From: PPI/Mentor <76004.2572@compuserve.com>
To: Eric Bosco
Subject: Message from Internet
Eric-
I have a little time to respond to your questions and so on.
I did the install in late November and completed it in December. He's had it
working for about 6 1/2 weeks. Here's what I installed in my brother's Jetta
GLX:
Sony 600DSP In-Dash CD and CD-Changer controller with Custom-file and wired
remote control
Sony CDX-65 10-Disc CD-Changer
Rockford Fosagte Punch 4080DSM 4 Channel Amplifier
Rockford Fosgate Audiophile Speakers: 2 Sets
RFA-614 6 1/2" Midbass 1" Neodynium Tweeters X-Overs
Rockford Fosgate Audiophile 10-4 10" Subwoofer in custom .74 cu. inch sealed
enclosure
JL-Audio 10W1 Subwoofer and Bandpass Enclosure
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- --
- -------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, just the list of equipment doesn't tell the whole story. I have installed
stereos in so many VW's and this car was a real let down and stack of trouble!
The whole goal in mind was keeping the car stealth, as it is parked outside on
a
college campus. No one even knows what it's got, but boy does it hit. It was
a
success, but really had me pissed while working.
Answers to your questions:
Yes, you can install a head unit that will power all of the speakers. We ran
the Sony headunit for about a month powering just the factory speakers. What a
difference in quality. The factory speakers really work well when powered with
a decent headunit. It is a great way to get by. I think the headunit put out
20 or so watts per channel, but in actuality, probably 10 clean watts. This is
definitely the first thing I would add-dump the factory headunit, don't even
bother with it or the add-on changer. They work well for some, but not for
audiophiles.
Speakers: Ughhhh! We were able to fit 6 1/2" woofers in the door, with only
minor trimming behind the woofer. It takes the right woofer, but it pounds lik
e
there are 10's in the doors. 10 minutes of trimming that will never be seen is
well worth having 6 1/2's in the door, as the factory put in there. The factor
y
speakers use a standard hole pattern, too! No drilling new holes. Make sure t
o
test fit your speakers before you buy. The rears and fronts mount and work the
same, so that is realitively easy.
The tweeters are a breeze in the dash. Any strapping will mount them, and ther
e
is even room to angle mount. Don't worry about the distance between the woofer
s
and the tweeters. The way VW has angled the woofer mounts and dash grilles,
they really create a fabulous sound stage. I give high marks to VW for how the
y
designed the front stage in the car! You will not be dissapointed.
The rear tweeters cannot be removed from the doors, so don't try it or you'll
need new door panels-Big $$$. We mounted the Rockford tweeters on the rear
deck, next to the rear seat belt mounts. They are not even visible from outsid
e
the car, unless you know exactly what you are looking for. My brother can't
even remember where we put them! They provide a great image from back there,
too. The distance between the woofers and tweeters is far, but you really only
need fill from the rear anyway.
The subwoofer was put into a custom enclosure I built into the back of the
trunk, up against the seats. It is really awesome, and pounds like a mother!
The amp mounts to it, as well. I stuffed it with 1.5 pounds of stuffing and it
hits like 2 10's. If you like low, acurate bass, I have not found a better sub
than this. Nothing out of the ordinary otherwise with the speakers, but I did
hide a few storage compartments inside the box for first aid equipment and the
like.
We ended up taking the box out and putting in a JL Audio box with 1 bandpass
10". Oh my god, can you say ubnoxiously loud pounding bass? He liked it for
the first week, but now he's a little miffed he took the other box out. I thin
k
he's going to switch back to the first one we ran. There is such a thing as to
o
much bass.
I have used the Rockford Audiophiles before, and have a whole system in my 93
Corrado using the 514 audiophiles and additional 4" midranges in the dash. I
can't recommend them enough! The only addition to his car will be 4" Rockford
Audiophile's in the dash, and moving the tweeters to a different angle under th
e
grilles. I measured and it should be fine.
