Upgrading Standard Speakers on 94-98 (BA) 323F's

[Maz323f]

Hi All

I am planning on doing an article for www.maz323f.co.uk which will be a basic guide on upgrading the standard sound system in the 94-98 (BA) 323F's , of which I will be more than happy to share with www.astinagt.com :)

So far I haved read quiet a few of the posts but the are a bit scatty so could people let me know the exact size of the standard front and rear speakers. Can some one also let me know what sizes these speakers can be upgraded too and what needs to be done (if anything).

Fronts = 5"x7"
Rear = 6" ??

Cheers
CraigC
www.maz323f.co.uk

[Dogo]

hi !

so is that green BA yours ? nice color :)

anyway. Yes the fronts are definitely 5x7s, and the rears are 6" I believe ( pretty sure. they might be 6.5" but i havnt looked for aages. )
The hardtop has 6x9s on the back shelf and nothing in the back doors i believe.

You can fit 6" in the front tho, or even 6.5". kinda depends on the frame of the speaker. But with some easily made baffles there should be no problem. I have 6.5" in the front at the moment.

If you want splits, then the tweeters can be placed wherever u want them in the front doors, on the dash or in the A pillars.

Another option is to cut or re-make the back shelf to hold speakers. easily done tho i reccomend u reinforce the shelf to make it a bit stronger. i think i used 6mm mdf wood and carpeted over it so it didnt look ugly.

depending on how much u want to spend there is actually a large selection of 5x7s available on the market, although not as common in stores as the other sizes. You may have to look at the brand's catalogue and order some in if ur shops dont have any on-shelf.

Boston have some 5x7 coax speakers that would sound beautiful ... or there are 5x7 splits available from brands such as Hertz.

The centre speaker in the BA hatch is 4" i think. As long as u ensure there is a signal to the centre speaker amp ( hanging above the ecu, under the stereo ) u can keep the sound to that too. Mazda were kind enough to follow the standard 4" mounting method with a square bracket and a screw in each corner rather than some other cars where there is a trangle on 2 sides with a single screw on each. Thanks Mazda !! :D

The stereo wiring diagram is available from the list of wiring diagrams available online. not sure of the link atm tho... You may have difficulty if u intend to upgrade the speaker wire running into each door as it takes some dismantling of the dash and then cutting up the wiring harness going out to the door.

I can provide diagrams from the mazda workshop manuals for Centre Speaker installation, Centre Amp Installation, Front and rear door speaker installation, rear shelf speaker installation ( hardtop ), stock head unit removal, Overall stereo layout, antenna removal/installation, full wiring diagram (online 1 is incomplete ), and wiring harness layouts for all elements ( stereo, amp, doors etc ). If ur interested i can scan and send those to u ...

If u intend for the article to include amp installation, then perhaps u could recommend some pathways for a power wire from battery to amp. Not too hard in the 1.8, but i had to dig around in my v6 to find a decent route.

look forward to reading it !

Dave

[Rupewrecht]

The hardtop has 6x9s on the back shelf and nothing in the back doors i believe.Dave

correct :)

[Toyboy]

Since i had my front trims off today i thought id post a pic of the 5x7's i have :wink:

http://www.digitalpose.com/mbr/1/13511/p/475271_388872586439936896_vl.jpg

They arnt red in real life,they are silver,it looks red cause of the reflection of my seatcovers and interior :)

[Cosmo Dude]

There is also the orphan 4" in/on the dash.

Rod

I was gonna up-rate it to match my other speekers.

[Dogo]

yeh im doing the same.

im just not sure if using the stock centre amp will degrade the sound for the front doors ...

will investigate tho

[Maz323f]

I have now installed the following:

# Alpine CDA9811R
# JBL 5*7 GTO speakers (Front)
# JBL 6" GTO Speakers (Rear)
# Pioneer 12" 1000w Pioneer Sub
# Alpine V12 Amp (400w)

and I a much happier now :D

Cheers
CraigC

[joely]

I took out my centre dash speaker (aftermarket) because it sounded sh!t. I had just connected it to the existing wires. I don't think there was enough power going through to make good sound. What could I do to get more power through and how do I go about it???

Where do you guys have your amps mounted and where have you ran your ground wires??
I've screwed mine to the back seats for ages with the ground wire connected just under the latch/lock thingy for the hatch but this isn't too practical as it the ground wire sometimes gets loosened by stuff floating around the boot. When the ground is loose interference is heard through the speakers.
:wink:

[Dogo]

i just took out my stock centre speaker and I dont think its 4".

