My Fg Premium Audio Upgrade - Alpine & Jbl

[Jake F6]

Well, I have completed my FG Premium Audio Upgreade which consisted of removing all factory speakers and replacing them with:

- Alpine Type G 6.5" Splits for the front doors and A-Pillar.

- Alpine Type S 6.5" Coax 2-Ways for the rear doors.

- JBL GTO-804 8" free air sub for the parcel shelf.

- 16mm MDF spacers for the doors

- 2 sheets of Dynamat

My plan was to simply run the splits and rears off the head unit to existing factory locations, and the subwoofer off the factory amp also to the existing factory location. I also wanted to maintain a 100% stock apperance. The above equipment was carefully selected for maximum effect for this purpose, after a lot of research.

Now, I have never installed car audio equipment before but thought that I would give it a go as a bit of a challenging project for myself.

I thought that it would take me a day or a day and a half, however it ended up taking me 3 whole days - dont laugh! I took my time with the soldering, heat shrink, dynamat etc.

On the first day I managed to install the subwoofer and two rear door speakers. and then the with splits - they took a whole day each!!!

Subwoofer:

The FG premium audio comes with an 8" subwoofer in the parcel shelf so the JBL GTO-804 would be a straight swapover, with mounting holes redrilled to match the factory holes.

The parcel shelf from above has six plastic clips and a torx screw which need to be removed so that the cover can be lifted off, and placed onto the back seat to reveal the factory subwoofer, which can easily be unscewed. From underneath, the cover needs to be pulled down from the clips with a bit of force to reveal the bottom of the sub, which needs wires to be cut near the factory loom connector (remember which color wire is + and -). The factory sub can then be lifted out from the top. I then applied most of a sheet of dynamat around the subwoofer hole to the top of the parcelshelf, and also over any holes in the parcel shelf. Then I screwed the new subwoofer into the parcel shelf, and the cut factory wires that were left underneath the parcel shelf were then stripped a bit and twisted into the subwoofer connectors. Top and bottom covers are then put back onto the parcleshelf in reverse of how they were removed. The subwoofer was the easiest bit. Note I went back to normal +- polarity with the JBL subwoofer, whereas I had reversed the polarity of the factory Ford subwoofer as per well documented tweak.

Rear Doors:

There is a guide on removing and replacing front door trims posted on FF which was invalueable, and can be used for both front and rear doors:

http://www.fordforum....php?t=11299639

Once the door trim is removed, you can unscrew the speaker and cut off the factory speaker wire(remember which color wire is + and -). Then you will will need to mount your MDF spacers tightly into the existing three holes (I needed to trim the MDF spacers which I bought a bit to fit nicely and flush against the door). I did not apply dynamat to the rear doors as I didn't have enough sheets to afford this luxury. The two way coax speakers were then screwed tightly to the (pre-drilled) holes in the MDF, and speaker wire was soldered onto the speakers at the speaker end and then twisted and soldered to the factory wires which were previously cut at the other end. This was then finished with heatshrink. I made sure that the electric windows went up and down without hitting anything before I put the door back together. I repeated this on the other door which was quicker then the first due to knowing where everything goes.

Front Doors:

These were by far the hardest for me due to the fact that you need to also install a crossover and tweeters, and run new wiring back from the front doors to the A-Pillar for tweeters.

In addition to the procedure for the rear doors above which is basically re-used for the installation of the front door mid-range speakers, the following also needs to be done.

The A-Pillar trim needs to be removed to reveal the factory tweeter which can then be unscrewed and its wires unplugged. I wanted to reuse the factory tweeter mount, so I unscrewed the factory tweeter from the mount, and trimmed off the bit of plastic which has its capacitor thing attached. I didn't have the right size screw for the tweeters so I just ended up super glueing them to the facotry tweeter mounts. I was doing the driver side first and it was a real pain to push the tweeter wire down through the side of the dash, and I made up a litlle "hook tool" from a wire coat hanger which I used to "fish out" the wire from underneath the dash - time consuming. The next step is the hardest part, and involves getting the speaker wire through the rubber door gromet, and into the door. This took a long time, and is very frustrating. I had to remove the kick panel. I managed to finally remove the grommet from both the car body side and the door side with my fat hands, and then to get the wire up through to the grommet. I taped the tweeter wire to a more rigid wire which I eventually managed to carefully push through the gromet and then into the door. I thought that this would be slightly faster on the passanger side, as it was the second one, however here there was the satnav module right in the way behind the kick panel which meant I had to also remove the glove box, glove box assembly, and the sat nav unit... I also managed to stupidly thread the tweeter wire around the door hinge whilst pushing it through the gromet, so I had to pull it out and do it again...arrrrrgh.

