OK Stereo Boy...

[mr2tim]

Mark1 mr2's have this OEM Toyota amp and speaker pointed at drivers hinnee.. (For those anal drivers?)

Has any owners tinkered with this ditty? Electronically? Any advice? Pitfalls?

What the baddest speaker replacement? (to keep in the original case!)

Can another assembly be 'hotwired" off the first?. In series or parallel ?.

I say we recycle these, amp them up, and blow our arss up.

Any Toyota Stories?

[muffinman]

theres not to many speaker options , i found a sub from a 90's lexus that fit with a little modification. as for using it in series i guess you could use the speaker wires for a high-input connection on an amp. but their not worth the trouble it's easier to just add a decent sub behind the passenger seat.



OH P.S. - I personally dont want to blow my A$$ up , but to each their own. good luck with that

[lsgheero]

I have the original factory sub in mine and it works great. but i've never been one for loud rumbling ass bass :P

[q-authority]

These really aren't bad units if they have a speaker in them that hasn't bought the farm. However, they have foam surrounds on them that deteriorate very easily. I would doubt that there is a surviving speaker in any one of these units still on the road that doesn't have a surround full of holes. The other bad news is that they use a bit of an unusual speaker size (5" I believe). Take it apart and measure it, it's not that hard. The good news is that you can probably find a few speakers to choose from on the internet with a little work. I happened upon a matching pair that were taken out of a Mercedes or BMW many years ago, when these things were much harder to find and still have them. They had a much bigger magnet than the stock unit and just verily fit, so make sure you take measurements and check against those of the new model.
Now for some news that I don't think many people, if any seem to know about. The passenger seat in the MKI has the same layout underneath it, as the driver's side. If you can get your hands on an extra butt amp you can parallel wire it into the original, where the wiring comes up inside the radio console, and bolt the extra unit underneath the passenger seat. The same mounting holes and one bolt are there if you look carefully. The front two bolt holes are on the back side of the front seat support brace (just where they are on the driver's side) and the back mounting bolt and hole is there under the carpet and a little bit of body putty. I found this while looking for a good place to ground some after market amps. The rear bolt will be somewhat obvious because of its high profile. Once found, just cut a small bit of carpet from around it, or a flap if you wish to keep it intact, and then work the body putty off from around the bolt head and remove the bolt. Clean up the area a little bit and there you are. You will then just need to match a couple of small bolts for the front mounting holes.
Now, trace the wires from your other unit, to the head unit, and duplicate this set of wires for the other one. However, if you don't have an extra unit plug on hand you might have to get creative when connecting that end of the circuit. However, one could easily be removed from any junked MKI and wired in.
If using an aftermarket head unit try connecting both units off the low voltage/line level sub outlet to start with and see if it's output can be turned up high enough to drive them properly. If not, connect them to a speaker output (although as most aftermarket units now have considerably higher outputs than the original stock unit did, you will probably have to keep it's output turned down, if possible, so as not to overdrive the units).
After years of after market high end head units, amps, and behind the seat subs, I am seriously considering going back to a more simple set up such as this on my ’89 SC project. I am starting to prefer the sound of a well tuned engine to that of the stereo and it’s much easier to know what your car is doing when the stereo isn't quite so damn loud.
Good luck!

[mr2tim]

I've already read your post 3x trying to absord your info thru this thick skull of mine.

I went out and slapped a similiar sized speaker into the 1st of 4 of these butt amp boxes back in the garage.

Didn't get any Lawrence Welk music...no dancin' tonight!

I'll keep interchanging these boxes and speakers till I figure out what your e-mail said.

You want any of these butt boxes after I get the 2 I need?

cudos

mr2tim

ps real racecars don't have stereos, I know what you mean.

[q-authority]

Originally Posted by mr2tim

I've already read your post 3x trying to absord your info thru this thick skull of mine.

I went out and slapped a similiar sized speaker into the 1st of 4 of these butt amp boxes back in the garage.

Didn't get any Lawrence Welk music...no dancin' tonight!

I'll keep interchanging these boxes and speakers till I figure out what your e-mail said.

