two channel or mono amp, if it is stable, to run the subs. Or, you might could get a five channel amp. (Designed to run the entire system in one amplifier. Less wiring to worry with.)

Dean