A914MAN

The window sticker that came with my '91 Targa says "stereo sound system with eight speakers".

I can only find six speakers; two 5 1/4" in the door, two tweeters in the door, and two (maybe 4" x 6") in the rear deck.

Am I missing the other two, or is this just an inconsistency on the window sticker?

I'm window shopping for a stereo upgrade. The speakers in the car are trash, and the Blaupunkt cassette player is, well a cassette player. My plan is to do a complete system on the cheap, which for me at this point in my (kids going to college soon) life is under $600.

Right now I'm looking at a Alpine CD/Bluetooth front end, a compact Alpine power amp (4 x 45) with the above speakers replaced with Rockford Fosgate.

I know that really isn't enough for an open car, but I'm not that picky on car stereo. I've been around live music, and live sound all my adult life and I'm just not interested in a big loud car stereo. I don't want to lose any trunk space or the jump seats and I don't want anything hacked on the car. For that matter I'm OK with using as much of the stock wiring as possible, even (gasp) speaker wires.

What's worked for you?

A914MAN

Bump!

What stock size replacement speakers have you used?

gouyou

You got 4 speakers in the rear deck: each of the rear deck "speaker" has 2 speakers under the grill.

I'm on the way to upgrade my setup: Focal 165KRX2 (front) and 100 KRS (back) with an Alpine amp and head unit. There is a good thread from RicardoD that I use as a reference for cabling and building the speakers in.

A914MAN

Thanks for the reply gouyou

jimq

when you say open car do you mean a cab? If so the speakers are small and in the side panels as there is no rear deck.

A914MAN

Open as in Targa

sml

Just remember not to install the front speakers in the OEM location. Sounds pretty bad with a speaker in a floppy door card.

Fortunately it can be screwed into the door ...
https://rennlist.com/forums/964-foru...-mounting.html

me61ic

What I have done in my targa, altough I cannot say if it works well or not as I have not tried it yet... have done so as it works perfectly (for me) with a similar system in my Miata.

I have left the OEM Porsche CD-10 (euro CD-2 model) head unit but not using it as the head unit anymore. This head unit was coded but I managed to decode it, more on that in a separate thread.

My car was a Gemballa WTL car made by Gemballa in the early 90's and it has a Gemballa center console that was holding a double DIN CD storage. I have got rid of that CD storage and got an Alpine ILX700 (used for around half its retail price) carplay double DIN as headunit, and the Porsche CD-10 connected to the aux input of the ILX, for that I made a DIN8 to RCA cable.

The OEM Blaupunkt amp under the passenger seat was not going to be used anymore, so I have removed it and in that space I have installed a kenwood subwoofer KSC-SW11, it fits perfectly in that area.

I have removed the rear speakers as I did not like the grilles in that tray, might put them back if I am lacking enough sound, but for what I want I think I won't need them. I have left all the oem wiring in there just in case...

For the door speakers I have bought a pair of Focal Performance Expert PS 165V 2-Way Compo Speakers, which apparently have had very good reviews last year. To wire them I have used the OEM wiring from under the seat where the OEM amp was to the doors, and have connected to the new Alpine ILX running new speaker wires from under the seat to the center console, and have connected both using a pair of DIN speaker sockets like these: , so I can go back to stock anytime if I wish to do so.

gouyou

Do you have a picture of the console?

me61ic

From when I was installing the new Alpine HU and the subwoofer

A914MAN

I like the idea of using compact powered sub, and it looks like that one is a perfect fit. It looks like that Kenwood unit can be found for about $150, so the "on the cheap" budget just went up a bit

me61ic

It really was a perfect fit, I just had to remove the old amp, relocate the rear wing module and relocate some other cables a bit. Then remove the tray to bend back the brackets that were sticking up and put the tray again in its place, this also served to recover some nice old coins from under there...

I did not want to cut any OEM wires, so I took the positive and ground cables from the old amp cables using one connector that was a perfect fit for the one in the old amp cable, then the speakers wires using the connectors in my previous post. And the new cables run under the foam in the passenger floor to the forward part of the center console

A914MAN

Where did you relocate the alarm and spoiler modules?

me61ic

Same place, I just moved them a bit as before they were in the middle of the tray, now they are in front and at the rear of the subwoofer, under the mat (rear of the front mat under that somewhat had protection, and front of the rear mat)

A914MAN

Installed and rockin'! I've run into 3 minors issues: I broke the end off the cable for the hands free phone mic, I've got to connect the power lead to a gauge or headlight for auto dimming the head unit, and I need to raise the passenger seat 1/4". Overall I'm very happy with everything, and the compact powered sub, to me, is a must have.

I wasn't able to position the sub like me61ic did because of the two modules. I had to orient it 90* from his install, which made for some slight interference with the passenger seat. I'm going to get some longer seat mount bolts and make some 1/4" spacers to raise it.

I used a Alpine CDE SXM 145BT head unit, an Alpine KTP-445A amp (4 x 45 watt) that I mounted to the bottom of the glove box, and the same Kenwood KSC-SW11 compact powered sub woofer as posted above. The head unit has 4 x 18 watt power built in, but I didn't thing that was enough for a Targa, and the Alpine amp mates up with a proprietary cable that makes it easy.

This head unit features hands free calling, and in routing the cable for the mic I got a little too aggressive pulling it through a grommet and pulled the 1/8" mini plug off the end. I tried to repair it, but natta. I'm not including another $20 in my total for a bone head move. I found that there are holes in the gauge panel next to the speedo and tach that's covered with fabric. After reaming the hole a bit larger the mic snapped in and looks like it could be stock.

- sidebar- I wasn't aware that the gauge panel area is segregated from the lower dash, and must be accessed through the front trunk. I'm still considering drilling a small hole to make routing the mic cable easier.

I made a multi cable jumper to go from the power amp to the existing speaker wires under the seat. Since I make custom engine harnesses I have black PVC jacketing that I used for the cable bundle. I used the existing 12V power under the seat for the sub power. I ran a separate #10 12v lead to the battery for the power amp, which I also jacketed. This was very easy with help from the post #50 on RicardoD's thread. That grommet has an unused hole in it that made easy/peasy. At only 4x45 a #10 wire is more than enough.

Here's my list of components and what I paid:

Alpine CDE-SXM 145BT - Crutchfield $209.00

Alpine KTP-445A - buyelectronics/eBay $102.00

Kenwood KSC-SW11 - soundoftristate/eBay $128.95

Rockford Fosgate Punch P16-S 6" 2 way speakers - buyelectronics/eBay $101.75

Rockford Fosgate Punch P1462 4"x6" 2 way speakers - buyelectronics/eBay $ 58.05

Total - $599.75

I had most all the extra supplies on hand so I only spent about $20 on supplies, which brings me in very close to my original planned budget. If I had to do it again, I might spend a bit more on speakers, but I think it would be hard to do without spending at least another $100 or much more. It's a improvement over the original equipment cassette player (even when new), and the old speakers had long ago met the end of their service life.

I'm very satisfied with the sound quality, and how the install came out. The big pluses are: hands free calling; bluetooth audio from my phone; and the aux input for other sources.