Head Unit:
The Sony was the only headunit he wanted. He made the right choice. It was th
e
best headunit I have ever worked with and recommend it highly. Plus, it fits
perfectly in the dash and the lights match wonderfully to the VW coloring. No
big deals with this install, though it is very tight to route cables to the
headunit because of the passenger airbag. There is very little extra room
behind the factory headunit. I also had to run the changer cable and wire for
the remote to the trunk, so it made it very, very tight! My hands have never
been so torn apart and bloody after getting cableing into the dash in the Jetta
.
Be careful, use moisturizer on your hands.
We ran the changer cable to the right corner of the trunk where we mounted the
changer. I tucked a board underneath the carpet to screw into, and built a
little cover over the changer. It looks better than factory and never skips.
You really can't tell its there and lose no trunk space because of how the Jett
a
trunk is formed. Great place to put it.
For show and functionality, I put the wired Sony joystick remote control next t
o
the changer. It controls all headunit functions, and is nice for showing off
the features of the system.
Well, up to now I've told you all of the good things about the install. I have
a lot of bad things to tell you about installing amps and crossovers etc. Work
is calling, so I've got to run. Let me know what you think so far.
- -Robert
------- Forwarded Message
Date: 19 Jan 95 20:02:28 -0500
From: PPI/Mentor <76004.2572@compuserve.com>
To: Eric Bosco
Subject: Re: Message from Internet
I'm glad you like what you've heard so far, too bad you can't hear the car for
real!
Answers to your newest questions:
It really isn't that hard to do the woofers in the doors. All you need to do i
s
take the woofer grille off-it prys right off using a small flat head
screwdriver! First VW ever to do that in the doors! The woofer is mounted fro
m
the front, so you simply unscrew the 4 mounting screws. Voila, the woofer is
out. Yes, it can fit 6 1/2's. I almost went by Crutchfield, but trusted my
instincts! Those aren't 5 1/4" grilles in the doors!
TIP: The woofers have 2 harness inputs-mark the location where you take the 1
harness out of with the door woofers, so when you reinstall your factory woofer
s
you know where the factory harness plugs back in. I did it by putting a dab of
touch up paint on the harness and each port it plugged into. Make sure you mar
k
each woofer and tweeter that you take out. The tweeters have 2 harness inputs
and 2 harnesses plugged in for the crossovers, so mark both parts, too. This
will help if you ever need to piece things back together in the future.
As far as what you need to trim behind each woofer, its fairly easy. First,
take the woofer out. The factory woofer rests on a little plastic peg-cut the
peg off! You can still put your factory woofers back in, you just need to hold
them into place as you screw them in. Removing the peg allows the woofer to si
t
flush.
Now, test fit your woofer. The depth probably won't be there, so you have to
trim the black vinyl covered cardboard door panel. I used a hacksaw to get a
cut going and then filed and broke off the rest. Figure 20 minutes on your
first try, 10 minutes each additional door. Nothing will be seen back there, s
o
you only have to make it as pretty as you want. Because VW used a standard
sized 6 1/2" speaker, the RF woofer just screwed right in-no hassles. There wa
s
plenty of depth, unlike what Crutchfield says. Trust me, I did it on someone
elses car!
Now for the cake, the factory grille fits over the woofer, but only if you do 2
things first. The RF woofer has a protective ring of cardboard that surounds
the woofer, you need to take it off. Other speakers may not have these, but RF
uses them for protection of the woofer cone. Also, you may need to pry one of
the tabs off of the grille to allow it to plug back into its slots it attaches
to. Nothing that difficult, but it took me a few minutes of thinking to do it
right! The grilles only fit on one way, so watch closely as you take them off.
You cannot tell that there are aftermarket speakers behind the grilles!
As far as the tweeters go, they are about 1.5" round, and very easy to mount
underneath the dash. The left side grille is much larger, and can fit a 4" and
a tweeter. The right side requires more creativity to mount 2 speakers.
