The speaker installation was a very lengthy project. It took about 12 hours in total. I do work slow and I will share some steps with you that will certainly save you some time.
Here is a list of supplies you will need for the project:
1. Speakers – 4
2. Baffles – 4 (or use dynaxorb or more material on the outer door panel)
3. Foam weatherstrip ½” thick x3/4” wide x 10 feet
4. 4 MDF 6.5” speaker rings (be sure to choose inner diameter that will fit your speakers)
5. Velcro 2” wide
6. FatMat Mega (or similar) sound deadening material ( I will add this next week when it arrives)
Before starting with the photos, I wanted to describe the installation and some of the challenges.
First, the tweeter pod modification did not work. The tweeter I had were way too large. I tried to fit them in anyways, but there is no room once installed on the door. You will see in the pics that the magnet stuck to the metal pillar and I was not able to angle the speakers correctly. I experimented with sound quality between tweeters mounted in the pods and as a coaxial on the speaker. I could not appreciate the difference. So, I scrapped the tweeter pod project and used coaxial mounts in all four speakers. I do want to emphasize that the MB Quart PVI-216 speakers feature WideSphere technology which produces 90% off-axis response. I think this is the reason why the tweeters sounds so good when mounted as coaxial in the factory location. I doubt you will have the same effect with other brands.
Second, you must use mounting rings with the most speakers. The Quarts have a very shallow mounting depth of about 2.5” or so. However, when installed in the front location the window hit the speaker, just slightly. You won’t have a window problem in the back, however the door panel is not flat like the front, there is an odd shape that will not allow for a flush mount. Another problem I encountered with the Quarts, is that they are just slightly too large to fit perfectly in the stock speaker hole. You may be okay with a different set of speakers, but not sure. For all of these reasons, I chose to build speaker rings.
I actually tried to buy some from a local shop, but none were in stock (plastic junkers for $20/pair). Another shop quoted me $80 to cut some for me. I laughed. He said it was about an hours worth of labor. Then the tech came out and said he would do it for “$50 cash under the table.” I politely said I had one more shop to check and never went back. You can buy these on ebay for about $10/pair and I would certainly recommend that. I did not have time to wait, so I decided to build my own. The shop also pissed me off, with the outrageous cost.
I actually have a jigsaw, but it is not very good. I received some cordless power tools for Christmas this year, so I had been looking for an excuse to buy the cordless jigsaw. It just happened to be on sale at Sears for $50! The same price that shop wanted to build a set of rings in ONE HOUR! Needless to say, mine were not pretty, but I had four rings cut in 20 minutes. I’m sure the pros really need an hour! Yeah right. . . Jerks. So I spent the same amount of money and have a quality tool that will last a long time.
I built these rings out of ½” MDF and they were just right. I should also point out that even with spacers and the coaxial mount, the speaker do not hit the door panel. So, you have lots of room in that panel for mounting.
Third, mounting the crossovers was a PITA. They were big, so I chose to mount them inside the doors. I Velcroed them to the outer door panel. So, when the window rolls down, the crossovers will be behind the glass. You must be careful when routing the wires so the window does not pull them. In the front, I added one screw for security. In the rear, there was no way to screw them down, so Velcro is holding them to the door.
Here are detailed photos and captions of the installation:
I am going to start off by describing the failed tweeter pod installation and modifications. Again, I scrapped this because it did not work. Plus, the sound of these tweeters mounted as coaxial sounded just as good as when it was mounted in the tweeter pods.
Here is the stock pod with OEM tweeter
You can see that the 1.5” MB Quart tweeter is huge
I really felt like I could hack up the pod with a dremel and mount this tweeter. I was able to get it in there okay. I was going to use hot glue to fix it in place, but before doing that I checked the fit in the door location. This is where the problem lies. The tweeter (I think even a 1” dome tweeter will have this problem too) is thick for this location. The magnet sticks to the metal door frame and points straight. Even if I used hot glue to get the proper angle, the tweeter is too thick and it would not mount properly. I had to scrap this part of the project and mount tweeters as coaxial. Another reason I was happy to own the dual mount MB Quarts.
I routed out most of this internal plastic to fit the tweeter.
It did not matter because the tweeter is too thick and the magnet sticks to the metal door frame. Prject scrapped. I did play these tweeter in this location and I could not appreciate the difference between this location and the tweeter mounted as a coaxial.
Now on with the rest of the installation. All speakers are PVI-216 Premium series MB Quart 6.5” woofers with coaxial mounted 1.5” Widesphere tweeters. MB Quart crossovers were used. The crossovers were connected to the factory Navi Head Unit speaker wires. The front crossovers had tweeter and woofer input wires, so these were directly connected to the crossovers. The rear woofers were connected to the tweeter inputs in reverse polarity (as described in the manual) and bridge wires were connected to the woofer terminals in a bi-amping configuration.
Baffles