Then I had to find a place on the door to mount the crossover which would need to fit unobstructed with the door trim back on, and I managed to find a good place just near the speaker with a bit of trial and error. The crossover requires two mounting holes to be drilled into the door. Then its a matter of connecting all the wiring to the crossover, testing that the audio works from the speakers and tweeters, and that the electric windows go up and down without hitting anything. In my case I sliced a speaker wire with the window, and had to solder it and re run it more carefully, and away from the window mechanism. I left the crossover tweeter attenuation at the factory setting of 0dB which is the brightest setting for the tweeters, I figured that this can always be brought lower with the equalizer. I also put dynamat on the outside skin of the front doors, and tried to fill some of the holes in the doors.

Overall:

I got a great sense of self satisfaction from doing this project myself, and I think that my attention to detail, and caring for my car, means that the end result is much higher standard than if a low cost install place had done this work. Having said that, I would probably recommend that anyone doing this upgrade retains the factory tweeters, and just goes with a set of two way speakers for the front - which would make this job a hell of a lot quicker and easier. I would have done it in 1.5 days rather than 3 days. I am wondering if anyone has done this, and whether they are happy with the result.

My result? Well the sound quality improvement is absolutely fantastic, and I am particularly impressed with the Alpine Type G which are very punchy, with exceptional sound reproduction. I am still playing with the tuning of the head unit audio parameters but the improvement is just massive. The car looks 100% stock, which is exactly what I wanted.

The system really has massive omph now, and crystal clear sound. I am very happy and in particular as this was for a total outlay of around $500.

Thanks for reading,

Jake.

[Shyfrd]

Wow, fair size write up! Props mate.

Never realised there were such a thing as Type G speakers until a couple wks ago.

So you bought no amp for the speakers/sub? I'd say the whole combo would benefit greatly from an aftermarket amp. Along with a head unit for the rca's too of course. But all personal preference and if you're happy with how it is atm, so be it

How much of a difference have you noticed with just speakers and 8" sub upgrade?

It'd all stock once everything's back on so that's a bonus, incl sub

[broke]

im really glad you posted this Jake, I actually went to JB just the other day to get install prices on some Alpine Type S gear into the doors. not sure yet about changing out the stock sub for an aftermarket one. im keen to keep it stock as possible. perhaps in the future maybe add an amp for a bigger sub in the boot. but for now I get more enjoyment listening to my turbo spool than music lol. music is always on quite low

[Jake F6]

Cheers guys. I'm really happy with the sound, and for me it is way more than enough. In the future I could always put in a new amp, but this would also mean adding an LC6 for RCA conversion and then also changing all the wiring in the car to a thicker gauge. It would probably also double the cost of the install.

[broke]

yeah that's what im not fussed on. I think bang for buck changing out the speakers for those Alpines seems to be the way to go. the guy at JB instantly pointed to them as he said they are fine with the limited power the stock unit feeds them. glad to hear you like them, I too am not a big "doof doof" fan lol.

[musicmick]

Hey Jake, would you mind letting us know how much you paid for your setup?

[Jake F6]

It was around $500 in total for all the parts, I installed it all myself.

Jake.

[spook]

Nice work Jake.

Just fitted some Alpine 5 x 7 type S splits to the font of my BF (along with an Alpine PXE-H660 and a PDX-5). To keep it simple I mounted the crossover under the dash and tapped into the factory door speaker wiring behind the kick panel.

Saves having to run wires from the doors back to the tweeters.

[gemms61]

Thanks for the write up JakeF6' I know it's been a few months but I just read it.

You have inspired me to change me speakers so I pulled off the door trim to get a good idea of how it all looks and I have a couple of questions I was hoping you could help with.

1. How did you identify the + and - wires, I could,nt see any markings on speaker or wires.

2. Changing the tweeter looks to hard as per your comments, if adding a 2 way to the front would I need to somehow disconnect the factory tweeter or just plug in the new Alpine 2 way and away I go?

Hope you can help.

Cheers

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[Jake F6]

Hi gemms61,

- If I remember you can identify the + and - wires, as the factory speakers have these markings on them.

- It would be a shame to lose your existing tweeters (assuming you have premium audio). If you don't have premium audio, then quality 2 way fronts will still be a big improvement over stock.

Cheers, Jake.