rocketboy

You could go for a narrower tyre. With a 7.5" wide rim, going narrower wouldn't be a problem. I have 19x8.5 +25 offset on the front of my R33 and had rub on turning and bumps, that was with a 235/35. I changed to a slightly narrower 225/35 (slightly smaller diameter too I suppose, which would put the speedo out slightly)and have had no issues since. The rear are 9.5" wide and with rolled guard lips there is no rub. Just thought I'd throw this option in the mix.

Rear quaters/doors if 4door and boot are both good places to SD. I had a bare boot and after SDing the boot bottom and wheel arches it made a fair bit of difference.

Hi all. Just thought I'd post this up as I have these fitted to my R33 25t after a 6 month wait for tyres! Skyline model = '97 25t Wheel diameter =19" Wheel width =8.5" front 9.5" rear Wheel offset =+25 Tyre size =225/35R19 Front, 265/30 rear (Dunlop Spormaxx) Modifications to fit =Rear guards lips rolled. I had 235/35 on front when I first got these and had too much guard rub up front. 225/35 has fixed the problem it seems!

Theres not as much room behind the A pillar trims as it looks so fitting aftermarket tweets may not fit too easily behind the factory grills. The factory optioned tweets are quite small. Give it a measureup and see, some of the focal tweets are fairly small so you never know I suppose.

I think my materuns those speakers, or similar, maybe older version RF, but very similar higher end RF. He runs then in a Carolla with custom pods and the tweets mounted low. The sond very detailed and clear with nice punchy midbass. Depending how much you pay, I'd recomend them. You may have bought themalready, but I thought I'd let ya know my thoughts on them.

Mount speaker directly over Dmat IMO. So long as the speaker is mounted well, andnice and tight, then you won't get any negative behaviour from your speakers.

Not sure what the wire is for but I have fee 10g speaker cable through the factory loom and plug. Very much a mission, but you basically unbolt plug in where loom goes through chassis. You can reach up under the dash to access that end of theplug, it simply clips into the chassis, then as you bolt the plug together from the door side, it holds nice and firm. So after unbolting, you relocate a few pins (if using large cable, say 10-12g), so you can drill out plastic in bothends of the plugs. You then have a hole to feed your new wire. Then the rest is as usual. Be careful not to pinch wire when bolting plug back up. I have done this in both my skylines, very much a pain the ass, but worth it for the factory look. I may have posted more detailed procedure on these forums previously, try a search if you want more info. Hope this helps anyone wanting to do this.

Doesn't seem right to me. Hmm, there should be a light on either side of the AC unit. I have had the drivers side one go before, but never a problem like you describe. I assume you have cheaked the bulbs. Maybe check the contact points.

Ok, forgot this part: The goop that seals the light sticks like a mo fo. The best way I found to help get the light off is to get a hair dryer or heat gun to heat the inside metal panel that the light sits on. Be carefulwith a heat gn, you don't want todamage anything. Anyway, this should heat the goop up enough to soften and become more malluble. Start pulling light off as it heats. That should sort it out!

You can run the RCA's down the passenger sill and it'd pay to take rear seats out to lay RCA so it won't get oinched by the seat. Seats are easy to take out. Unbolt 2 bolts holding seat at front. Then pull up, you'll need to exert a fair bit of force. Takes bottom seat out. them unbolt near back seat near rear seatbelt anchors, push up towards roof as the seat sits on 'hooks', then pull out. Easy as. If 2 door, them unbolt front seatbelt anchor so laying RCA's is easier. I laid my RCA's down the transmission tunnel and then under the back seat, more work, but less wires for them to cross - I was trying to eliminate any possibility of noise. Hope this helps.

Exactly what do you want/need that you have 1k to spend on? Speakers and stuff doesn't help much. Or better yet, You have money saved for the headunit, what else do you already have, or have money for that is excluded in your $1k budget?

Just thought I'd add that I did this about 3 years ago, and haven't had any leaking issues at all since. And you can tip excess water out when unit is removed, put in hot water cupboard with light sockets pointing up overnight, all condensation/drops should evaporate fairly quickly.

Had this problem after car came back from panel beaters for minor rear end damage. They had'nt sealed them up properly. I proceded to take them off and fix it myself with a tube of silicon sealer. The key is to ensure all the old sealant is off and both the light and car surface are fully cleaned of old sealent, with something like myths or grease and wax remover. When you run the fresh sealant bead onto the light, use plenty so that the surface of the sealant sits quite high. This will helps it seal nicely when mounting to car. Now, there are two bolts, in between and above and below the two afterburners on each tail light unit (mounting side!). Make sure your silicon bead runs inside these two bolts, so your bead sorta looks like a figure 8 as opposed to ab oval. Also from memory there are thin rubber washers on each bolt, presumably to seal them from water, make sure you get new ones if need be. I would also put the sealer "join" at the bottom, just in case it sets with a minute gap, perhaps put a bit extra down there. If anyone wants pics of the back of the light unit let me know so I can post up. Otherwise, this is an easy job that should be done in less than a day, getting all the old sealant off can be a bitch though.

