I finished my dash speaker install this afternoon. I didn't have time to take any pics as I went to test it and it sounded good enough that I'm afraid to mess with it much more.
Plan A: My original plan for the fronts was basically replacing the 4" round and separate tweeter in the stock dash pods with a pair of Sony XSR-4646 4x6" 4 way speakers and polyfill in the pod to increase the bass response which is pretty much what I did in the roll bar pods when I installed the Sony 6.5" 4 way speakers with the exception of having to cut up the pods. So, I cut the front out of the pods and mounted up a pair of adapters to the pods to hold the speakers. When I went to install them in the dash, the front of the speakers were hitting some metal framework in the top of the opening to the point the screw holes wouldn't line up. So, out they came and off to figure out Plan B.
Plan B: This was to cut the mounting tabs off the stock pods and epoxy what remained of the pods to the backside of the adapter mounting plate making it the new faceplate of the formerly stock speaker pods. That gave just enough clearance to clear the metal brace in the dash, but also reduced the amount of space in the pods which I discovered in a test fit that the speaker magnet was hitting the rubber wiring plug in the back of the pod and preventing the speaker from fitting squarely on the faceplate. So, time to sort out Plan C.
Plan C (or 3rd time's the charm): Now that the front of the pods was taken care of, it was obvious that either the speaker or that rubber plug would have to go and the speakers weren't going anywhere. With the plug coming out, that would leave about a 1" hole in the back of pods. Now, as there are a lot of ported speaker boxes out there, so that wasn't much of a concern but I was wondering if the ports and the polyfill would play nice together. So, I spent some quality time with Google and the consensus was that it could be done, but the results tended to be dubious. So, I left out the polyfill figuring if it didn't sound good, I could always add it back in later. I wasn't keen on having the speaker wires running through the port, so I drilled a couple of holes the same size as the wires into the back of the pods next to the stock wire connector and ran them in that way. The speakers now fit in the pods just fine, so I put it all together and did a sound check. Mission accomplished. Excellent bass response with the "ports"
Thanks to @bedhed for the basic idea of having an opening in the back of the pods to improve the bass
I'll try to get some pics tomorrow and add them to this.
Plan A: My original plan for the fronts was basically replacing the 4" round and separate tweeter in the stock dash pods with a pair of Sony XSR-4646 4x6" 4 way speakers and polyfill in the pod to increase the bass response which is pretty much what I did in the roll bar pods when I installed the Sony 6.5" 4 way speakers with the exception of having to cut up the pods. So, I cut the front out of the pods and mounted up a pair of adapters to the pods to hold the speakers. When I went to install them in the dash, the front of the speakers were hitting some metal framework in the top of the opening to the point the screw holes wouldn't line up. So, out they came and off to figure out Plan B.
Plan B: This was to cut the mounting tabs off the stock pods and epoxy what remained of the pods to the backside of the adapter mounting plate making it the new faceplate of the formerly stock speaker pods. That gave just enough clearance to clear the metal brace in the dash, but also reduced the amount of space in the pods which I discovered in a test fit that the speaker magnet was hitting the rubber wiring plug in the back of the pod and preventing the speaker from fitting squarely on the faceplate. So, time to sort out Plan C.
Plan C (or 3rd time's the charm): Now that the front of the pods was taken care of, it was obvious that either the speaker or that rubber plug would have to go and the speakers weren't going anywhere. With the plug coming out, that would leave about a 1" hole in the back of pods. Now, as there are a lot of ported speaker boxes out there, so that wasn't much of a concern but I was wondering if the ports and the polyfill would play nice together. So, I spent some quality time with Google and the consensus was that it could be done, but the results tended to be dubious. So, I left out the polyfill figuring if it didn't sound good, I could always add it back in later. I wasn't keen on having the speaker wires running through the port, so I drilled a couple of holes the same size as the wires into the back of the pods next to the stock wire connector and ran them in that way. The speakers now fit in the pods just fine, so I put it all together and did a sound check. Mission accomplished. Excellent bass response with the "ports"
Thanks to @bedhed for the basic idea of having an opening in the back of the pods to improve the bass
I'll try to get some pics tomorrow and add them to this.
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