Okay, update... Did my driver's side door tonight. Took a bit more wrestling than the passenger one for whatever reason (mostly I just didn't get as blindly lucky this time) but nothing serious.
Here's what it looks like with everything back in place. Perhaps difficult to see what's lurking back there, but that's fine by me. witht he flash powering through, you can see a bit of where the lower right side of surround wraps around, and get a general idea of how it's situated compared to the stock speaker.
Firstoff, WOW. I could comfortably listen to a fullrange of music without my sub and I didn't notice anything was missing. It wasn't until I cued up the rap that I noticed the lack of thump. I've got plenty of midbass. I am, however fairly glad that I didn't settle for 6's and went with the 8's. While there is, indeed ALOT of midbass, I can indeed see that it's not TOO much. I'm pretty sure that I'll manage to find a use for it all.
Also, I'm on a backup amp at the moment, an old tired cadence 4ch running bridged into the 56.2 crossovers using the 8's inplace of the 5's, so I'm kindof limited for power, etc, but it's been giving me a decent idea of what's goingon as well as providing listenable music. So at anyrate, amp-wise I'm feeling a bit on the weak side. If I don't go to a new amp setup, I'll be running 120w to each of the 8's and then another 120 to each of the 56.2 crossovers for them to divy it up between the tweet and 5 however they see fit. New amp setup would hopefully give me at least a bit more juice for both ends. I'm hoping to get 200 to the 8's and stay in the 100+ range for the components.
Thatsaid, running with a slight lack of power, I'm quite pleased. I'm geting much more door-bass than ever before. PLUS I'm getting muchless panel flop. I attribute this entirely to the use of canopyseal weatherstripping around the ring to "seal" the speaker to the doorpanel and not allow air to "impact" the panel infront of it anywhere that it won't have a good chance of escaping through the grille holes. Feeling down by where they're at there is definate air velocity goingon, enough that I'm pondering the effectiveness of opening up the holes in the grilles, the only drawback might possibly be lack of structure, but I suppose that can be addressed if it comes up. I figure I'll leave most of the "honeycomb" structure intact and hopefully find a centerdrill that will openup my holes slightly and chamfer the sides a bit as well. There's ALOT of holes, and it's gonna take quite awhile to do it all, but getting more sound through should, hopefully be worth it. I s'pose I'll likely never know either way, but I DO know that when I've had my doorpanels off, things soundbetter, and it only makes sense that the least obstruction the better. Also, it's pretty obvious if you look
there's also now areas above where the stock oval covers that could use to be opened up, so I guess I've talked myself into eventually doing it, but of course I've got lots of other things on the waiting list.
Mostly, however, I'm quite relieve that what initially struck me to be the more challenging aspect of this install is taken care of, and moreover went fairly easily. NOW, it's time to whipout the fiberglass and the motivation.
Here's what it looks like with everything back in place. Perhaps difficult to see what's lurking back there, but that's fine by me. witht he flash powering through, you can see a bit of where the lower right side of surround wraps around, and get a general idea of how it's situated compared to the stock speaker.

Firstoff, WOW. I could comfortably listen to a fullrange of music without my sub and I didn't notice anything was missing. It wasn't until I cued up the rap that I noticed the lack of thump. I've got plenty of midbass. I am, however fairly glad that I didn't settle for 6's and went with the 8's. While there is, indeed ALOT of midbass, I can indeed see that it's not TOO much. I'm pretty sure that I'll manage to find a use for it all.

Also, I'm on a backup amp at the moment, an old tired cadence 4ch running bridged into the 56.2 crossovers using the 8's inplace of the 5's, so I'm kindof limited for power, etc, but it's been giving me a decent idea of what's goingon as well as providing listenable music. So at anyrate, amp-wise I'm feeling a bit on the weak side. If I don't go to a new amp setup, I'll be running 120w to each of the 8's and then another 120 to each of the 56.2 crossovers for them to divy it up between the tweet and 5 however they see fit. New amp setup would hopefully give me at least a bit more juice for both ends. I'm hoping to get 200 to the 8's and stay in the 100+ range for the components.
Thatsaid, running with a slight lack of power, I'm quite pleased. I'm geting much more door-bass than ever before. PLUS I'm getting muchless panel flop. I attribute this entirely to the use of canopyseal weatherstripping around the ring to "seal" the speaker to the doorpanel and not allow air to "impact" the panel infront of it anywhere that it won't have a good chance of escaping through the grille holes. Feeling down by where they're at there is definate air velocity goingon, enough that I'm pondering the effectiveness of opening up the holes in the grilles, the only drawback might possibly be lack of structure, but I suppose that can be addressed if it comes up. I figure I'll leave most of the "honeycomb" structure intact and hopefully find a centerdrill that will openup my holes slightly and chamfer the sides a bit as well. There's ALOT of holes, and it's gonna take quite awhile to do it all, but getting more sound through should, hopefully be worth it. I s'pose I'll likely never know either way, but I DO know that when I've had my doorpanels off, things soundbetter, and it only makes sense that the least obstruction the better. Also, it's pretty obvious if you look

there's also now areas above where the stock oval covers that could use to be opened up, so I guess I've talked myself into eventually doing it, but of course I've got lots of other things on the waiting list.
Mostly, however, I'm quite relieve that what initially struck me to be the more challenging aspect of this install is taken care of, and moreover went fairly easily. NOW, it's time to whipout the fiberglass and the motivation.
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