Write-up: My solution to the stock sound-blocking door speaker grills

[MustGoFastR]

So, prior to doing my audio system install this past week, I'd done plenty of research here on the forum to help me out (all the write-ups and how-to's have been invaluable). Included in the newly ascertained car-audio knowledge was the fact that the stock door speaker grills suck in that, though it appears to be a full grill from the front, upon closer inspection, approx. half of it is blocked off by a layer of molded plastic, which obstructs the sound from the mids.

One popular solution to this is Nazar's door pods, which I considered, but as I was already over-budget on my system, I opted to pass and deal with the grill problem at the end of my install. Well, that came about today. After getting the car back together, save for the grills, and tuning the system, I listened to some tracks in the car without the grills, then put them in place and listened again to confirm that they do indeed obstruct and affect the quality of the sound (and they do).

At this point, I decided my solution would be to modify the stock grills, rather than try to replace them with something else or bite the bullet and buy pods. I knew that painstakingly drilling out the half of the holes in the grill that were obstructed was out, since prior attempts from other forum members have turned out looking like crap, so I came up with something else. I don't know if anyone else has done this, but this is what I thought up and it worked beautifully.

SOooo, armed with my trusty Dremel, a couple zip ties, scissors, a utility knife, some speaker grill material, needle, thread and some thanks to the forsight I had to take Home-Ec. in high school to pick up chicks, I set out on my Sunday morning project...

Below, you can see the areas of the stock grill I have cut out along with the horrendous mess I've made of our kitchen table that my wife was just thrilled about... I left a bar running accross the grill and a side bar for extra support and to gaurd the most vulnerable areas of the speaker from the stray foot. If you're not worried about that, you can just cut out the entire center area.


Here's a shot after I cleaned up the edges:


Next, I stretched some speaker grill material I got from a buddy accross the surface of the grill, gathered it tight in the back and secured it with a zip-tie. You'll notice the stock grills are curved strangely to match the curve of the door panel, but upon stretching the material accross it, it conforms to the compound curves perfectly:


This is when the sewing skills came into play. I racked my brain trying to figure out a way to glue or pin/staple the material to the lip on the back of the grill and finally got the idea to sew it from my wife. Basically I just sewed a draw-string around the edge of the material on trhe back side, so that when the center gathered portion was cut away, the rest would saty put, stretched tight accross the front of the grill. I didn't even have to cut slits or anything for the mounting tabs; I just pulled the material tight over them and that just helped keep the material stretched all that much tighter when mounted in the door. Here's a shot of the back side after sewing and cutting away the gathered portion:


The front:


Finally, a couple shots mounted in the door. It matches the interior perfectly, looks completely stock, sounds great and didn't cost me a cent:

[AroundMyHorn]

dude, i'll buy a 24 pack or give ya money if you help me do this to my covers

Great job by the way

[MustGoFastR]

Heh, yeah, we can prob work something out. Shoot me a PM.

[HyperSprite]

That's hot!

Chris

[350ztoronto]

damn good job i bought nazar pods im very happy with them but this cost nothing! =D

[gringott]

Nice job, and you had me laughing, because I did the home ec thing in HS for the same reason. Great minds think alike.

[gt3]

Great idea and looks really nice!

[Paul350Z]

Nice work.

Where did you get the speaker grill cloth?

[usmanasif]

Very nice idea! I will definitely do something similar.

Paul, you can get grill cloth from several online retailers. I went to http://www.acousticalsolutions.com/p...ille_cloth.asp when I needed some for my RPTV; very reasonable variety and a plethora of color/material options.

[MustGoFastR]

Thanks! Yeah, there are several places you can find the cloth; I bummed some off a buddy of mine that had some leftover that he used when he built his home theater room.

[james840a]

Originally Posted by Paul350Z

Nice work.

Where did you get the speaker grill cloth?

paul350z, if your looking for a local place, Try J&J auto upholstery in Rialto ca, it is on Riverside av. just past the rail road tracks on the right side. They supply alot to car audio shops in the area.

[ZPatrick]

nice clean job

[MustGoFastR]

Here's a link to where my buddy got the speaker grill material that I used for cheap:
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=260-335

[leemik]

dude great idea!!! you can sell this!!! make a bunch with the draw strings... $24.99/pair shipped... you could buy a turbo after a little while from the profits I would buy one lol

[gringott]

Originally Posted by leemik

dude great idea!!! you can sell this!!! make a bunch with the draw strings... $24.99/pair shipped... you could buy a turbo after a little while from the profits I would buy one lol

Name of product:

Speaker Grille Baggies

[jadaniya]

that is awesome man. just out of curiousity, how much sound do the grills block?

[MustGoFastR]

Originally Posted by jadaniya

that is awesome man. just out of curiousity, how much sound do the grills block?

Well, if you pull out the grill, you can see that only about 50% of the holes are really holes. It really does make a significant difference between hearing the speakers without the grills as opposed to with. My modded grills block nothing, so the sound is much improved.

Door pods have their benifits, but some people want to keep the stock look, don't want to spend that much money or don't want to deal with the risk of whacking their speakers with their foot, getting out, with as far as the pods stick out, so I came up with a cheap, relatively easy solution that sounds great and works for me.

[MustGoFastR]

Originally Posted by leemik

dude great idea!!! you can sell this!!! make a bunch with the draw strings... $24.99/pair shipped... you could buy a turbo after a little while from the profits I would buy one lol

Hmm, not a bad idea, though making the drawsting "baggie" is the easy part (but it really needs to be done on the grill frame to get it fitted perfectly). The real work lies in all the carving up of the factory grills; it takes a while, is messy and you need to be pretty good with a dremel (it's an easier job if you're not concerned about the cross-bars I left in).

I wouldn't mind doing some sets for people if there is intrest, but it'd need to be a mail-in deal where you send me your grills and I mod, cover and send them back to you ready to install. I really don't know what would be a fair price for that kind of job... $35 return shipping included? If anyone's interested, PM me.


LOL; I'd have to do over 300 sets to make enough to buy me a TT!

[leemik]

edit: nevermind... you have a PM

[THE TECH]

Nice write as usual bro.