2006 Legacy Front Door Speaker Installation DIY

[mrmako]

SEE MY OTHER THREAD FOR DOOR PANEL REMOVAL.....

 

FRONT DOOR

Here, there’s only some minor differences. The door removal is essentially the same as the rear door. The only added thing is to pry off (with your hands) the cover on the A pillar. And there are extra wires that come out (door light, power lock and window plugs. They have tabs, just use the tabs and they come off. No need to pry. Not a big deal.

 

This is the factory tweeter. There’s a capacitor on the back, so that appears to be the crossover.

 

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/3341/77479411uu8.jpg

 

 

The harness for this speaker is as follows: In my hand is the main speaker, and above it is the tweeter mount plug. The main speaker line comes into the tweeter location, then sends a pair down to the woofer. This means there’s no separate lead from the head unit. Just don’t use the tweeter plug at all. Tape over it.

 

http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/2898/90625086ii1.jpg

 

 

 

This is the tweeter bracket, and I removed the tweeter from it (just one screw in the back). Then, I cut away a portion of the bracket so I could fit this cup into the bracket area (this comes with the DB6501’s). I did have to drill a hole just a little bit down and to the left of the hole in the middle, but that was easy.

 

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/2270/63919876wh0.jpg

 

 

This is what the Polk tweeter looks like once mounted. Not pretty, but works. And no one will see it.

 

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/6404/29961195nb1.jpg

 

 

I attached the tweeter back in the original position and it fits perfectly. And yes, it is pointed up a bit. This is normal. Now, the factory tweeter had some foam around it so that when it touched the door panel, it wouldn’t vibrate. I didn’t use that either.

 

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/3421/25039787cw7.jpg

 

 

 

This is where I mounted the crossover. Now, I don’t know if the US cars have this in there, but my JDM does, and this was the only place for me to put it. I do have to go back and recess it a touch more (deeper too), but not a big deal. Just make sure you cut it big enough so you can put the cover back on. I used a straight razor, as it was the only thing that could cut through the foam cleanly. One more thing, the crossover has a +3, 0 and -3 dB switch on it (left side of the crossover). There is a difference in the settings, but I set it to 0. We’ll see how this goes.

 

http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/4656/97986516rj4.jpg

 

 

This is the final assembled product. I placed foam in the area to the left of the door handle, above the speaker, and this drastically reduced vibrations. Even listening to Slipknot at a volume of 38 to 41 did not cause distortion.

 

http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/2/52341235ua0.jpg

 

 

 

Comments or questions are welcome. I may not answer real quickly, but I’ll answer them.

[OhBe1]

I was able to get the panel off without unhooking the doorlock cables, propping the panel up on the Crutchfield box.

And speaking of Crutchfield, their speaker adapter rings did not fit - I had to rip apart the OEM speakers and convert them into adapters.

[E-Tank]

Hey dood,

I got some questions.

How difficult was the install? How long did it take? Did you break any clips? I just installed the jazzy audio in, which I was a bit nervous about. It wasn't too bad. Do you think I would able to do this install?

 

Eric

[OhBe1]

I broke no clips, although one detached form the panel & stayed with the door - I pulled it & coerced it back to the panel before reassembly.

The worst parts were the first parts - removing the screw covers without scratching anything.

I reshaped a couple small screwdrivers to use as prybars for those.

[Lumberg]

thanks for the info mako and ohbe, worked like a charm and i had no idea what i was doing going into it. no broken clips, quick process, and tape over the flathead is crucial to not scratching anything.

 

i can confirm Crutchfield brackets do NOT fit my 2008 Legacy front doors - they just gave me RMA and said "oh it says here you gotta drill your door," so I got refund on both brackets and shipping.

 

how exactly did you fasten your new speaker to the OEM bracket? i see the photos and wondering if you had any further tips. if i can't figure it out, going to try mako's wooden custom bracket with the stencil i made off of my door panel.

[OhBe1]

Lined up the new speaker to the frame of the OEM & screwed. IIRC, the rears required drilling the OEM frame, the fronts did not. Unless it was the other way around. Also had to cut a notch in the front OEM frame for the wires.

Once you have it all out & line things up, it'll be apparent.

[Imrac]

There is no need to cut a notch in the "OEM Speaker spacer" Just run the wire through the back and out the hole above the speaker hole. Also, removing the lock cables are super simple. The first door I did I didn't and I scratched up the panel pretty good. There is a little tab you pull and pops the front open, then the cables just slide out extremely easy. When I did my install, my tweeters didn't fit the stock mounting bracket at all, even with heavy modification. But I was able to shove it into the door panel and secure it with 2 drops of gorillia glue on either side.