TIP: Take your time and be patient running wires to the tweeters in the
dash-there is very little room in the channels running to them. You may want to
run the wires in the area before even attempting to mount the tweeters. I made
some nifty little plates that fit flush under the grilles, painted them black,
and they look factory. You could cover them with fleckstone or maybe use ABS
plastic to really make 'em nice, but they're not seen, unless you pop the
grilles. Of course, strapping or "plumbers" bracket works fine, too.
As far as the rear factory speakers go, or the fronts, too, they really work
well and sound fine with external amplification. VW uses the power from the
headunit, no external amps as before, to power all 8 speakers, so realistically
,
you could use the rears with a 2x25 amp for fill. Try 'em with the headunit an
d
see what you think. Maybe the headunit can power the rears and run an amp for
the fronts and sub.
Wiring the car I will break into 2 parts- RCA's and Power, Ground, Turn-On
Speaker Wires-UGHHHHHHHH
Running a power cable, 4 guage, from the battery to the trunk was a breeze! I
used a RF fuse holder that came with the amp, neatly mounted to the shock tower
,
and ran the cable through an unused grommet under the dash. Peel the carpeting
back from behind the pedals inside, and you'll see it. Pop it out, into the
engine compartment, and drill a hole through for the cable. You can see the
grommet from inside the engine bay if you shine a bright light behing the brake
fluid and master cylinder-it's black. Be careful not to drop the grommet, as I
did, it can be hard to find-lucky me, I found it!
TIP: Be EXTREMELY careful when removing the positive terminal from the battery
!
It uses a weird mounting bolt that is easy to BREAK! I broke his and had to
order a new one, 3 weeks, so I put the one from my Corrado on his car until the
new one came in. It was only a $1.87, but pissed me off. Do not overtighten,
and put it back on perfectly straight. Also, the alarm will sound when you
reconnect the terminal, so you may not want to remove the positive cable
completely from the terminal. Plug your ears! Also be very careful when
working around the hood release. His snapped and wouldn't allow the hood to
reopen. It had to go to the dealer to be fixed.
There is plenty of room to run the cables down the sides of the cars. The trim
panels simply snap in. Pull them towards the inside of the car and they will
snap out. You need to remove a screw from the B-Pillar, where the front seat
belts attach to loosen the panel there, too. Then flip up the rear seat bottom
s
and pop the rear trim out. There are a few screw-in plugs that you'll need to
remove, too. You'll see 'em pretty easily. Once all the trim is out, you can
see how VW put in wiring channels. Run your cables through these channels for
ease of placement. Don't be afraid to pull hard on the trim to break it loose,
it won't break.
There is plenty of room for running the cables on both sides, and speaker wires
,
too, just run them all smartly. I had 8 speaker wire sets, a changer cable, a
remote control cable, and RCA cables on the passenger side alone. It was tight
,
but it all fit in. Mostly 12 guage speaker cable.
Now, you're probably saying, what's the horror story? THE DOORS! You are
limited by the harnesses that plug in from each door and cannot run new wires
through! You have to live with using the factory wires to the speakers in each
door. Don't try splicing, it will induce noise. Clip the ends of the
harnesses, and attach the wires to the speakers. I learned the hard way, more
on that later.
Each door has a large, white, plug-in harness that is covered with a black boot
.
Pull back the boot, and unscrew the harness, it has a octagon shape and only
screws in and out one way. You'll see why you can't run new wires. I'm sure
you can drill it out, but its not really worth it for all of the hassles
involved. I did not go this route, but chose to use the existing wires.
TIP: Be very careful when removing the harness. It has a green or white vacuu
m
tube that plugs in that is for the door lock system. If the tube gets moved th
e
wrong way, your doorlocks or keyless entry, as my brother had, will not work
correctly! Major bummer. Once it is broken, it has to be redone by a VW tech
to get it just right. The whole locking system is based on vacuum, so don't
cause yourself more trouble than it is worth. His broke the first time it came
out and disabled his locking-not cool.
The whole wiring thing was a major frustration. Hiding grossovers was next to
impossible because of all of the stuff added for the airbags. There are wires
everywhere that can't be touched! Be careful!
