I'm going to throw some Kicker 6x9's beside the rear seats, and some Polk 5x7's in the hatch and was wondering what people have used to cut the metal. I'm at college and have limited acces to tools, and don't want to pull everything apart just to see how thick the metal is. Is it possible to do it with hand tools or is something like a Dremel needed?

 

i dont realy understand where these are going...6X9 by the rear seats...and 5X7 in the rear hatch......do you mean put the 6x9 where the sail panel speakers already are?.....cause you can put the 6x9 speakers in the rear hatch where the 4 inch speakers already are.....im guessing all you would need is a dremmel to grind away some of the plastic on the underside of the speaker grilles.......as far as the other location i would check the depth of the speaker first....and if i had to do any cutting ( which i dont think i would) i would use a jig saw with a metal blade....or i would leave it well enough alone and put an aftermarket 6.5 in. mid bass driver in there.

 

Why would you do 6x9s? a 6.5" speaker will perform just as well if not better than a 6x9.

Any I wouldn't even do anything with the ones in the hatch, they aren't needed.

Also what factory system are u replacing? A 4-speaker, bose, or?

 

Placing large speakers in the hatch panles is a bad idea. The panels in the hatch are too flimsy to support anything bigger than the 4" mids that are there now. A full range speaker will cause vibrations and rattles. And since the panel doesn't have enough mass the bass will be very poor from the larger speakers.

 

plus kicker 6x9's dont sound good. my friend has them in the back of his car and they sound bad. i've got 6.5 in the back of my camaro and they sound much better

 

I have them from another car, with a kicker 4x100 amp that i was going to run them off of.... it's the Monsoon system, but I have a pioneer premier deck to run the backs, and i'm going to turn them up a little more so that i don't blow the front speakers. I graduate this spring so i have other things to spend money on rather then speakers right now, so these will have to do. I was reading a few posts on ls1tech.com and the people that i saw with similar setups have been pretty happy.

 

The metal isn't all that thick, a dremel should do the trick if that's what you really want to do.

I suggest making a wooden template to mount the speakers to if you can, as speakers sound best on wood, and it will give a bit better bass response, plus you'll have more mounting options.

 

You'd better make sure you have plenty of mounting depth. The wood template sounds like a bad idea to me. It may make the speaker stick out too far and get in the way of the grill going back on. Personally I would sell the 6x9's and get speakers that fit the existing holes. I would also forget about the hatch speakers.

Oh yeah, one other thing. Turning up the rear speakers isn't going to do squat to prevent the front speakers from blowing.

 

when i upgraded my system, i made a wooden template to fit the comonent system i was putting in from the foam backing that was on the stock speaker. This allowed me to mount the wood to the vehicle metal, and then use whatever mounting i wanted with the speaker. The wood is only about 1/2" thick or so, and being top mounted, i still have plenty of room between the component and the factory grille. You'd have to have some huge speakers for them not to fit behind there, you've got plenty of play. The nice thing about doing this also is you can mount them at an angle if you run into clearance issues. I also made them for the door speakers, but they had to be considerably thinner.

 

The wood template might work fine for a component set but most 6x9's I've seen have a 1/2" to 3/4" flange on the front of them that makes them stick out quite a bit when top mounted like that.

Like I said above, make sure you have plenty of depth (front or back) to work with before you go cutting antyhing.

 

The wooden template sounds like a good idea. I guess I'll have to take it all apart and make some measurements to see what will fit. I don't have a problem making something, I was just hoping to do this all in one weekend so the car's not torn apart forever.




All I meant by that is if i turn the rear speakers up I won't have to turn the stereo as a whole up as hi to get the same effect, thus the front speakers wouldn't be recieving as much power and would be less likely to blow.

 

If you are going to use 6x9 and 5x7s why not just build them a small box and through it in the hatch? This way if you want to upgrade the system later you can still do so with the factory mounts still being there. I like the 6.5s you can get some real nice components or coxials that would be much nicer then 5x7 or 6x9. But that is my $0.02. Best of luck in what ever you decide to do.

 

Sorry accidental double post