[OhBe1]

The way the wires are routed in our '06, it was simpler that way. Probably different in your '08.

[Backslider]

Thanks for this thread. It gave me the confidence to cut down the tweeter bracket after two failed attempts to mount the Polk cup in other ways. Removing the extra plastic got much easier once I finally made the trip to pick up the appropriate Dremel attachment.

 

I had similar frustration with the Crutchfield adapters. I ended up using neither the spacer nor the wiring harness, although the wiring instructions did at least allow me to confirm which wires were positive/negative.

 

I have an '07 Outback, and either I have more space in the doors for the crossover or I got frustrated more quickly and was willing to drill some holes to finish the project.

 

The spacers provided by Polk mounted to two out of three of the original holes, and I drilled a new hole for the third. After temporarily warping the bracket to try to make it fit the three factory holes, that is.

 

I also completely cut out the splitter/plug that went into the factory tweeter. I figured eliminating one more connection couldn't hurt.

 

I had some extra weatherstripping foam tape laying around that I put under most of the contact points, but I decided not to use the Dynamat that I impulse added to my original purchase. Mainly in the interest of time, and not wanting to strip the plastic sheeting off each door.

 

Here's what it ended up looking like:

 

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/2499/speakers.jpg

 

Speakers side-by-side for comparison's sake.

 

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/3236/mounted.jpg

 

Shortly before re-assembling everything.

[virtualenix]

Hello,

congratulations to everyone for their work, very very interesting and good!

I've try to find in internet the model of speacker good for my new Legacy but I don't know if I have the perfect space in the front door to mount this, anyone know if the the following speacker are ok:

 

- Infinity Reference 6020cs Component Speakers;

- KIT 2 VIE POLKAUDIO db6501;

which of the previous models is best? I am sure you can mount this in my Legacy (MY08)?

thanks in advance to all

 

...............

:: Virtualenix ::

[artemkv]

Thanks for the detailed guide, I figured that my Outback 08 has same door design, so I was just watching the photos as I replaced my front door speakers.

 

Instead POLK I decided to go with Hi-Vi speaker kit from Madisound.com :

 

 

http://www.madisound.com/catalog/images/f1600.jpg

 

 

They sell a simmilar one now for a bit more, as they currently Out of stock for this one,anyways here is how it went in short:

 

The most CHALLENGING part for me was to remove door panel (at least the first one)

 

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq91/artemkv/CAR%20AUDIO/DSC06414.jpg

 

 

Blue tape helped a little with keeping things the way they were, the most difficult place for me was the one around door opening handle,( not the clips as I thought). I won't re-post every step - again thanks for detailed explanation above. So here is the stripped door :

 

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq91/artemkv/CAR%20AUDIO/DSC06419.jpg

 

 

Again, as said above I was literally stunned by how cheap and light the stock drivers are >>> threw them away without any hesitation. Now what I did differently, Indeed the wire that goes to woofer is coming from Twitter, So instead of leaving it I just cut near the twitter connector with 4 wires then I just pulled the woofer wire out. So I ended up having just 2 wires which I hooked to the crossover curuit input eventually.

 

 

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq91/artemkv/CAR%20AUDIO/DSC06419-1.jpg

 

I also decided to use some sound damp material for better results, I did this for 1 st time and I saw a good review on Dynamat product. I bought 10435 Xtreme Door Kit , with 4 Sheets that was more than enough material to cover both doors. AMAZON thanks for best price on that btw. The sheets are aluminum foil with layer of sticky rubber. All went good, a bit scarry at begining - I did much better with 2nd door.

 

 

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq91/artemkv/CAR%20AUDIO/DSC06424.jpg

 

 

I was wondering if woofers would fit into my doors, they did, leaving 0,5 inch gap with glass - and I only used the provided adapters from kit. Aslo I did drill wholes in the door for screws for twitter, woofer and X-over - It is not hard at all, japanese cars

 

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq91/artemkv/CAR%20AUDIO/1.jpg

 

 

 

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq91/artemkv/CAR%20AUDIO/2.jpg

 

 

 

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq91/artemkv/CAR%20AUDIO/4.jpg

 

 

The result : in terms of sound - big improvement ! It is all there, details, bass, mids and highs! Nothing against POLK, and not only, this kit leaves behind most well known brands for sure! If you ever got a chance to listen a good hi end system you will know what I mean, anyways I am sure you will get a huge upgrade if you go with literally any system!!!