I'll post up some measurements soon ...

[Dogo]

and here they are !

http://users.bigpond.com/ksole/photos/stockcentre.gif


yeh its really little!

4ohm, 25W. Not sure what size this is. Its possibly classed as 3 1/4" :?

Be careful taking off the grill ( u can prise it up from under the rim. there are 3 clips. They might be a bit stiff so be gentle, i think one of mine almost snapped before coming free )

and then theres a wire coming from the speaker to a plug just under it. kinda hard to see what ur doing, but u need to press in a clip halfway down the side of the plug.

[Dogo]

at the moment, my amps are mounted on the back seats too.
They're gounded to a chassis bolt on the hinge for the back seat.

i have no interference whatsoever. :D

[Cosmo Dude]

Yeah,
My bad, I removed the cover and if your diagram is correct (and I don't doubt it) it is about 2.25".
Is it useful?
Do many head units have an appropriate output?

Rod

[Dogo]

i cant think of any HUs that have a center speaker output. Some brands have a Centre Speaker+Amp thing u can buy, but they're expensive and hardly worth it unless you're after 5.1 surround sound or something. Alpine's unit will set u back a few hundred dollars. Clarion have one too. I think its based on their CeNet bus. Im not sure if these units would be cross-brand friendly. ( ie i dunno if u can use Apline's with a Pioneer HU )

At the moment Im thinking i'll just split my front channels and run the centre of a spare channel from my amps.

I'm thinking I'll cut up that area and squeeze a 4" in there.
I auditioned a pair of Alpine 4" coax speakers that I thought sounded nice. $100 a pair so Rod, if you are thinking of putting a 4" in there maybe we could go half-half and avoid wasting the extra speaker.

Note : I havnt checked properly to see if a 4" will fit. Im going back to my favourite stereo place early this week. I went in on Sat, and they said that another thing that some ppl do is put 2 x 3 1/4" speakers in the centre channel. Which saves combing L&R into mono.

[Pernod]

So to get to this set of speakers, do I need to take the dash out, or am I right in thinking that I can (carefully) just prise out the centre grill?

Also, is there an easy way to get to controller box for this? I just want to feed new inputs into this (ie. I'm thinking of doing the cardnal sin of running this off the head unit while the rest is running of the amp (that way I can independantly control the volume of this centre channel).

Sorry for the silly questions :)

Shane.

[Dogo]

lol they're not silly questions ! :)

yep, take off the grill to get to the speaker. no need to remove the trim around it.
centre speaker controller can be accessed by taking off the centre console trim.

easiest way to run wires to this i guess would be to connect to the stock speaker wires where they would normally go into the stock HU, since they should still be running in to the centre amp.

If its not working from those wires, then either they're not running to it like they should be, or the amp isnt turning on. maybe there was a wire from the stock HU to the amp to switch it on. will look in my books 2nite when i get home

[Pernod]

Dogo, I think you just saved me a fair bit of hunting for a solution! The chances are that the issue is the power!

When redoing the system, I couldn't get after market wires through the wiring loom into the doors :cry: So I literally just ran new wires from the amp up to the dash wherei joined them to the factory wires - hence the centre speaker should be working - But it hasn't been. This is why I was so confused and was just going to redo the wiring to the speaker (to avoid finding the issue).
What I hadn't thought of is the fact that it has probably lost the power to the amp (OK, so i hadn't actually realised that there was a seperate amp until today either :wink: )

Thanks, I'll give this a shot...

[Ledfoot]

If anyone stll owns a BA Astina and wants to know the correct wiring diagram for their radio here it is.

Plug No
Pink Black Ignition Wire 2A 12v+
Blue Red Battery Wire 2C 12v+
Orange Black 2E 12v+
Pink Aerial 2D 12v+
Yellow Black Center Amp 2J Switched Neutral
Orange Red Illumation Control 2f 0>12V+

Yellow Red F/Right Speaker + 2M
Green Yellow F/Right Speaker - 2N

Blue Orange L/Front Speaker + 2K
Violet L/Front Speaker - 2L

2nd plug

Yellow R/Rear Speaker + 3F
Orange R/Rear Speaker - 3H

Green Orange L/Rear Speaker + 3A
Green Black L/Rear Speaker - 3B

Black Ground

[Prusak72]

Hello Ledfoot,

Thank you for description. Orange Black 2E is a second 12+ from battery or it's 12+ for in-dash speaker amp?
Reg