Wrx speaker spacer template

Here is a thread that I have had going for a while on legacygt. Your stock speakers have an odd shape. The speakers are contoured to fit the door, and the mounting holes are 3 holes in a roughly triangular shape where the screws go into a nylon insert as opposed to the inner door skin.

This helps prevent the screws from backing out too easily. This is a good thing, so you should try to re-use the stock mounting points. This means that you need some sort of an adapter, because aftermarket speakers typically use 4 mounting holes that are on a different mounting pattern than the stock circle.

In addition to an adapter for the mounting holes, most aftermarket speakers are more robust than the stockers. This means bigger baskets, bigger magnets, and an overall deeper profile. Sometimes, the basket diameter is much larger than the stock ones.

You need an adapter that has a larger cutout diameter. You will also need something that will allow your window to clear the larger magnet assembly on the back of aftermarket speakers. For this, you need a spacer.

If you look at a stock speaker or a picture of one , you can see that it usually has a built-in spacer. If you subtract that extra depth and just screw a replacement to the door skin, you lose a lot of mounting depth. Here is the stock mounting depth in the picture below.

As you can see, not very deep. Really, you only have 1. There is a little space between the window and the OEM speaker, so your max depth without a spacer would be more than 1. Somewhere in the 2. As you can see, what is left is not very deep. Either of these are strong, dense, and will withstand the rigors of being in car doors.

It does not split, swell, rot, mold, or fall apart like MDF. I have been using it in spacers for my cars for more than 7 years and have never had a set fail, an dI have made them for other people for almost as long with no failures to date. This happens almost immediately, even in newer cars and even with a moisture treatment applied to the wood. Car vehicle doors are a wet and moist environment. Your doors have drain holes in the bottom to mitigate this, but it is not enough to prevent the wood from absorbing what that does get in.

And second, they are custom cut to fit your speakers. Some I bought to use in my own car- other were for friends or family. In the end, nothing fit. Some were not the right shape to mount up in the car, and only one set out of six was deep enough to allow the mounting depth that I needed. Issues like these are how I first started making my own spacers. Both are 1-size fits all, and both adapt to the stock mounting holes. This helps with the depth, but not enough for all applications.

They are well-made, but are 1-size-fits-some. Some people stack them to make a deeper spacer, but then have nothing to use in the rear. Also only 1 cutout diameter. These are made of injection molded plastic- NOT what is generally recommended in the audio industry. Of the 2 above, I liked the KB ones better, but they were not deep enough for my application, so I made my own. I believe that KB has since gotten out of the spacer business.

If you go with a local shop or contact someone to make you a set, you can get the accuracy of a custom-cut set, which has some significant benefits. Just make sure that they use a quality material see above and have them made to your specs. The different inner skins make it essential that you utilize closed cell foam weatherstripping or some other form of gasket to seal up the holes.

Here is a link to a How-To post that a customer put together and offered to share with everybody. He captured the rear door process pretty well, so between the technical document above, this link, and the How-To below, you should be in pretty good shape. Working from the bottom of the door and preferably with the assistance of a plastic pry tool like I discuss in the Tools page pop the plastic retaining pins along the bottom, front, and back of the door:.

Remove and disconnect the wiring connectors from the power windows and locks pertains to all 4 doors :. Install speaker adapters by following the included instructions sorry, no pictures of the speakers installed in this particular photo set :.