89 Vert.
I am installing an aftermarket radio and replacing my door speakers and eventually my headrest speakers and puting in one sub. I do not plan on replacing my dash speakers as I read since they aim at the ground and whatnot it's kinda pointless. I'll just have the door and dash speakers ran on the same line I guess. I'll figure something out for that.

What I need to know is where is a place that sells the radio kits? The only ones the stereo shop can get AFAIK is a plastic one and a metal one both placing the radio it the center and not the top so I can use the lower DIN for a pocket or gauges. Pictures, part numbers, and whatever would be appreciated.

One of the previous owner of the car had some aftermarket speakers in at one time and from what it looks like he clipped the door speaker harness under the steering wheel and used butt connectors to go the the speakers I guess this was to bypass some amp? He left the bypassed connector unplugged and under the spare tire cover on the amp is another unplugged harness. I don't really know why I'm telling you all this I guess it just pisses me off that the guy couldn't had just ran all new wire instead on butcher stuff up in various places. It probably will not take long to figure everything out.

The guys at the stereo shop told me to power my headrest off the radio with no amp since the ones I'm putting in don't require very much power. I'll run the head rests off the rear channel of the radio. If I retain the center console switches the left seat will be only left channel while the right is only the right channel right? So will I have to bypass those switches or can I just switch some wires around?

Also does anyone have any papers about building a box for the sub back there?

I guess what I'm really trying to ask is for a template or pictures of vert sub boxes, A place that sells the type of radio kit I'm looking for, and how do you replace the headrest speakers and if I need to rewire it.

There was a bunch of posts about vert sub boxes and headrests and so on.. but I guess they were deleted?

 

oh and I have read about how with an aftermarket radio the antannae doesn't operate anymore how do you fix that?

 

bump

 

ok...hold on...trying to get through everything in your post...it jumps around a bit.

1) Radio surround/kit...there was a guy on the forum that sold aluminum radio surrounds with a din sized opening for your radio, and 3 holes for gauges. It bolted right in. I can't remember what his name is...or if he still sells them. You'll have to search in the 2nd gen classified section. Other than that, you may be stuck with the plastic kits that you get at car audio shops.

2)Speaker setup....It sounds like you're planning to run door speakers and headrest speakers. Are you running the door speakers off of an amp or off of your head unit? If you run the door speakers off of an amp, then you can wire up your headrest speakers to your radio. Then wire up the headrest speakers as follows:

1) driver side left headrest speaker to front left channel of radio
2) driver side right headrest speaker to rear left channel of radio
3) passenger side left headrest speaker to front right channel of radio
4) passenger side right headrest speaker to rear right channel of radio

Now your balance controls will balance each headrest left to right, but your fade controls will be useless...but you don't really need fade if all your channels are for headrests.

Alternatively...if you're running your door speakers off of your radio as well...then use the front channels of the radio for your doors. Then replace your headrest speakers with 2-ohm speakers...wire the 2 left speakers in each headrest in series and then to the left rear channel of your radio. Then run the 2 right headrest speakers in series and then to the rear right channel of your radio. This will still give you the left/right balance control and still present a 4-ohm load to your radio. This will also give you fade control so that you can fade to your front door speakers..or fade more to your headrest speakers. This is the route that I would recommend you take.

You could also do the above wiring with your stock headrest speakers...they'll just present an 8-ohm load to your radio which just means they won't be getting about half the power to them.

3) Sub boxes...I don't know any plans specifically for the vert trunk. Maybe somebody else can chime in.

 

Here's the guy that I bought my radio/gauge surround from. You can PM him and see if he still sells them...I'm sure he could give you some pics as well if he still sells them.

https://www.rx7club.com/members/1fastt2-16/

 

I think all you really need for a S5 is a filler for the lower half of the double-din opening of the stock radio- but it may just be that the S5 radio surround I swapped into my S4 'vert already had an adapter kit in it. The S4s I know require a radio kit- but I've seen them at most automotive stores like AutoZone and Advance. If they don't have it on the shelves, they'll usually happily order it for you.

X-JaVeN-X's suggestions as to wiring up the speakers are fairly solid. If you want to keep the controls for the headrest speakers stock though, you should be able to feed the line out from your head unit to them using the wires in the harness- I believe your S5 is supposed to take a line-level input vs. the speaker level my S4 runs off of. Though it sounds like you may not have the headrest amp, it should be behind the driver's seat where that harness you said you found disconnected was, it's a silver box bolted to the front wall of the well on the driver's side.

As far as replacing the headrest speakers- sorry, I can't help much there. Mine are all in good shape so I didn't bother. But you should just have to take the headrest off (held on by a bolt I believe), unzip the cover and I'd guess they're fairly accessible.

Good luck with the sub box- I know Icemark at one point (a ways back) mentioned that he was working on making bandpass sub boxes for the 'verts to put under the spare tire, but I haven't seen anything other than that one initial post about them from him. I right now just have a 10" sub in a generic 1 cu. ft. box stuffed under the rear cover and out of sight in my 'vert- it doesn't fit perfectly and I can't carry the spare where it's supposed to be, but it does fit and it sounds really good. I plan to make a custom box for it, but have been worrying more about the more important mechanical issues than niceties like the stereo. If you do find a really good fitting box- please let me know!

Actually, I've got a second one of the boxes I'm using that I'd sell you for $20 or so- but it's kind of heavy and would likely cost at least that much to ship on top of that.

 

Ok, thanks for the replies.. I know I'm a bit imcoherent in my posts.. I usually don't write my posts in one sitting or top down but as a bunch of ideas and later add more to it..

I think my s5 has the silver amp for the headrests but I believe I'm going to remove it in favour of wiring the headrests to the radio. The door speakers will have to be amp powered. They are Rockford Fosgate T162C which is the Power series.

I'll PM that guy and ask about the radio kit.

I think I'm going to attempt to make a fibreglass box. Depending on how expensive it gets versuses my local stereo guys doing it. And AFAIK it will also not allow you to use the spare tire space. For I am needing 1.25ft3. I have a 12inch sub from my other car else I could probably easily get 1ft3. If I can get a decent fibreglass box going. I may try to make a few to sell them. But I don't know if it'll get that far and they probably with look rought becuase the tire cover covers them so cosmetics isn't a problem.

Again Thanks.