splits « wrx guide

Installing splits

Monday, April 5th, 2010

I managed to grab a pair of MB Quart Discus 6.5″ splits on sale and went about the task of replacing the horrible paper things previously weighing down my doors.

Horrible stock paper MY99 speakers

Now first thing’s first. Because I bought 6.5″ splits, they didn’t end up being a case of pull out, drop in, drive away. I’ve read that 5.25″ splits go in easily into the stock locations and drop into the stock plastic spacer but it became clear pretty quickly that this wasn’t going to be the case with the 6.5″ splits. They’re just too wide and end up sitting about 15-20mm out of the spacers. Note: this is for a GC8 impreza wrx, MY99.

So I accessed my options, either way I needed to make a spacer but the question was whether to keep the stock plastic ones. In the end I decided to try to modify the stock spacers and glue a 12mm mdf spacer I made onto it. The other option was to make/buy a 16mm mdf spacer and attach it straight to the door and I learnt the hard way that this was the better option. I went with modifying the plastic spacers first because; 1: they are slightly angled to point the speakers up a little and avoid touching the door skins and; 2: I only had 12mm mdf on hand at the time :).

Failed attempt at bonding an MDF spacer to the 5.25" stock speaker holders.

It would’ve been nice if I could’ve just screwed the spacers I made onto the plastic spacers and then just screwed the speakers in but the diameter of the woofers was too much still and the screw holes didn’t line up. I decided to use araldite to stick the spacers together and then silicone to seal them better. I also set the jigsaw to cut on an angle so the spacers hugged the speakers better and provided a bit more strength. Even with the spacer I still needed the small MB Quart cup to lift the speaker a little bit further out.

So now the woofers had a nice place to call home even though it was still less than ideal. I then learnt why the method I choose first was destined to fail. Upon fitting the modified stock spacers back in the door, they stuck out a little too far to fit behind the door skins and when I tried to force the covers to clip back in place, the mdf spacer came off the plastic spacer. Unfortunately it’s too hard to get a decent bond between the mdf and plastic.

MDF spacers screwed directly to the door with silicone sealant behind.

So it was back to the drawing board, this time I took option B after reading up on how some other people did the install on a local online forum. I headed down to Repco’s and bought a pair of 6.5″, 16mm mdf spacers. I used some self-tapping screws to mount the spacers to the doors (recessed so as to not foul the speakers). Then I screwed the speakers into the spacers to complete that part of the install. One important thing to note is that you shouldn’t aim to get the speakers into the middle of the existing holes. Instead try to mount them a bit higher as you’ll need to clear the bottom of the door skins or else they won’t clip in properly.

Good tweeter location with double-sided tape or velcro tape.

Next up was the tweeters and the crossovers. Luckily the MY99 already has a space for the tweeter near the door handle (which is curiously empty!?) so that spot was sorted with a bit of stick on velcro. The crossover was a bit harder to deal with as it was pretty bulky. There didn’t seem to be much room inside the door and I didn’t really want to put it there anyway considering it could end up wet or dirty.

It turned out that there’s a generous bit of space just under the arm rest that the door skin allows some clearance. So I could either stick the crossover onto the door skin or bolt it to the door itself. Option B was better because it allowed the wiring to stay neat and compact.

After all that it’s time to put everything back and crank your system! Take note, it you do use any silicone, give it a day or two to dry and cure because it releases acetic acid during that period. Not good for your speakers or other bits. If you’ve got some more time you could use some fibreglass to really hold the spacer to the door making the mount much more firm and better suited to turning up your volume.