You want any of these butt boxes after I get the 2 I need?

cudos

mr2tim

ps real racecars don't have stereos, I know what you mean.

mr2tim (thanks for the cudos):
a) is your wiring stock and being fed by a stock head unit;
b) are you getting any sound from it at all;
c) was the speaker amp being used working before the attempted speaker switch;
d) what led you to want to replace the speaker in the first place; &
e) are you referring to the original driver's side unit or an additional parallel unit?

Happy to help if possible.

[muffinman]

Originally Posted by q-authority

These really aren't bad units if they have a speaker in them that hasn't bought the farm. However, they have foam surrounds on them that deteriorate very easily. I would doubt that there is a surviving speaker in any one of these units still on the road that doesn't have a surround full of holes. The other bad news is that they use a bit of an unusual speaker size (5" I believe). Take it apart and measure it, it's not that hard. The good news is that you can probably find a few speakers to choose from on the internet with a little work. I happened upon a matching pair that were taken out of a Mercedes or BMW many years ago, when these things were much harder to find and still have them. They had a much bigger magnet than the stock unit and just verily fit, so make sure you take measurements and check against those of the new model.
Now for some news that I don't think many people, if any seem to know about. The passenger seat in the MKI has the same layout underneath it, as the driver's side. If you can get your hands on an extra butt amp you can parallel wire it into the original, where the wiring comes up inside the radio console, and bolt the extra unit underneath the passenger seat. The same mounting holes and one bolt are there if you look carefully. The front two bolt holes are on the back side of the front seat support brace (just where they are on the driver's side) and the back mounting bolt and hole is there under the carpet and a little bit of body putty. I found this while looking for a good place to ground some after market amps. The rear bolt will be somewhat obvious because of its high profile. Once found, just cut a small bit of carpet from around it, or a flap if you wish to keep it intact, and then work the body putty off from around the bolt head and remove the bolt. Clean up the area a little bit and there you are. You will then just need to match a couple of small bolts for the front mounting holes.
Now, trace the wires from your other unit, to the head unit, and duplicate this set of wires for the other one. However, if you don't have an extra unit plug on hand you might have to get creative when connecting that end of the circuit. However, one could easily be removed from any junked MKI and wired in.
If using an aftermarket head unit try connecting both units off the low voltage/line level sub outlet to start with and see if it's output can be turned up high enough to drive them properly. If not, connect them to a speaker output (although as most aftermarket units now have considerably higher outputs than the original stock unit did, you will probably have to keep it's output turned down, if possible, so as not to overdrive the units).
After years of after market high end head units, amps, and behind the seat subs, I am seriously considering going back to a more simple set up such as this on my ’89 SC project. I am starting to prefer the sound of a well tuned engine to that of the stereo and it’s much easier to know what your car is doing when the stereo isn't quite so damn loud.
Good luck!

sorry i didn't read the whole thing but just to clarify it's a 4 inch sub

[q-authority]

Originally Posted by muffinman

sorry i didn't read the whole thing but just to clarify it's a 4 inch sub

Okay, I had to go pull my spare unit out of storage, open it up, and measure the damn thing.
What did I find? The speaker, I replaced the stock unit with, is actually slightly bigger than a 4". Apparently a weird 4 1/2" Pioneer unit. However, the amp unit will accept a normal 4" speaker as the mounting holes appear to be a direct match for them. I don't have an actual original speaker to compare it to (actually I do, but I'm not tearing the one out from under my sc driver's seat just to look!).
Whereas, the replacement speaker I have used fills up the unit's speaker grill completely, a standard 4" speaker will not. I compared it directly to a 4" Infinity 4.25ci, which has a slightly oversized speaker surround, and my replacement speaker was approximately 1/2" larger in diameter.
I seem to recall that the original speaker also was a bit larger than a normal 4" unit. I showed it to a car audio specialist, who at the time said that it was an odd in-between size unit. He happened to have a stock pair he had just taken out of a BMW or Mercedes that looked almost identical, so I purchased them and never thought to check it any further. The Japanese are definitely known for using odd size speakers here and there, so it wouldn't surprise me.
So definitely not 5" as I had thought, but maybe not really 4" either.

[muffinman]

Originally Posted by q-authority

So definitely not 5" as I had thought, but maybe not really 4" either.

I got a 4" Nakamichi out of a Lexus GS and it works really good but you need to make a 1/2" spacer for the box cover. It fits fine and does not even come close to touching the bottom of the seat.

