Door Speakers.. WOOO!!!!

I bought some 6.5" Boston Acoustics SL65's this afternoon off ebay. $145 shipped. Hopefully I wont have any problems mounting them. The installation of these will probably be one of my last steps since they are 4ohm rather than the stock 2ohm.


Order of Work (of final install) - long time yet
I plan on building the sub enclosure and amp rack (false floor) and getting those in and all the wiring ran through first. Then I will install the PC and not give it power. Then I will remove the stock EHU and place the LCD/DVD head into the dash and tap the speaker wires that need to be tapped (unless I decide to run new wire for those too).

Then after all the wires are tapped I will give everything oower, toss in the SL65's, and spend the rest of the day EQing/tweaking.

Fab and other stuff

I went up to Reno this weekend and got the car serviced. They also replaced the damaged wheel well and undercarriage cover for me, which was awesome.

I just made a couple of big orders from Parts Express and Ebay. I goto the distro block, some ABS sheets and a lot of miscellaneous accessories (wiring etc...).

I should have everything by Friday which will give me next weekend to really try and bust out the dash pieces.

Fabricating the dash

My last resort is going to be to buy a fascia kit from italy and modify it for my lcd. i realize this might be the easiest way, but i cant justify spending the money like that. id rather spend money and mess up something from scratch and learn from my mistake then buy a 120 dollar piece of plastic just to mess it up and end up in the same boat i was before. so here is my idea...

16 guage (or thinner) aluminized steel. cut as a frame for the lcd. bent into a U shape with the screen opening milled out. mounts for the screen and the circuit board placed on it with some stand offs and support bars.

then taking a piece of styrofoam and tracing my full scale autocad mockup of the fascia kit. ill then scrape out the styrofoam and use as a mold and start dumping in some duraglass. eventually once i get the duraglass strong enough, take it out of the foam and clean it up and get it ready for the cage. mount it to the cage.

i will need to fabricate some steel mounting brackets to actually mount to the car as well. this shouldnt be too tough. i will just replicate the mounting system currently in use.

i am going to make it so the cage mounts to the mounting points of the vehicle with some slots to get it adjust correctly. and then the fascia will mount to the cage with a series of of slotted screws so I can adjust the fascia to line up perfectly as needed.

i think i covered it.

Audio Decisions

Well, I've decided on the amp and sub. I'm going to be purchasing a JL 10W1V2-4 and power it with a JL a1200. The a1200 is a 175w RMS @ 4ohm amp, 500w Max monoblock A/B amplifier. It's a good match for the sub and its not too big and doesn't require a lot of power, but has had great reviews. As for the sub, i've read nothing but great things about them. So I'm stoked! I'm gonna MDF/fiberglass a sealed enclosure on the passenger side of the trunk in the spot where the cubby is. That will come out and i will match the contours of the other side of the trunk to make the trunk symmetrical (because im weird like that).


Mid-bass Door 6.5"

i still havent decided what 6.5" door speakers im going to get. i'll probably just go with some of the phoenix gold ti-6 by morel that i spoke of previously.

Amp purchase

Amp Purchase

So with the replacement of the stock dash and deck speakers, I decided to replace the amp. This was a bit tricky because of the nature of the Saab audio system, but I finally figured it out.

I purchased a JL Audio a6450 (6ch x 45w @4ohm RMS amp) that allows me to do exactly what I need. I will be passing ch 1/2 to the dash speakers on a high pass filter, ch 3/4 to the rear deck with a high pass and then using the combined signals (pre-high pass) to send to ch5/6 where I will most likely sum them and send them to the 6.5" door speakers as a mono channel with a low-pass.

Door Speakers

I am going to replace the 2ohm door 6.5" speakers with some 4ohm 6/5" mid-bass drivers. I am looking at the Phoenix Gold ti-6 which are supposedly decent speakers and affordable ($140US for the pair).

Mounting the amp

The a6450 will be mounted in a false floor in my trunk. I haven't decided if this floor is going to be full floor or only half and have a 'step up'. The only reason for this is because I would like to keep access to the spare tire.

I plan on leaving a second amp 'chamber' for an additional sub amp that will power a single 8"or 10" JL w3v3. I haven't decided on the amp or sub yet. I think I will use a JL a1400 (500w class D) or a JL a1200 (300w class A/B).

Sub

The sub will be mounted in a custom fiberglass enclosure on the passenger side of the trunk. There is currently a small area which is apparently for golf clubs cut out in the side, which if I take off the panel, leaves a nice sized chamber for a single sub. I will hopefully render both the floor and the sub enclosure soon

Speaker Upgrade

First step in getting a better multimedia experience would logically be to replace the speakers. So this was my first step. Thanks to the tutorials from some other guys on the forums at SaabCentral.com (thanks Wulf), I was able to replace the dash speakers easily with some boston acoustic s35's. I then went a little bit more on my own as there isnt a tutorial for the rear deck to replace the rear 4" speakers with some boston acoustic s45's. This was MUCH easier than the front speaker replacement.

Seeing as that there are already tutorials for upgrading the dash speakers available on saabcentral forums, I decided I would simply document the rear speaker upgrade.



First off, I had to think about how I wanted them wired. I went down to radio shack and bought some wire splicers, but then when I got home a light bulb turned on over my head. Here's what I did.







I got some red U hooks or whatever they are called and I snipped off one side of it. I needed two for each speaker. Hence the four I cut.











Then I crimped them onto the cables and hooked them up to my speakers, very easy to do. (sorry about the poor pictures, I'm terrible at taking these close ups while trying to do the work also. haha.









My next step was to get the shelving off the rear deck. this proved to be MUCH easier than anticipated. Fold down the rear seats, this will expose three black interior pins. If you have a pin removal tool, congrats. If youre like me and couldnt find it, just use two small screwdrivers and place on either side of the pin, and pull up together. They should pop right out. do this to all three.

Then lift up just a tad bit to get some leverage and pull back. There are 2 squeeze type connectors that just need to be yanked on a little. Here is a pic of my shelf on my roof.You can't see the squeeze connectors, but oh well. It was very easy to do. Just be sure that they snap back in upon reassembly.

Then use a torx, I'm pretty sure it was a T-25 to get the speakers out. I then disconnected them and just plopped in the BA's. The tabs end up getting bent down a bit, might have been better to get some rubber spacers but oh well.








I apologize for the bad picture taking again, but here is what my connectors look like in the stock harness. I wrapped both of them in heat shrink tubing and then taped them so they wouldnt touch and short out.



So that is the install for the rear deck speakers.