All the door panels feature 4 screws. 2 screws are located behind the plugs, which are easy to see. The other two screws are located underneath the window switch. You must pry this off and disconnected the harness before removing those two screws. Once the 4 screws are removed, the panel will pop off.
Pry tab to lift the switch panel up. Once it lifts, use fingers to snap it up and off.
Here are the inner screws. Every door panel is the same.
Here you can see that one panel fastner stayed in the door. Right tool for the job makes life easy.
Here is the inside of the drivers door panel. You can see that it is well insulated. I do not plan to remove this insulation and replace with FatMat. You can do it, but I am not.
Here is the white box which is known to rattle like hell. I plan to put a couple FatMat squares under the corners to stop the chatter.
Here you can see the speaker grill area. That plastic trim meets with the OEM speaker to create a seal, so that the sounds is directed into the cabin. This is why I chose to add the foam wetherstrip to the Quart speakers, to emulate this effect.
View of the naked drivers door panel with plastic still in place. I removed all plastic liners, as the Fatmat will be taking its place. The most effective method to remove the liner is to tug quickly at it in sections. This will yank the sticky rubber adhesive off the door. If you pull slowly, the adhesive stays on the doors and is messy.
OEM Speaker. Better quality than I imaged.
Here you can see the angle of the OEM speaker. It meets with the angles door panel.
The speaker depth is 4”. I looked up specs somewhere and found 4” listed too. However, when the window is down it will hit some speaker baskets, like it did on the Quarts. Another issue is that the Quarts did not fit the factory hole, they were a little too large. So, spacer rings were used to overcome both barriers.
Glass is only 1.75” away and may not hit all speakers. It hit these.
Here is a list of supplies you will need for the project:
1. Speakers – 4
2. Baffles – 4 (or use dynaxorb or more material on the outer door panel)
3. Foam weatherstrip ½” thick x3/4” wide x 10 feet
4. 4 MDF 6.5” speaker rings (be sure to choose inner diameter that will fit your speakers)
5. Velcro 2” wide
6. FatMat Mega (or similar) sound deadening material ( I will add this next week when it arrives)
Before starting with the photos, I wanted to describe the installation and some of the challenges.
First, the tweeter pod modification did not work. The tweeter I had were way too large. I tried to fit them in anyways, but there is no room once installed on the door. You will see in the pics that the magnet stuck to the metal pillar and I was not able to angle the speakers correctly. I experimented with sound quality between tweeters mounted in the pods and as a coaxial on the speaker. I could not appreciate the difference. So, I scrapped the tweeter pod project and used coaxial mounts in all four speakers. I do want to emphasize that the MB Quart PVI-216 speakers feature WideSphere technology which produces 90% off-axis response. I think this is the reason why the tweeters sounds so good when mounted as coaxial in the factory location. I doubt you will have the same effect with other brands.
Second, you must use mounting rings with the most speakers. The Quarts have a very shallow mounting depth of about 2.5” or so. However, when installed in the front location the window hit the speaker, just slightly. You won’t have a window problem in the back, however the door panel is not flat like the front, there is an odd shape that will not allow for a flush mount. Another problem I encountered with the Quarts, is that they are just slightly too large to fit perfectly in the stock speaker hole. You may be okay with a different set of speakers, but not sure. For all of these reasons, I chose to build speaker rings.
I actually tried to buy some from a local shop, but none were in stock (plastic junkers for $20/pair). Another shop quoted me $80 to cut some for me. I laughed. He said it was about an hours worth of labor. Then the tech came out and said he would do it for “$50 cash under the table.” I politely said I had one more shop to check and never went back. You can buy these on ebay for about $10/pair and I would certainly recommend that. I did not have time to wait, so I decided to build my own. The shop also pissed me off, with the outrageous cost.
I actually have a jigsaw, but it is not very good. I received some cordless power tools for Christmas this year, so I had been looking for an excuse to buy the cordless jigsaw. It just happened to be on sale at Sears for $50! The same price that shop wanted to build a set of rings in ONE HOUR! Needless to say, mine were not pretty, but I had four rings cut in 20 minutes. I’m sure the pros really need an hour! Yeah right. . . Jerks. So I spent the same amount of money and have a quality tool that will last a long time.
I built these rings out of ½” MDF and they were just right. I should also point out that even with spacers and the coaxial mount, the speaker do not hit the door panel. So, you have lots of room in that panel for mounting.
Third, mounting the crossovers was a PITA. They were big, so I chose to mount them inside the doors. I Velcroed them to the outer door panel. So, when the window rolls down, the crossovers will be behind the glass. You must be careful when routing the wires so the window does not pull them. In the front, I added one screw for security. In the rear, there was no way to screw them down, so Velcro is holding them to the door.
Here are detailed photos and captions of the installation:
I am going to start off by describing the failed tweeter pod installation and modifications. Again, I scrapped this because it did not work. Plus, the sound of these tweeters mounted as coaxial sounded just as good as when it was mounted in the tweeter pods.
Here is the stock pod with OEM tweeter