[q-authority]

Originally Posted by muffinman

I got a 4" Nakamichi out of a Lexus GS and it works really good but you need to make a 1/2" spacer for the box cover. It fits fine and does not even come close to touching the bottom of the seat.

Yes, most 4" speakers will probably fit one way or another. However, I think the original speakers were designed with a larger speaker basket and foam on the front on them, or another design perhaps, to seal the front of the speaker against the top of the bass unit/speaker grill. This would have prevented the sound waves from leaking around the front edge of the speaker frame. It would have been somewhat of a sealed box design and probably would have given much better controlled bass for such a small speaker.

[muffinman]

Originally Posted by q-authority

Yes, most 4" speakers will probably fit one way or another. However, I think the original speakers were designed with a larger speaker basket and foam on the front on them, or another design perhaps, to seal the front of the speaker against the top of the bass unit/speaker grill. This would have prevented the sound waves from leaking around the front edge of the speaker frame. It would have been somewhat of a sealed box design and probably would have given much better controlled bass for such a small speaker.

there is no foam on the front of the speaker it's just screwed to the lid but there is a rubber seal between the box and the lid

[goixoye]

I was feeling around under the seats hoping to find some gold coins or other treasures left behind by the previous owner...didn't find anything but did notice the box under the driver's side...so maybe I've got one of these sub things? I guess you have to take the seat out to get to it? It would make sense that the passenger side would be prepped for one since in some parts of the world that's where the driver sits.

[jdchmiel]

Parts-Express.com - Speakers, Speaker Building, Home Audio and Video, Pro Audio, Electronic Parts & Accessories sells some deccent mini subs that can be fit in with some tweaking.

[muffinman]

Originally Posted by goixoye

I was feeling around under the seats hoping to find some gold coins or other treasures left behind by the previous owner...didn't find anything but did notice the box under the driver's side...so maybe I've got one of these sub things? I guess you have to take the seat out to get to it? It would make sense that the passenger side would be prepped for one since in some parts of the world that's where the driver sits.

i guess it's possible to put another one on the passenger side but you would have to run all new wire. the only problem is that it's connected to the front speakers instead of to the radio

[BAM1987]

thats true, it is connecting to the front speakers for some reason and not on a amp channel by itself. but anyways, the amp still works in mine, but the speaker was thrashed so i pulled the wires through and extended them. and connected the amp to my 10 in behind the passengers seat. it works realy well believe it or not

[tymr287]

I found these speakers, but I'm not sure if they're still available.

Clarion SRV303 Subwoofer Enclosures

[q-authority]

Originally Posted by tymr287

I found these speakers, but I'm not sure if they're still available.

Clarion SRV303 Subwoofer Enclosures

Good find! Looks like there may be a few of them around, but it is being replaced by the SRV314.
Interesting item as it is about small enough to actually fit under the MR2 seats. Kenwood had a slightly bigger unit that I had thought about using behind the seats, but this or the new one are interesting.
The following review came from Crutchfield, but they did not say where they mounted it.

"4 out of 5 stars
Written By Eleanor, Mass. on Friday, September 08, 2006

I read all the bad reviews on here and decided to buy this item anyway. I’m glad I did. I think people are expecting too much out of this. It is a 7" speaker, this is not going to add a ton a bass to any car. I am running two of these in a 1986 Toyota MR2. They add a great amount bass in this little car. I also had only two 4" dash speakers so low end sound didn't exist before. For this car they are perfect. If you have a large car or mount this in the trunk you will be disappointed.

Getting the settings right makes a huge difference in the sound quality. I am running the crossover at a hair over 80Hz and the phase is REVERSED. Reversing the phase made the biggest difference. With it at normal the bass was very boomy and muddled. I am also able to set a high pass crossover for the 4's with the head unit. This prevents the smaller speakers from distorting when you turn up the bass. I have these set at 80Hz also. I wonder if some are cranking the bass for these subs and killing sound quality of the stock smaller speakers."

Of course these things are all relative. There were several bad reviews as well, but I think most people expect way too much of these items and seldom know how to set them up properly. If you are looking for just a simple improvement over the stock unit then these might be fine. I just hope the remote control can still be left on the unit.