Venturer

Hi

I'm the owner of an european 1991 RX7 FC Convertible Turbo. The car has an oem eletrical factory preparation for 1 DIN stereo plus 2 door speakers. As can i see it doesn't have built in oem amplifier!

How can i know if it has the oem preparation for a woofer? If i discover it where can i find wire terminals for the subwoofer? And where can i install the woofer?

I'm using a DAB+ Sony Car Stereo plus 2 Sony speakers. The system sounds well but it needs a woofer!

Thank you!

professionalpyroman

Hi there,

I looked in the manual, and there should be 2 separate amplifiers for a convertible. One should power the two door speakers as subwoofers, and one should power your head rest speakers. I don't know much about the head rest speakers or amp, but I rebuilt my door speaker amp (located in footwell) and got it to work with my aftermarket stereo.

I replaced my dead door speakers with some Rockford Fosgate speakers and they put out plenty of bass for that little car. The factory door speaker amp is a small, matchbox sized thing below the dash in one of the foot wells. Not sure which one on a euro car. It has one or two plugs to the factory harness and that's it. To repair mine, I had to replace all the capacitors, as they had decayed over time. Plugged it back in and it worked great. Those door amplifiers require a good chassis ground connection through the case to function, so make sure your bolt connections are clean. As far as controlling the factory door sub amp, the amp signal line from your stock head unit should be able to control how much the amp adjusts the signal. I just have a cheap radio with high, low, or off settings, so no variable voltage to tune it. A good quality head unit or equalizer should allow for finer adjustments.

Best of luck, keep us updated

edit: also note that no amplification signal from head unit, or if someone bypassed the plugs at the amplifier, no practical bass will show up at the door speakers. With the amp working and decent speakers, you'll have plenty

Venturer

Thank you professionalpyroman

But i can confirm you that USA convertible model and the European one are completely different regarding the audio system.

The european model hasn't head rest speakers! It has only oem preparation for 1 din stereo and door speakers.It hasn't a stereo installed from factory nor the door speakers. It has only the wirings! Also it hasn't any amplifier!

professionalpyroman

You mean someone remove it or it was never there to begin with? It seems like a lot of different cars sold in Europe seem to be missing things. Radios, air conditioning, wheels. Really strange market.

Venturer

it was never there from factory.

Air conditioning was starndard for Rx7 cabrio sold into my country however it was an optional for other countries. Also in the USA Rx7 convertible Turbo never arrived while here turbo is standard for the convertibles.

Hot_Dog

I know your car's unique compared to US models, but all of the US-spec S5 coupes had an audio amplifier mounted under the dash behind the left side of glove box. Here's a photo of what it looked like. You sure you don't have one of these in your E-spec turbo vert?

Venturer

Hot Dog

I'm sure this unit is "NOT PRESENT".

And i deeply checked that no wires under the dash were cut and joined after. Wires from the stereo connector go directly to the door speakers and to the main electrical system of the car!

Also i noticed that my car hasn't the speaker grid on the back of the driver's seat (for the woofer?) as shown on Rx7 Fc USA service manual. Usa convertibles should have the woofer near the driver's seat. While in my car is not present! The speaker grid doesn't exist there is only the plain carpet!

Venturer

Hot Dog

Do you confirm that all the RX7s FC generation sold in the US had a 2 din stereo?

Here in Europe in the 80's since middle 90's was a very common trend to sell the cars with only the audio factory preparation (no factory stereo, no speakers.....only the wirings) and all cars with the factory audio preparation are for 1 DIN aftermarket stereo. No 2 DIN stereo was allowed. If i wanted to mount a 2 DIN stereo i had to change the central plastic bezel!

professionalpyroman

Oh my. That sounds obnoxious. Since you don't have any of the audio equipment or setup, it might be to find a car audio store and have them make you a custom setup.

Venturer

Here's a video of my vert made 2 weeks ago!

As you can see no head rest speakers and 1 din stereo!

