How to pull Front door speaker wire...

[got wake?]

i have proven that two 10 guage power cables and a set of RCA's can fit through the factory plug it was a pain in the ass, especially the drivers side, where i already had 14 guage speaker wire and 2 other wires from my alarm to my window modules

i'm putting one of these in each door:

along with one of these red amps in each door to power them:

 

[Poseur]

HOLY s**** DUDE!!!
Wow, quite impressive. I was thinking that if one were willing to cut away at more material and ditch a un-used pin or 2, you coudl possibly get 12gwire in there, but DAMN. I'mdefinately curious to see some more pics of your doors setup now. Mind hitting us with some info on the amps BTW? What kinda of power are they making? and what posessed you to put the amps in the doors? Cool idea, just not really anything I'da ever thought of.

 

[lamp3]

so if all I'm running is one of those cheap 50 dollar us acoustics amps, do you think I can get away with the factory stuff in the doors?

 

[1sty]

so if all I'm running is one of those cheap 50 dollar us acoustics amps, do you think I can get away with the factory stuff in the doors?

Yes, you can get away with the factory wiring.

 

[FoxPro5]

Just pulled 12 ga the other day and this write-up was very helpfull. The only thing i would add would be to start the passenger's side in the door and come through the hole into the car rather than start in the car first. Thanks Poseur!

 

[N2OInferno]

i just wired up my whole car.. man, took me hours.. lol.. but I can't wait for my stuff to get here.. this write up helped a LOT though. I don't think I could have done it without the write up. the place where you cut an L, i relocated that pin to another unused slot (in case it is needed for something, seeing it connect to a blank makes me think it's irrelevant) and cut the square out.. So right now I have 12ga pulled through the plugs. Kinda tight fit, but it works.

oh yeah.. dremel tool on high speed shoots hot plastic all over! burned myself a couple times, lol, but nothing too bad at all.

 

[Poseur]

Yea I was prettysure it was an unnecessary kind of deal, and I can't ever really see a need for adding a pin to that molex for anything, but it's just all what you're comfortable with I guess. If I were to do it again, I'd likely just cut the whole damn thing, (with a dremel of course)

Anyway, Glad this helps. I just remember being overly paranoid about not knowing what I was getting into before hand. I was prepared to have my door off of my car for a day going into it. Good getting pre-wired, though makes the wait easier if you can do something instead of just sit there waiting for SantaClaus in brown to showup...

 

[Rider69]

I had to remove the door panels from an integra from a recent install and was surprised at how easy the doors come off. Better to have an extra person to help get it back on, but would make drilling new holes with grommets that much easier!

 

[AODfan]

yea i remember doing this a couple of months ago before i was on this forum it was horrid. talk about having patience, the driver side went faster due to a known exit for the wire coming in the car, the passenger gave me some trouble i had to use a hanger and pull the wire through one of those small holes in the sheet metal, it was a pain but i got it and im happy with the results.

 

[chuyler1]

Just wanted to say that this thread was a great help today. I pulled apart both doors and installed my Eclipse components. If anyone is wondering, it is possible to run 16ga twisted pair cable through the wiring harness (see picture). Basically you need to drill out four empty slots. On the passenger side there is an un-used wire (no idea why) on the male end that has know female counterpart (poor guy). I traced it back to an empty molex connector that may have been used for a door lock switch at one time. I just moved the male end over one slot so I could get four in a square pattern to drill out.

Anyway, I'm kinda slow. I started at 11:30 and the wires had already been run to the front of the car. By 4:30 I had the passenger side door finished. It took me a while to just make the baffles. By 6:30 I was done with the driver's door but it took me another 2 hours to clean up (vacuum all the sawdust and crap, put everything away, etc).

Let me tell you, the Eclipse baskets have got to be the largest I've ever worked with. They never want to fit in any door. They just barely fit in the 5x7 hole with a 1/2" baffle. I probably should have gone with 3/4" but I didn't have any lying around. Its worth it though because they sound great! The imaging isn't competition-quality with the tweeters in the stock locations but I can live with it.

 

[Poseur]

Cool man, hey I'll be making some baffles very soon here. Do you happen to remember any rough outside dimensions for your ovals? and our cutout diameter? I'm getting the eD eDi 6500's which are essentially CDT HD's. I'll supposedly be needing 5-11/16" which I'm beginning to fear might make for some tight clearances. SPecifically I'm concerned about hitting the bottom of the door panel, so I won't be able to extend very far below the stock speaker's mounting.. Also did you check to see if 3/4" would cause the driver to contact the door panel?

 

[Poseur]

Hey, while I'm here, since this seems to be un-stickied now, Could we get this moved to the how-to section. I've had many ppl approach me with difficulties locating this thread.

 

[chuyler1]

3/4" will not hit the door panel (asuming that you remove the plastic ring that the stock speaker buts up against) as long as the driver doesn't have too high of a mounting depth. The Eclipse speakers are very deep for 6.5"s at 2-7/8" but with my 1/2" baffle the magnet came right to the edge of the stock water guard. There is probably more room back there but I didn't measure. So mounting depth shouldn't be a problem.

As for dimensions...Basically, I traced the outline of my Eclipse speaker, then traced the outline of the stock speaker over that, then cut out the union of the two circles. I didn't take any dimensions once it was done. The cutout diameter for the speaker was 5-11/16" which is typical for 6.5" speakers. However, getting your speakers to fit depends on the basket. The Eclipses have a cast iron basket that doesn't taper inward very quickly like a stamped basket. If the eD's are the same way (or worse) you may have to pull out the hack saw.

 

[N2OInferno]

I did the same thing as him. Traced the stock speaker and then the CDT speaker over it.. I had to trim the plastic panel inside the door panel too though. The speaker would hit it, so i trimmed that oval on the inner door panel down almost all the way.

I used 1/2" MDF for mine.

 

[1sty]

For the fronts if your using a 6.5" speaker you can simply leave the top of the adapter aboput an inch high. It will clear under the door panel and give you the extra mounting surface most 6.5" speakers will need.

 

[Astral]

Ok, so you can fit 16ga wire through that door connector part.

Can you fit 14ga wire through, however? If I were to upgrade speakercables in my car, I was figuring to go all out w/ 14 gauge.

 

[N2OInferno]

I used 12ga and it fit. It was tight and I had to relocate the unused pin, but it fits.

 

[Astral]

I used 12ga and it fit. It was tight and I had to relocate the unused pin, but it fits.

Whoa, I'm gonna go for 12 gauge then KnuKonceptz Karma 12 awg at $0.80... silver-tinned copper... I was looking at the KASA Kable, but the desire quickly goes away at $2.75 a foot.

 

[Poseur]

1st> thanks, I didn't realize there was thatmuch to play with...think I'll stick to a bit less if I can jsut to be safe, but that's quite nice to know for when I decide to do something about midbass.

Astral> Hell, Wakey pulled 10g power wire and RCA's to his doors, I seriously doubt cramming lots o' wire through is a problem. Especially if you move that pin, it won't be a problem. I've currently got one 14g, one 18g speaker wire, and then a 4x20g telephone wire thing going through there (possible seperate tweeter wiring, triggers for window modules, and still 2 spare wires for possible lighting)

Thatsaid, I don't think that 12 is really allthat huge for gains compared to 14, I went through this one myself... Look at the chart thing that 1sty linked to further up in the thread. I think I'm pushing about as much power to my doors as anyone, and I'm not in the least bit concerned. Infact I think that 16 would have sufficed.

edit: I had my numbers wrong

 

[N2OInferno]

The reason I used 12ga is cause that's what came with the amp kit.