R32 6.5 inch Spacer

[swang2]

R32 6.5 inch Spacer

Hello,

This is my review of some audio upgrades that I made to my 1990 Nissan Skyline R32 GTR that I thought I would share with the rest of you guys! In particular, I am reviewing some custom 6.5 inch speaker adapters for those awful 4x6 speakers in the front from carstereoadapters.com.

When I purchased my car the rear 6.5 inch speakers did not even work and emitted no sound. The front speakers were in horrendous condition as well. There was zero bass and so much distortion that I knew these were just going to be thrown away. 

My initial thoughts were to just to replace whatever speakers were in the car with the same sized ones as I felt like it would be too much work to custom build an adapter. There was no kit readily available for these cars and the door cards did not offer too much space to clear the windows so I thought it would be a waste. My friend told me to contact Patrick Henry at www.carstereoadapters.com and we talked about creating some custom brackets that would fit in the car. So we found some rough schematics and I decided to be a guinea pig for the project for the rest of you guys so that others could easily upgrade their audio systems without having to build their own or scour the internet for schematics. Also, I felt that I wanted to upgrade the stock stereo system as much as possible because I did not want to install 4x6 speakers and then decide to change to bigger speakers down the road. So they took the template and created a one off set of adapters and told me that they would keep revising them until the fitment was absolutely perfect for the final application.

I decided to go with 4 Polk DB651’s to keep the same brand and model across the entire car. The rears were relatively easy to install as the 6.5’s went in with no problems or modification in the stock speaker locations. Unsurprisingly, the rear speakers were completely destroyed. The speaker surrounds were completely disintegrated and missing. Also, the paper cones were torn and flaked off to the touch. This is what twenty six years of wear would do to the OEM Speakers.

The fronts took a little more time due to the amount of cutting and Dynamatting I had to do, but luckily these cars have pretty rectangular doors that made cutting the rolls of Dynamat easier. Also, the OEM sound deadening in the car was pretty abysmal as they only use a plastic bag that they glue onto the doors. The Dynamat really helped to decrease cabin noise and it also gave the doors a nicer and more solid thud when you close the doors after they were installed.

The front speakers were in terrible condition as well just due to age. The surrounds had also completely disintegrated like the rears, but the overall cones of the front speakers were still intact. The schematics that I had found for the Car Stereo Adapter (CSA) guys had missing values for the actual mounting points, but they did their best to guess where to drill the recessed holes and some values actually came out pretty close. I had the option of measuring them and sending them back to the CSA guys then they would send me back perfect ones, but being the impatient car enthusiast that I am I wanted to have the car finished ASAP and that no one could see the holes with the speaker grills anyway.

I decided that I would drill the correct sized holes and send back the OEM brackets for them to use for R&D to create an accurate adapter that would be ready straight out of the box. The quality of the material they used was very good and I decided to paint the adapters black for a more stealthy appearance. Upon initial test fitment both windows rolled down clearing the larger speakers easily and the door cards fit back in place perfectly over the adapter and extra Dynamat underneath it.

These adapters should be made available to the public very shortly so stay tuned!

My Car:

Rear 6.5's completely destroyed:

Old door panel/4x6 speaker:

Front 4x6 Speakers mostly destroyed:

Passenger door:

Old vs. New:

Drivers Door:

Installed:

[niZmO_Man]

Nice! What's the depth of your speakers? But with a custom mount made up, there should be enough room for a 'regular' sized 6" speaker on the front doors.

[swang2]

The top-mount depth is spec'd at 1-11/16". They were the 6.5 inch Polk DB651 and not even the slim version! I was surprised at how close the fit was with the larger speakers. The old ones were garbage!

[swang2]

The brackets have been revised! They now match the OEM Bracket shape!

[DaymoR32]

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