Daveo is right about the 6x9's, you don't want the sub and 6x9's playining the same frequency, can muddy up the sound. You look like your on the right track for setting up your system EUG - good luck. Ghostrider, I don't mean to nit pick but I have to comment on some of your comments... Again I don't mean to have a go, I just like there to be more accurate information regarding car audio. Good on ya for using old skool gear, good to see it's not going to waste, but if your not running a CD player, you really should think about it aye!

Hi, any chance you would purchase seperate components for the front end ( mid and tweeter seperate), as this would give a much more accurate sound. i have thought about the idea of getting a 4 channel amp, but would like to see where i stand with having the speakers running off the headunit before deciding to buy one. also does the "underpowering a sub and ruining it" theory apply to smaller speakers? An amp will help keep things clearer at high volumes, and under powering a sub will only ruin it if you turn the amp gains up and run the sub to clipping - basically sending a distorted signal to the sub/speaker are there any hints or rules of thumb for setting things up? (excuse the terminology - please someone correct me) for example? high pitched sounds coming from the fronts. (mid - high range?) low deep bass sounds coming from the rears. (low range?) - bit of a waste for getting 3 way 6x9"s no? yes? The way to think of a system is to potray a band playing on your bonnet. Very difficult to achieve this in car audio. But basically you want the sound coming from the front like in a concert. With componetnts you can move tweeters to improve sound. The basic rule is that sub bass is non directional, from my experience most music will be directional at 70hz and above. With your 6x9's you would want to cross over higher as the won't be to flash much lower than 100hz. i have looked through the handbook for the headunit, and there seems to be a few settings that i can fiddle with. - compression and bmx (lets you adjust the sound playback) ........- comp. function balances the output of louder and softer sounds at high volumes. ........- bmx controls sound reverberations to give playback fuller sound - obviously there's an equalizer setting with a few pre-sets, and a custom one available allowing for finer adjustments of the curve - there is a loudness setting, which compensates for deficiencies in the low and high sound ranges at low volume - front image enhancer (fie) function which enhances the front stage by cutting mid and high range frequency from the rear speakers. you can cut out (100Hz, 160Hz and 250Hz) from the rear speakers. Sounds like a Pioneer heady. Good controls on them. Set rear to FIE, play with different frequencies, listen to what sounds best, hopefully the image (sound) will pull further forward when crossed over lower, say 100-160hz. This does cut the majority of the music spectrum out though, but it should enhance the froont sound image. I'd suggest EQ to flat, then tune to taste. start with the highs. Your heady may allow you to adjust how much of the ferequency band is adjusted, you can play with that later for fine tuning. i have had a look through caraudioaustralia.com and icecavern and a few other car audio forums - but haven't been able to find a tutorial of sorts as to how to "tune" a system without using an amp. from what i've gathered and read so far, would i be correct in: setting the equalizer at a flat setting first, then tune my own custom one? or would i use one of the pre-set ones and fine tune it (how?) from there, then apply the other settings such as comp/bmx, loudness and fie? then by listening to it? as opposed to applying all my wanted settings ie. comp/bmx, loudness and fie - then adjusting the equalizer to suit? Turn all sound setting off to tune. Add later if it sounds better once EQ is tuned. Loudness is good for low volumes though! any ideas or tips on how i should set up the equalizer? and which Hz should i cut out from the rear speakers? (250Hz)? Switch between them and listen for whats best too you. Listen to wether the image moves more frontal as opossed to around you. i mainly listen to some chunky house, with odd bits of vocal trance and techno, which has me a bit confused as i would also need to keep some clear low frequency around. Sure you dont want a sub?! Hope this helps.

Pulling the seats out and back takes less than 1/2 hour and allows you to tape/zip tie the Rca's. I ran mine down the transmission tunnel to the back seat, A fair bit harder, along te side would definatley be better.