One wire came too close to the heated seats and fried the circuit. The headuni
t
fried in the dash from also being plugged in on the same fuse as the heated
seats. The fusebox kept blowing the radio fuse for no reason! All this was
traced back to incorrect wiring of the keyless entry. Boy were we pissed off.
Nothing like the smell of a $900 headunit frying! VW covered all of the parts
that fried, SONY picked up the replacement of the headunit-No charge!
If you want, maybe I can camcorder the car and show you exactly what I've done
to give you visuals along with words. Only problem is I won't be in his area
again until March. Can you wait, or if not, I'll see if he can do it for me.
Besides all of the hassles, it really was worth it. I have never heard a car
sound so good. 8 days of work and frustration really paid off.
I hope this info is what you needed. Let me know with any other questions.
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- --
- ------------------------------------------------------
Now, of course since we added so much weight, we had to increase the
performance. We added a Neuspeed upper strut tie-bar and a Neuspeed P-Flow in
place of the airbox. The car is much, much faster than stock, and even is
faster than a stock VR6 Corrado and handles just as well with these 2
modifications. The sound the P-Flow makes is well worth the $120 for the kit.
He is getting ready to finish off with some more Neuspeed parts, soon.
I know about 5 other people in my area that all have GLX Jetta's-some are
lowered, one is at Neuspeed and in European Car magazine in a couple of
months-its white, and totally wicked! We can help you make your GLX exactly
what you want.
I have since done the whole Neuspeed engine kit to my VR6 Corrado and the car
runs 5.5 zero-to-sixty! It is totally tricked out with stereo and performance
goodies. It should be in European Car magazine with my Scirocco 16V in the nex
t
6 months, so you'll get a more complete write-up there.
Drop me a line for anything else.
Robert
------- End of Forwarded Message
Date: 20 Jan 95 13:51:30 -0500
From: PPI/Mentor <76004.2572@compuserve.com>
To: Eric Bosco
Subject: Message from Internet
Alright, additional answers to your questions.
I am in Ohio, he is in South Carolina. I'll call tonight and see if he can
video the car for you. I don't expect to take it to CA. anytime soon, but if
you come this way, let me know.
Headunit depth: I believe the Sony headunit was 6.75" deep, so Crutchfield may
be a little bit off on their depth. Try test installing a demo first to be
exact. There was no free space behind, but it looked factory in the dash-no
gaps.
The factory crossovers are built onto the back of the tweeters. If you remove
the tweeters, the x-overs are gone. So you can really tap into the wires where
you want. My recommendation is at the headunit, using a harness, then run new
wires to the amp from the harness. This can take care of part of the wiring fo
r
the speakers, but I didn't go this route. I tapped into each wire just before
entering the door harness.
The tie bar was really easy to install, but you have to make a few minor mods.
to the car to get it to work. The factory pin for the hood alarm needs to be
removed to fit the tie-bar in and then has to be trimmed to allow it to spin
around completely-the brake reservoir blocks it from doing so. Otherwise, you
can't attach the tie bar properly. I can send you a picture on that. Neuspeed
notes how to do it in the instructions. You also need to trim the paint/bondo
around the shock towers to get it to sit flush. Use a razor blade slowly to
chip away the paint/bondo to get a flat surface. Buy touch up paint before you
install it to paint over the chipped area before final mounting of the tie bar.
Mark your drill holes carefully, and line it up straight. Make sure you drill
straight down!
You may want to consider painting your tie bar to match. What color are you
buying? My Corrado's was painted Classic Green and looks factory, though the
black bar on my brother's red GLX did contrast nicely.
Incidentally, the P-Flow is easy to do, but will take a little work in getting
the Mass Airflow Meter to reattach to the Neuspeed bracket. Another sore hands
story afterwards. The sound your car makes afterwards is undescribeable. It i
s
actually louder than my Corrado with the P-Flow, Throttle Body and Chip!
Good luck, drop me a line when you have the car so we can chat. I'll post all
of my details to rec.autos.vw after I consolidate everything into chapters or
one long message.
Robert
------- End of Forwarded Message
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