You can see that the 1.5” MB Quart tweeter is huge

I really felt like I could hack up the pod with a dremel and mount this tweeter. I was able to get it in there okay. I was going to use hot glue to fix it in place, but before doing that I checked the fit in the door location. This is where the problem lies. The tweeter (I think even a 1” dome tweeter will have this problem too) is thick for this location. The magnet sticks to the metal door frame and points straight. Even if I used hot glue to get the proper angle, the tweeter is too thick and it would not mount properly. I had to scrap this part of the project and mount tweeters as coaxial. Another reason I was happy to own the dual mount MB Quarts.

I routed out most of this internal plastic to fit the tweeter.

It did not matter because the tweeter is too thick and the magnet sticks to the metal door frame. Prject scrapped. I did play these tweeter in this location and I could not appreciate the difference between this location and the tweeter mounted as a coaxial.

Now on with the rest of the installation. All speakers are PVI-216 Premium series MB Quart 6.5” woofers with coaxial mounted 1.5” Widesphere tweeters. MB Quart crossovers were used. The crossovers were connected to the factory Navi Head Unit speaker wires. The front crossovers had tweeter and woofer input wires, so these were directly connected to the crossovers. The rear woofers were connected to the tweeter inputs in reverse polarity (as described in the manual) and bridge wires were connected to the woofer terminals in a bi-amping configuration.

Baffles

All the door panels feature 4 screws. 2 screws are located behind the plugs, which are easy to see. The other two screws are located underneath the window switch. You must pry this off and disconnected the harness before removing those two screws. Once the 4 screws are removed, the panel will pop off.

Pry tab to lift the switch panel up. Once it lifts, use fingers to snap it up and off.

Here are the inner screws. Every door panel is the same.

Here you can see that one panel fastner stayed in the door. Right tool for the job makes life easy.


Here is the inside of the drivers door panel. You can see that it is well insulated. I do not plan to remove this insulation and replace with FatMat. You can do it, but I am not.

Here is the white box which is known to rattle like hell. I plan to put a couple FatMat squares under the corners to stop the chatter.

Here you can see the speaker grill area. That plastic trim meets with the OEM speaker to create a seal, so that the sounds is directed into the cabin. This is why I chose to add the foam wetherstrip to the Quart speakers, to emulate this effect.

View of the naked drivers door panel with plastic still in place. I removed all plastic liners, as the Fatmat will be taking its place. The most effective method to remove the liner is to tug quickly at it in sections. This will yank the sticky rubber adhesive off the door. If you pull slowly, the adhesive stays on the doors and is messy.

OEM Speaker. Better quality than I imaged.

Here you can see the angle of the OEM speaker. It meets with the angles door panel.

The speaker depth is 4”. I looked up specs somewhere and found 4” listed too. However, when the window is down it will hit some speaker baskets, like it did on the Quarts. Another issue is that the Quarts did not fit the factory hole, they were a little too large. So, spacer rings were used to overcome both barriers.

Glass is only 1.75” away and may not hit all speakers. It hit these.