I have reloctaed my fuse box that is next to my battery to accomodate my sub amp, it's a fairly easy task, apart from having to take the back seat out Yes, infinity are a favourite brand of mine, although there are a fair few better brands, I find infinity a good balance of bang for buck. At the moment I am runnig a full Infintity system. If you can afford the Perfect 5.1 or 6.1 components, they are the ones to have. Unfortunatley for me they do not do a nice 3-way components set, so I have settled for old Kappa 3-way setup. If your budget doesn't allow this then some of these infinity models should do a good job for you 60.5cs Kappa series. Older model, you may find cheap run out stock of these components. 60.7cs Kappa is the replacement for above model. These are 2ohm speakers, so essentially, you will get more power out of your amp to power them. The models below these are Reference series, but if you can, stick to Kappa and better. Again, if you can listen to a few different speakers in store, this will give you a general idea of how certain speakers sound. Unfortunatley, they will probably sound rather different once installed. This is generally because a car is a real shitty enviroment to try and produce nice accurate music from. Steering wheels in the way, resonating metal panels, sound wave reflection off interior materials etc etc. Sound deadening will make a BIG improvement to your system also. There are top of the line brands out there like Dynamat Extreme, which although fairly expensive, it is renowned as one of the best brands out there. More bang for your buck would be something like 'Automotive Sound Deadening Panels'. Over here in NZ we have a brand called Bostik which makes these bitumen based (I think) panels. They are heated up so they become plyable, then a wax paper backing is pulled off and an adhesive surface is exposed for you to stick onto your door skins or other panel you choose to treat. For arond $100 for 10 x 500mmX500mm panels, this is a great investment. Installing on the inner and outer door skins will help you produce nice crisp/strong mid bass from your drivers. Have a look at this website for more info and tutorials on sound deadening and other ways to improve your system - www.nzicemag.co.nz

Those Pioneers are ok, the tweeters are a bit harse for my likings, but on the whole they are not too bad. The crossover may have an attenuation switch to turn down the tweets a bit if you go for the components. Other than the Pioneers, I'd recommend Infinity, Focal, PBX, Soundstream, DLS...etc. There is a huge range of brands out there to chose from, but a good solid installation can make or break how the end result will sound. How much you wanna spend on them will also be a factor. Try to listen to a few and see what your ears like. As for the amp, I'd suggest you mount it on the tray next to the battery under the parcel tray. That way you keep all of your boot and the amp is hidden from prying eyes. Also, If your battery is in your boot like most R33's, then you won't have the trouble of running much power wire. Also, why are you after clear sound from the outside of the car? You planing on using it as a stereo for mates to listen to while hanging out? If you plan on listening to it for long lengths of time without the motor on, then I'd suggest you check your battery has a decent capacity to keep it powered. Hope this helps.

Yeah, they pretty much the offset you wanna go with.

Yep, I think you'll be pushing sh#t up hill if you try to fit those suckers on. I am having front guard rub , rear were lipped/rolled and are now fine though. I have a 235/35-19 on the front, I might try a smaller tire (225/35-19 0r 30 profile) to remedy this problem. I really don't want to give up these rims!!

Ok, I will be able to give you a more definative answer to this real soon as I am trying to fit 19x8.5 and 19x9.5 with +25mm offset. But to tell the truth, I am pushing it how it is. Not quite 20mm offset but close. To tell the truth, I am pushing it how it is. I have rear guard rub, getting them rolled shortly to see if this stops. And the inner gurds rub when cornering tight turns, looking at trying to remedy these probs. With a +20mm offset, I doubt you'll fit em as they'll stick out a further 5mm, depending on type of rim and tyres. I'll let you know how I get on. Just thought I'd add that my car is lowered 50-60mm on Tein shocks and springs.

Take back seats out to access rear parcel tray removal. Loosen rear pillar trims that slot into parcel tray. The tray itself will have about 3 clips holding it down, maybe a few that slot in as you slide in, so from memory you pull up, then slide out towards front of car. The rear speakers will be in mounts attached to parcel tray. 6x9's will fit in by cutting parcel tray or making a mounting baffle/spacer that sits on the parcel tray. They are a pain to fit. I wouldn't fit them personally, but 6x9's are a good cheap alternative for someone who wants a bit of bass, but not a sub. Good luck man.

Good stuff, checking amp earths first may be easier than some of your tips though. Also check that suitable sized cable is being used for power requirments. Another strange one is for you Pioneer headunit owners. Apparently there is a fusable link in the RCA line outs, this can blow causing system noise. That'll be a beyatch to find if you don't know to look for it. It's an easy fix if your unit is under warranty.

Check earths as stated, also sand paint back if earths on chassis is not direct to bare metal. Or try a different earth point. And would agree that checking head unit earth is grounded direct to chassis, again, sand paint back for good contact if need be. Faulty RCA's could be the cause also. I had an intermitant noise problem that I eventually tracked down to a faulty new RCA - they were half decent ones too. So perhaps run some other RCA's to see if the noise is still there.

What have you got hooked up to it? How are they configured? You may be overloading it and it may be 'thermaling out' - overheating. What type of amp is it?