Hot_Dog

My first 2nd gen RX7, that I bought new in 1986, was a Sport model (i.e., NA coupe) and had an AM/FM stereo receiver, an equalizer and a storage bin at the bottom. Similar to the following photo but without the cassette player. So, I guess that would be considered a 1.5 DIN system?




My current 1990 RX7 GXL (NA Coupe), that I also bought new, originally came with an AM/FM stereo receiver, CD player and cassette player. Similar to the following photo but without the bottom "High Power System". There was a plastic cover in place of the "High Power System". So, I guess that can be considered a double DIN system?




When the display died on that radio I replaced it with a system as shown in the above photo, which I believe is a 2.5 DIN system. This system has since died and I replaced it with a Panasonic 50W AM/FM/CD stereo head unit, which is a single DIN unit.

Venturer

They where both 2 din stereo (2x size of a normal single tray stereo - 1DIN)

if you see through the whatsapp video i posted above you can see the central dash of my European rx7 vert with 1din stereo.

Hot_Dog

Sharp looking car, BTW!

Venturer

It's my baby! It's in a showroom status. Only thing she needs is a good audio system. I just bought the stereo: a Sony MEX-N7300BD plus Sony speakers. It sounds really good (it can play FLACs also) but the system is missing lows! I absolutely need a woofer!

professionalpyroman

Here's an idea for a sub location. Since there isn't a spot in the doors or in the seats, what about installing a sub behind the driver's seat, under the carpet for the toolbox? That would keep it covered so you'd never see it, but it would be oriented towards the driver.

The car looks fantastic by the way.

Venturer

Thank you!

But i think there is another big difference between US and European model: i have no toolbox behind the driver's seat!!! The toolbox on the European RX7 vert version is located inside a dedicated compartement into the rear trunk!

Hot_Dog

I've once owned a 2002 Acura RSX with a Bose stereo system. The Bose sub-woofer/amplifier assembly was mounted in the spare tire well, which was recessed in the trunk floor. The Nissan 370Z also used a similar setup (https://www.ebay.com/itm/13-16-NISSA....c100677.m4598). Low frequencies, such as that from a sub-woofer, are non-directional. So, you can really mount your sub-woofer anywhere in your car.

You might want consider using a low profile sub-woofer/amplifier such as:
https://www.rockvilleaudio.com/USS8/...yABEgLP2_D_BwE.

You can put it under the seat, if it'll fit, or in the trunk. I'm just throwing out suggestions here.

.

Venturer

Thank you!

But there are 2 empty grids for speakers that actually aren't used: 1 under the wheel and 1 under the glove box. The speakers that are wired actually are inside the doors. So i can put a mini woofer into these small grids.

But my question is: how can i link it to the stereo?
I can't use the oem wiring because it doesn't exist for the woofer. So? Can i link the woofer to a normal analog output of the stereo? Thank you.

Here is the back of my stereo:
Can i simply link the sub wires to the sub marked connector? Will it work together with the speakers without touching anything?

Hot_Dog

If you click on the Rockville weblink and scroll to the bottom of the page there's another link to the User's Manual. The User's Manual provides some limited info. The sub-woofer requires L&R audio inputs via RCA connectors. Since you're using only two L&R speakers (i.e., your door speakers) then you should have two free L&R channel RCA jacks on the back of the receiver. You can either run those two remaining Red & White RCA terminals or the two sub RCA terminals to the sub-woofer. You'll need to checkout your receiver's instruction manual on what frequencies those two sub connectors output. The Rockville sub has has a variable low frequency control, so using the R&W RCA outputs would probably give you move flexibility with the bass output control. Obviously, you'll need 12V 20A power supply and there's power supply switched terminal that's connected to your receiver. The RJ45 connector is for the remote bass control.

I'm unaware of the quality of this Rockville active sub-woofer. I just pulled that off the web as an example. I once owned an Infinity Bass Link active sub-woofer for my Acura, but I think those sub units are no longer available. You may want to either search for Rockville sub reviews or look at other manufacture's of active sub-woofers.

Venturer

Thank you Hot Dog......but i'm searching a 4" PASSIVE subwoofer so i don't need power supply anymore!