Ok, yesterday I got my Kenwood HU installed and working. Today, I received my Focal speakers. The door panel was easy. The tweeters mounted in the oem spot with the oem bracket and some help from a drill and a dremel tool. What is that empty box for in the door? I think it's for the crossover, mine mounted perfectly inside. Now, I would like to connect the tweeter wire to the crossover, but, warning, stupid question, which wire is positive and which is negative? One has a stripe, is that the negative or the positive? I cannot see the terminals on the tweeter where they are connected. Next question, I will need to make new speaker rims, what do I make them out of? I have read a three letter anacronym, but I don't know what that stands for. Next question, is the oem speaker wire the one attached to the woofer? Is there not a crossover somewhere? If so, this wire is not long enough to reach my crossover, can I splice it? Help!!

John

 

Ok....
Tweeter +,- is going to depend, usually a stripe means negative, unless it's a red stripe than it's sometimes + , check in the instructions it'll say, or in the picture it'll show it.

Speaker rims - make them out of MDF , medium density fiberboard. Found at homedepo and lowes. It's not super expensive but useless to buy a full sheet if your only going to use it for speaker rings. So you might want to stop at a local audio shop and see if they have a couple of sqaures for you. And you want 3/4'' thickness.

There's no factory cross over for the factory speakers. The output of the radio goes right into the doors and connects to the woofers. Then another wire also goes into the tweeter, which has a crossover fliter on it to block out all the lows.

The blank panel you found inside the door is just for sound :-)

 

Read your manual, it should say which one is neg and pos for the tweeter leads. Wiring it backwards won't kill the tweeter, your sound will just be a little different.

As for speaker mounts, the most popular material used is MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard). You can pick up a sheet at Lowe's, Home Depot, or the like. You could possibly talk to an audio shop and see if they have some scraps you could use since you don't need a full 4'x8' sheet...lol

The boxes are perfect for mounting crossovers, that's where I think the majority of us have mounted them. I actually had to take the box out and use it's mounting points since my crossovers are too large to fit inside it.

The OEM speaker wire is spliced to run to the tweeter and woofer without a crossover. There's no problem splicing the OEM speaker wires to get them to reach your crossovers, just make sure you use quality environmental splices (not that crap from Walmart or Autozone - go to a home improvement store and see if you can find bare metal splices, pick up appropriately sized heat shrink, and have at it) as moisture can get inside the door.

 

Damn me and my slow typing...lol

 

LOL I won :-)


here's a picture of what I did with the cross overs for someone...

 

I need to get pictures of how I installed mine.

Just so happens that the mounting holes for the Diamond Hex crossovers can be aligned to two of the screw holes for the box...Lucky as a mofo...lol

 

Thanks guys. That's a huge crossover, I might be able to fit an amp there. :-)
I was reading all about this MDF, but noone ever said what it was. Medium Density Fiberboard, I guess you could say I used my, phone a friend on that one. I will finish the project tonight, I hope.

John

 

Yea MDF=Medium Density Fiberboard

 

Just go to a quality car audio shop and ask for some scraps...lol

 

Finished the job yesterday. I must say I would have never attempted this without reading the expert advice contained on this forum. At one point I had the door panels off wires everywhere, solder gun hot and smelly; my wife walked in the garage and said, "you are nuts". Maybe so, but I got the job done, my system sounds great, and I learned alot about the interior of our cars.

I would like to repay this forum by posting some facts about my setup which may help others make audio decisions. I went with the Kenwood Execlon HU with Focal 165 slim speakers. No amp or sub at this time. My goal was to be able to hook up my Samsung T10 mp3 player thru the USB port. I tested this out in a local store and it worked. After my install, I hooked everything up and the HU would not recognize my player, it said, "NO DVICE". After much research, I figured out, if I put a song in the root directory of my player and played that song, then hooked it up, the HU would see the player and work fine. But, when the car was turned off, I would have to go thru this entire work around to get it back up and running, not what I anticipated. My next option was to burn some CD's with my mp3 music. This works flawlessly. The aux jack works with my player but the signal is weak and the HU volume must be turned up very loud, not quality audio. On to the speakers. The Focal 165 slims fit easily in the factory holes. I had to make new rims and forego the old baskets but no depth issues whatsoever. The most confusing issue is the polarity of the wires. The crossovers fit perfectly in, what must be, the crossover box, designed by Honda and put in our door panels. The tweeters required some mechanical inginuity to replace the factory ones using the same brackets. I was able to tap a hole in the rear of the tweeter casing and use the old screw to secure it to the bracket.

I was so excited everything worked, I put the car back together and neglected to pug the electricals back in. Great stereo sound, but now the windows and locks don't work. It only took 10 minutes to pop the door panels off and plug everything back in, I almost and expert now, thanks to the knowledgable, helpful, generous people who frequent this forum.

Thanks again

John