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84 celica supra build log

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8.2K views 12 replies 12 participants last post by  annoyingrob  
G
#1 ·
Let me start this off by saying i'm a complete amateur at car stereos. In the past i've always just put whatever deck was cheapest and had an aux input or whatever i had laying around and stuck with the stock speakers. I generally just make a car more fun to drive and barely touch the radio. I have finally decided to do a little more on my car and have done a ton of reading before buying and installing things to get me by for now, with plans to read and learn more before spending money on different speakers, amps, a sub, etc.

The car as it sits right now, been in the family since 87 so i'm not trying to hack it up, everything is removable:
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Head unit: Pioneer deh-80prs - $250 new. Old one was a tape deck from the 90's
Front speakers: 4" alpine sps-410($45 new) in custom brackets(stock 3" were still working)
Rear speakers: 5.25" Polk DXi525 ($25 open box) in place of the stock 4x6's

For now i got a good head unit so i can upgrade everything else later, but from what i'm reading this one should do anything i want it to do. I got cheap well reviewed speakers that fit in the stock locations behind the stock grills, but will probably change things out later. I ran new wire to all speakers, and am running them off of the internal amp in standard mode. I ran the auto tune/eq with the included mic and then tweaked it a bit from there. At louder volumes the low notes were distorting so i adjusted the cut offs as best i could in standard mode. I have not done much else in the way of tuning really. I'm thinking about switching my setup to tweeters on the A pillars(instead of the 4's) in network mode later to take advantage of the nicer audio adjustments it has to offer. Apparently if i run the current speakers in network mode it will not allow the 4's to play anything below 1.25kHz, which defeats the purpose of me going through the effort of 4's IMO. http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...dio-discussion/130460-pioneer-deh-80prs-owners-can-i-go-tweeterless-active.html

Old stereo and circled stock front speaker location. They point out horizontally right about middle of my chest, not the greatest location but they work for now.
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stock 3" speaker compared to 4"
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DIY bracket for 4's, since they in no way fit the stock plastic speaker brackets. I simply cut some old license plates with tin snips after making cardboard templates first. They don't seem to flex and i don't hear any rattling, but they do not direct/block sound like the stockers. Open to advice here, they were quick and dirty and work for now(recurring theme).
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View of the hatch with stock speaker locations circled. I am thinking about adding a smallish sub that is removable because as you can see i sometimes like to make full use of my storage space.
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5.25 in stock location is as big as i could fit under the stock grill, stock speaker below.
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The car came from the factory with a little 6" woofer under the glovebox pointing at the passenger's feet, it was not hooked up anymore so i went ahead and pulled it. Nifty to me that a car this old came with something like this.
view through the removed glove box
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I am very happy with the improvement over 30 year old stock speakers running my tunes through a tape adapter in a 20 year old deck, but almost anything would have been better than what i had i think. If anyone has any advice on running network mode, ditching my front 4's for tweeters, tuning, small sub removable setups, or whatever else you've got to add i'm all ears.

Thanks for checking it out. Figured i would post something up for you guys to enjoy after doing so much research on here.
 
J
#2 ·
Nice car!!!
Here's some tips from my side:
- Don't put your headunit on network mode, but in normal. That way your front won't be seen as tweeters, but as fullrange speakers. You can then filter the speakers on 80Hz or 100hz HPF or something (when you use a sub)
- Your speakers are leaking air due to the gaps on their baffles (at least in the rear - can't see the fronts properly on the pics). This creates an accoustic short circuit. I had that same issue and didn't had any height to make an MDF adapter either in one of my cars. Get some sound deadening material and apply that before mounting the speakers.
- For a sub: an active system with an amp somewhere out of the way works best IMO. Place a (small) amp in a place like you spare tyre or just tucked away in the corner of your trunk, so you don't have to remove that. Add a subbox of your choice do it safe and strap it to something in the car. When you need your full trunk space you can just release the speaker cables from your subbox and the remote cable from the amp. You don't have to deal with power cables this way (that's what you ran into with an active sub.
 
#3 ·
Love these old Supra's and yours looks awesome. I would suggest using some 1/2" MDF to fab up the baffles for the front and rear speakers. The MDF will help to cut down on resonance which I am sure you are getting using metal mounts. My first car was an '88 Corolla FX16 which had almost the exact same OEM speaker locations. The OEM locations especially in the front aren't going to do you any favors. Having the drivers pointing straight towards the back of the car is going to yield a pretty crappy front image. You'll have volume and tone, but no presence. Does the car have front door speakers at all? If so, you'd have much better results using those and ditching the dash speakers. If not, you may want to think about how you could add them. Take the door panels off, look to see if there's any space in the door metal to where a speaker could be mounted.
 
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