The guy I always ask these questions too owns a reputable car audio place here in NH. he says it (two tweets in this case or mixing speakers factory and aftermarket) is a big no no... it will result in pre-mature failure of your amp from what I am told.

 

I hear you. That to was my concern as adding an extra spkr can halve or double the impedance. I am going to drop the factory tweeters and try it.

 

Bigziff,

My speakers showed up today. Question about the comments concerning running both tweeters causing amp problems...did you disconnect the factory tweeter?

If I just hook up new speakers without disconnecting existing tweeters what exactly will happen?

Brian

 

I just had about half of my new system installed.
I ended up installing a Kicker ZX650 4 channel amp putting out 671 watts RMS. It is just enough. I would not go with less power. The Infinity Kappa components have a decent midrange, so the wait for a subwoofer will not be too painful. We replaced the factory tweeters as well and it was super easy, and the new tweets fit original location fine. Only issue is there is no "harness" in there so you have to cut the speaker wires and splice or solder.
Couldn't find a decent place for the amp, so it went in the underseat tray of the back seat behind driver.
The factory speakers are indeed poor. You cannot buy speakers that bad. It must have taken a lot of time and energy and money to come up with a design so gutless and lame. Also nice to know I paid $1800 extra to get it, only to throw it all in the trash (except for Sync head unit). The factory magnets on the full range speakers were so lousy, even a tiny screw would not stick to their magnets!
Unfortunately after my ride home, I am now almost deaf!

 

I installed four Infinity Reference 6832cf 2-way speakers this morning in my 2011 F350 (see sig) w/ the "Premium Sound System with Sync". I kept the factory tweeters. I discovered some things.

Getting the polarity right was important in this case in order to stay in phase with the factory tweeters. Just I as discovered when upgrading speakers in my 2005 F250, the Crutchfield provided "Ford Speaker Wire Harness" is backwards, if you use them stock the new speakers will be out-of-phase with the factory tweeters. I verified this with the workshop manual electrical diagrams, plus the factory tweeters nicely show + and - on their solder tabs. So I swapped polarity on the Crutchfield harnesses for the front speakers.

Rear speaker swap took some extra work as integrated into the factory speakers is the high-pass filter for the rear tweeters (other than the filter, the front and rear speakers are identical). So I pulled the filter (a small PCB and a connector) off of each rear speaker frame and integrated them into the Crutchfield speaker harnesses when I did the polarity swap on them. Came out very nice, wish I had taken a picture.

Upon reinstallation I found that the factory screws for securing the speakers have too wide a head, they would come into contact with the membrane that suspends the speaker cone, causing wear and eventual failure. A set of #8 Philips head sheet metal screws from my local Ace Hardware resolved that problem.

Right Front Speaker - Positive white, negative white w/ brown stripe
Left Front Speaker - Positive white, negative white w/ brown stripe (yes, the same)

Right Rear Speaker - Positive brown w/ white stripe, negative brown w/ blue stripe
Left Rear Speaker - Positive white w/ green stripe or brown w/ green stripe, negative brown w/ yellow stripe

That was it. Put it all back together, sounds a lot better. Wonder if I will upgrade the subwoofer some day. That looks like a much more challenging job.

Steve

 

It's easier than you think. 2 bolts and the wire harness hold the box in. Remove those, get a new sub/amp, run your power, ground, remote on wire to your amp location. Install new sub box, tap factory sub wires (sub pos= violet w/ grn stripe, sub neg = grn w/ wht stripe) to line out converter, plug in your RCA's and speaker wire.

 

2000silverbullet - I see you selected the JL Audio 13TW5 13.5-Inch Thin-Line Subwoofer. That is the one I have been looking at myself.

JL Audio 13TW5 Subwoofers - Car Audio Subwoofers

What box did you use? Custom or off-the-shelf?

Steve

 

I'm using a spl2k box 2008superduty

 

Another vote for spl2k.... I have it in my truck

 

Nice write up Steve.
I ended up transplanting the stock speaker connector onto the new Pioneer speakers. I had to flip the connector over and bend the tabs to get the polarity correct. Like you, the factory screws head was too big, but Pioneer included screws with smaller heads. It sounds sooo much better now. I am going to replace the rear speakers next.


I just unsoldered the wires from the factory speaker (on left) and slid the connector off.
Right side shows factory connector with the leads bent over and resoldered to the tabs on the Pioneer.

-Gavin

 

What, if anything, had to be removed? like the jack or storage box?

 

Jack stays in place... Think i put the jack handle in storage tray... In my 08 I cut the back panel.... But left it in the 2011

 

Yup, jack handle has to come out and the cab vent has to be removed (new piece of dynamat comes with it to seal up the hole).

My amp and line out converter (LC6i) is in the small underseat compartment on the passenger side. Everything's accessible (by me only!) and is lockable with the factory compartment lock.

 

Word of Warning:
The "vent" the Dynamat blocks off---that is to allow air pressure to escape during air bag deployment. If you block the vent the air bags may not deploy properly, and your ear drums might be damaged.

Just an FYI

 

I've never heard of that, always thought it was for when you close the doors and/or flip the AC from vent to recirculate to equalize the pressure, but I guess I can see where all the air bags going off at once could effect that.

Plus, there's 2 cab vents, only 1 is removed.