Crazy Stereo Install - Mk3 VR

[Mrk_Mickey]

Here it is - half of my stereo done

After a long time of looking around for speaker brackets, wouldn't you know it, I was missing them from my box. Contacted JB Hifi and got them right away, and finally got to work installing my stereo. The brackets only JUST fit into the door holes, but required me to snap off those plastic bits on the doors that hold the OEM brackets in place (not needed, they use screws anyway).

Today I would have had to pay to go to school (long story) so instead I stayed home and took opportunity of the time I had to try and get some work done on the stereo. My cousin delivered to me my sexy monoblock amplifier, so once that was there I got cracking!

I had to re-position my battery cable as it was in the way of things, so I tucked that over to the side. After that I unmounted my silly old 15" sub and took it out of the car (finally) and unbolted amp/unscrewed all wires. Neatened everything up so I could find what I needed, then got stuck into my speakers. Got three of them mounted and ran out of screws (they didn't give good screws..) so couldn't be bothered with the fourth. After this, I grabbed my amps and crossovers and decided where to mount them on my back seats. I had MAJOR troubles with positioning of crossovers, so because I'm not finished I'll ask about them here later. Right now, I wanna put them next to my amp. I've got enough wire for getting the woofer/tweet wires to both back and front doors, but wiring proved WAY too hard at the end of today.

Progress:






And the sexy ridiculously powerful sub


Has anyone had experience with crossovers in Mk3's? I don't think there's any room in the doors, so right now I plan to mount them where they are in the pics. Also, what do people think? Back doors: Woofers w/tweeters mounted on top of woofer, or go all out and mount them next to door handles?

Hopefully I'll finish it soon!
Cheers

[glidn]

Yeah you can easily mount them on the back of the door card, i had mine there no problems at all.

Also if your Amps are under 60mm in height, you can mount them under the back seats. If you want that is of course.

Looking good man,

[Mr ©harisma]

Good stuff dude, I hope you are going to tidy up those wires though

[Soundofav6]

NIce toys you got mickey.
lol .. can't believe with all that .... the adaptors were missing. I think as Hawk said they should come with it.

when you have make sure you tidy those wires tho. GOOD work ..

[Mrk_Mickey]

DON'T WORRY GUYS! I'm a neat freak, and trust me when I say this will be tidied up. I'm hoping to completely eliminate ANY sign of wires. Thanks for the comments can't wait 'til I finish up! (prob another days work)

Yeah you can easily mount them on the back of the door card, i had mine there no problems at all.

Also if your Amps are under 60mm in height, you can mount them under the back seats. If you want that is of course.

Looking good man,

I can't be bothered taking the door cards off plus I'm too scared of breaking them haha. I probably should do this as it would clean up the boot heaps more; I just wanted to hear it yesterday so we plugged everything in hehe. I thought about the amp positioning but the problem was ventilation and my amps are really sleek looking so I just decided to bolt them onto the back of the rear seats

I guess the only problem I have is door wiring. I'm sure if I take the door cards off it could be really easy to get wires through, however after an inspection of the rubber wire-grommet thingo I found it was pretty much completely plugged up with a white connector thing. Can anybody shed some light on this issue? Cheers

[Mr ©harisma]

No grommet is attached that well. Perhaps try feeding something small like packing take through if you don't feel comfortably taking to it with a screwdriver!

[Lorenz]

So far so good mate!

With the wiring for the doors and the stupid gromets, i too found them a problem. Open the door fully and pull back the rubber surround that goes between the door and the car itself. It will reveal a large plug with all the original wiring which quite easily unscrewes. You can then pass through the new wiring for the speakers!

I have my crossovers mounted in the door pockets in the front, and will do the same with the rears I reckon. If you want to mount the front tweeters neatly and nicely, think about mounting them on the original tweeter boards under the grills on the dash. Check out my thread to see how I mouted mine and it keeps them out of the way, plus sounds pretty good from there.

As you have 2 of the Response amps, you thought about adding in one of the bridging brackets you can get for them? Hides some of the wiring and plugs, plus looks pretty cool and neat We used on in my mates boot install:

[Mrk_Mickey]

So far so good mate!