 

The only downside - you will want to replace your oem stereo after that , as you will hear more with these speakers.

 

Thanks mrmako, madisound and all others for making this upgrade a reality for me, IT DEFINETELY WORTH IT!!!!

[OutbackXT05]

I never wouldve thought to dremel out the stock tweeter honder great stuff and again awsome walkthough pics r the best helper

[mrmako]

The only thing I would do is be careful with drilling holes in the sheet metal. Make sure you prep the holes after drilling (sand them and clean them so there are no burrs), and prime them so they won't eventually rust.

[jhawk222]

Great write up! Gave me all the courage to give this a shot.

[SubaruTim]

I'm going to have to sound deaden my doors soon, I did the trunk a couple days ago and that was a real PITA.

[E-Tank]

I did a full stereo install a few months ago. All 4 doors, a 12" in the trunk, and 60 feet of EDead. Took the whole weekend, but sounds really really good.

[jhawk222]

I just completed my install using Polk pb 651 & 6501 component set ups. Install was a breeze thanks to Mrmako & Backslider.

[virtualenix]

Hi, please have you shot photo when you open the door panel? It's my problem, I have fear to broke some parts of the door panel.

I have the Polk Audio speaker set (loudspeaker + tweeter + crossover) in a box, purchased two years ago....but I don't be brave to remove the door panel! It's hard to open this? HAve you needed the thickness to fix the speaker

I try next week, any tricks for me or suggestion something??

 

(sorry for my English)

[mrmako]

Hi, please have you shot photo when you open the door panel? It's my problem, I have fear to broke some parts of the door panel.

I have the Polk Audio speaker set (loudspeaker + tweeter + crossover) in a box, purchased two years ago....but I don't be brave to remove the door panel! It's hard to open this? HAve you needed the thickness to fix the speaker

I try next week, any tricks for me or suggestion something??

 

(sorry for my English)

 

Your English is fine. I have no problems with it.

 

As far as the door. First, use a thin screwdriver to remove the black cover over the door pull.

 

Once that is off, the screws are exposed. Then, there is a little cover under your inside door handle. Pull it back to see it. That cover breaks real easy, but not a big deal. Once that is off, then that screw can come out.

 

Then it is pry the door off, working slowly around the edges. If you are patient and slow, the clips will be just fine.

[mrmako]

Here's a picture of the door and panel open. Man, I haven't looked at these pics in a while.

 

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6124/5918530800_3136f2aa41_b.jpg

[ChemicalWaste]

Anybody have experience with crappy bass? I think I may have run the tweeter wire to the crossover but I can't imagine that would make that big of a difference. Without the original crossover in place it should still be the signal straight from the head unit, no? I'm fairly sure I have the positive and negative hooked up right because I tried them both ways and the way they are set is the best bass I could get. My 3-ways in the back sound good. The components in the front sound flat and like they're missing half of the intended range.

 

I'm not a bass happy fiend or anything, that's why I bought Infinity speakers but these exact speakers sounded better in my old car than they do now. I was planning on putting an amp to them eventually but I wasn't wanting to do it this soon. I'm hoping it's not because the head unit doesn't have the juevos to push them at all. It pushes the back just fine and they're the same thing. Kappa 2's.

[garbo41610]

You might find that the aftermarket speakers sound a bit flat because the OEM speakers are made to be very efficient due to the little power from the OEM head unit. Aftermarket speakers don't need to be as efficient because they are designed to be run off an amp.

 

You might want to make sure you have the + and - the right way on ALL the speakers. If one is out of phase it will throw the whole stereo out.

 

Also, Dynamat or a similar product will help gain midbass respose.

 

Did you seal around the new speaker baffle and the door frame?

[mrmako]

I would say, if you are going to drive components with just the head unit, get an aftermarket sub. I have a JDM Alpine flat sub that works well. Just enough bass to fill in the low end. no license plate shaking, but it's enough.

[ChemicalWaste]

Found out what it was a while ago. I turned it down and found out it the had a blown voice coil in one of them. Really sucked the juice out of them. I haven't replaced them yet but it annoys the crap out of me.

[ChemicalWaste]

I have a kappa perfect 12 to put in eventually but with the house and the cars and driving 3 hours a day it's nowhere near a priority but when I get to that point i'll put in a midpowered 5 -way amp and hide the sub above the spare tire.