Before you try rear fill try putting the tweeters up in the a pillars and see what that does for you stage height. I have mine about 6 inches up off the dash in the trim panel. Just tape them up there mess around point them in different directions and see if you like it. I actually started with a similar setup to what you have and have ended up with a 3 way front stage, 8's in the doors, 3's in the dash and tweets up in the pillars. But I'm finally happy with it after a year of messing with it. Very nice job on the install.

 

Yeah, I wanted to put it somewhere easily within reach but out of sight as well. That spot met both of those, although with my big ol' hamhock hand it's not quite an easy adjustment to make. But I'd rather have stealth over ergonomics.

It's funny you say that because yesterday at work I seen a cylindrical piece of high density cardboard and was inspired...I looked at it and immediately thought "tweeter pod!" So I took it and went out to my car to see if my tweeters would fit inside of it and it was a perfect fit! So, my idea is to recess them into the A pillars, aimed at the opposite passenger and glass them in and then wrap the pillar in black suede. All this sounds wonderful but don't be fooled, I have absolutely no clue how to work with fiberglass and body filler to pull this off.

Dude, you gotta post up some pics of your front stage setup! This past weekend I had tossed around the idea of fiberglassing my door panels to house a 3 way setup, with the midrange and tweeter aimed at the opposite passenger. I really wanted to do kicks but the e-brake is in the way so that's not an option.

I'm hooking up with a buddy of mine tomorrow who's pretty good at tuning active setups so hopefully we can get mine dialed in. I've got a new set of components on thier way, they'll be here Monday. They are the PPI 356CS 6.5" components, which are basically rebadged A/D/S comps and anybody who knows anything about car audio knows that A/D/S was the **** as far as high end equipment was concerned. I'm going to give them a shot and see if they sound any better than my CDT's...I blew one of the tweeters in the first week after I finished the install. If these don't put a big smile on my face then I'm going 3 way active up front, no doubt.

 

Thank You!

 

[quote=04MonteLS;162060]Yeah, I wanted to put it somewhere easily within reach but out of sight as well. That spot met both of those, although with my big ol' hamhock hand it's not quite an easy adjustment to make. But I'd rather have stealth over ergonomics.[quote=04MonteLS;162060]


yea man cause i have HUGE hands also... most of the work i have done on my car is shear luck lol... mostly lights to go with music and dress up of the rest of the car... the thing is though im 6'5" and its really hard to squeez into areas like the trunk and where ur feet go to install the lights lol... hey one more question... how did u remove the center console thing, u know, where the shifter is?!

 

Heres a few pics of mine. Im running a pioneer avh-p6800 dvd player which runs through a rockford fosgate 3sixty.2 To a Zapco 7 channel amp. The 8's are DLS Nobeliums, The 3's in the dash are Hybrid audio L3's and the tweeters are Hybrid audio L1v2's. When I did mine I put didn't want to build big ol pods and have them up on the dash so I put them in the trim piece that is up by the windshield. I tried to do it still looked halfway factory. The locations arent ideal but they aren't obtrusive either. I finally got around to building my permanent sub box today. It's going to sit in the right quarter panel.

 

I just saw this thread, and I was pretty impressed. I thought I might offer you a tip though. If you want to try and get a little more midbass out of your components, you might go back to the door with some more deadener and try and cover up all of the holes that you can. Here's a pic of my door panel when I was finished.



I used some metal flashing pieces to bridge the gap of the big whole and then sealed if off with Damplifier. I run Type X components and they are plenty capable like this that I can run without rear speakers

 

IIRC, there are a couple bolts inside the storage compartment (under the armrest) that need to come out, one or two under the little rubber mat at the very front of the console (under the climate controls, the little cubby hole thingy) and I think that was it....once you get the bolts out it should pop right out but to get it over the shifter you have to lift it up over the base of the shifter and then rotate it so it's going left to right instead of front to back (also helps if you put the key in the ignition and move the shifter back to D or further). Sorry if I missed something here, i'm just going off memory and mine isn't exactly the greatest.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

My whole door is deadened, including the inner skin, except for the large opening...do you think the gain would be worth the time and effort to go back in and do that? I have like 4 or 5 sheets of Damplifier Pro left so it's no thing. I just hate taking those damn door panels off, only because the idiotic engineers at Chevy decided it was a good idea to put the connectors in so that the release pins are facing the door panel But if you think it'll make that much of a difference i'm all for it.

My PPI 356CS put in work in my front doors but if I can get a little more out of the mids that wouldn't be a bad thing. Another thing i'm going to do is install my SecondSkin deflector pads behind the mids and get rid of the factory speaker pod a cut out a 3/4" baffle out of MDF. I run fronts only as well and it sounds awesome as is, can't wait to see how these changes effect things....I'll be doing these, as well as building a 2cu. ft. sealed box for my subs on the 14th so stay tuned.....

 

Hey I never realized you replied to this but...basically think of your door as the enclosure for your mids. The more enclosure-like you can make it, the better. I litterally covered every hole in the door skin except the ones needed for the retaining pins for the door panel. My doors have a layer of Damplifier and Overkill on the outer skin and then spurratic placement of Damplifier on the inner skin to cover the holes and do a little dampening. Really though, with all the bends in the inner skin, it can't flex a whole lot, so it doesn't really need to be completely covered. (My use of inner and outer skin refers to inner being towards the interior and outer towards the road, just to be clear lol.)

I can't really say too much how big of a difference you'll hear because I never had aftermarket components installed before I deadened, but if you're going back in there anyway and have the extra matterial already, it'll definitely help at least to some extent.

And on another note, I was so close to buying those PPI components when I did my install because I had heard great things about them, especially for their price. And actually, I wanted an IDQ for a long time too lol. I would love to hear what your system sounds like.

 

zwc0442,

Nice system and design. Really like the clean tweeter mounting - any tricks on removing the front side pillars? I'm not happy with tweeters in stock location. Also, what material and thickness did you use for mounting mids in doors?

Thanks, Rob

 

I think it all depends on the specs of the drivers cause most mids for car audio are made to be used in an IB setup.

My setup sounds pretty good but there's always room for improvement. I'm in the process of redoing my source unit setup so it's down for now but once I get the build underway I'll have an HD video done up of it up and running so you can check it out and get an idea of how it sounds.