With the wiring for the doors and the stupid grommets, i too found them a problem. Open the door fully and pull back the rubber surround that goes between the door and the car itself. It will reveal a large plug with all the original wiring which quite easily unscrews. You can then pass through the new wiring for the speakers!

How do I pull these back? They look attached and I tried fiddling around but I can't get them to budge?

Check out my thread to see how I mouted mine and it keeps them out of the way, plus sounds pretty good from there.

Yeah man totally agreed, I want to do things properly, so I will probably end up making some sort of MDF thingo similarly shaped to the OEM tweeter brackets so I can fit em in the dash. For the rear tweeters I wanna put them next to the door handles; there's a DIY out there somewhere..

As you have 2 of the Response amps, you thought about adding in one of the bridging brackets you can get for them? Hides some of the wiring and plugs, plus looks pretty cool and neat

Bridging brackets? Haven't heard of them! But my idea is to make every wire follow a certain direction whereby ALL wires from the sides of the amp meet up and go down along my bootline, and I'll stick them together or something and carpet them up so they can't be seen. From the pic it looks like they would be joined by the bridge, and my amps are mounted one on each seat so that's kinda impossible/impractical..

[glidn]

therer is no real easy way of getting speaker wire thru the door, it uses a big plud that rotates in so what you have to do is drill a hole into one or two of the free pin holes. But i would honestly just use standard wiring, it's 14 gauge anyway.

Also if you break of one of the clips of the back of the door skin, it will only tear off. So you just use hot glue gun and hot glue of course and glue it back on. Just as good as new. i did all these steps hence i know.

[Mrk_Mickey]

Lovely stuff there Glidn. I think I am gonna bite the bullet and re-wire the doors because I'm anally retentive like that. On another note, I hid the amps/wires today! I decided I wanted my wog side of me to come out and hide my valuables so nobody knew about them. I had a bit of time before work so I slowly pulled back both seats and made sure every wire was ok, unsquashed etc etc, and as a result I have a completely stock looking car again (boot is cluttered, can't see inside) only with wires sticking out of my seats going to the doors haha. Pics:

I swear bro, there's liek no stereo in there cuzz


Those wires? They came stock...swehtugod bro


I'm tellin' you, no stereo. That's just my sub...and my mate's amp and kicker boxes


Ok fine bro. You found it. Swehtugod bro dun tell anywun!

[Soundofav6]

MICKEY !!! whats up with the rear door wiring.. Tell me you were only test fitting .. that is no where near FULLY SIC BRO. Also You should really cut the wires to the right length.

With the crossovers, I mounted them inside the service holes, you got to go thought the door gromet, you have to remove the door card. It's a 3 min job CUZ !

WHen you are free, come ova. I will show you all the screw and bolts. NO beers necessary.. lol .. Whens your BDay BTW?

PS very clean rims !! BING BING !! FULLY SICK !

[Mrk_Mickey]

MICKEY !!! whats up with the rear door wiring.. Tell me you were only test fitting .. that is no where near FULLY SIC BRO. Also You should really cut the wires to the right length.

With the crossovers, I mounted them inside the service holes, you got to go thought the door gromet, you have to remove the door card. It's a 3 min job CUZ !

HAHAHAHAHAHA LOUIS!! Don't worry BRO, as I said before I'm a neatfreak retentive person and these wires are most DEFINITELY only a temporary test hahaha. I might take you up on your offer though dude, I'll give you a call later.

WHen you are free, come ova. I will show you all the screw and bolts. NO beers necessary.. lol .. Whens your BDay BTW?

P.S My bday is in October...not yet bud, but soon, soon...

[ScienceVR6]

do your self a favour, build a fauls floor, and recess the amps. it will hide all the wire, and allow you to use the boot, to an extent. I just pissed off my 15" sub in favor of a 10". An its just as loud. And sounds better.
But those kickers THUMP. The next best thing would be keep the boot closed.

[Mrk_Mickey]

Indeed Kickers do THUMP. I love mine, it's great

I'll probably look at false flooring when I have time...ie after year 12. Got too much crap to think of and honestly no money to waste right now but yes a false floor is most definitely on my list...how would the amps go for ventilation? Should I stick a fan or two under there when the time comes?

[ScienceVR6]

definatly, and stinger have a great little fan designed just for that job.