Absolute nightmare HELP NEEDED dashboard speaker replacement

Sorry about the big title but I need the brain trust in here. I'm trying to replace the dash speakers in my 996 turbo and I seem to have an unusual amount of factory cabling below the mounting point on the driver's side, which is fouling the speaker when I try to drop it in. Previous owner seems to have cut the black plastic shielding already, but i need another 10mm at least to get the magnet of even the most meagre of after market speakers to drop in. (I have Alpine SPG-10C2 which are the go-to drop in replacement. I also have Audison APX4 which are actually slightly more compact - neither fit). Here is another image I found of the area (from @Super_Paulie 's ebay page) but I don't know which model 996 it's from. You can see a cable there but nothing like as many wires and girth as on mine: Has anyone else done this and come across the same issue? How did you get around it? I am open to ideas. 1. Moving the cables seems... tricky but does anyone know what they do and how I would go about doing it? 2. Custom grills/pods for the speakers? might look a bit non-oem but even running the speaker sitting 10mm out of the dash sounds 10 times better than the OEM bose, so I could live with it. 3. Heavily modifying the Porsche grill to get the speaker right up into it? Anyone done that before? (Right now I have both the @Super_Paulie adaptors as well as the www.cai-store.com Rod ones. Again neither give enough clearance) I am pretty desperate. No bad ideas in here. All recommendations welcomed!

It looks like your earth is orientated differently to those shown in the photos. Maybe slacken the earth nut and reposition the cabling out of the way before retightening the nut. Hope that helps Andrew

reposition the wires, but as you said you need better access was this an upgrade by the former owner ?

They're all just earths, the brown ones? I guess as they're strapped to a bit of metal that would make sense wouldn't it Okay will see if i can push them around a bit. It's a nightmare with the windscreen in the way but I'm also not keen to take the entire dashboard off... No it's me doing the upgrade now but from the looks of the cut on that black plastic piece, I would think someone has been in here before?

someone has definitely been in there before

Also Rob from the Throttlecable,

Thanks both. Yeah if you look I have a LOT more bulbous cablage situated above the metal member than in those videos. Maybe taking the binnacle out will give me enough space to unscrew the earth and route them underneith it. Not sure. Certainly it's more work than I'd bargained for.

Binnacle removal is luckily very easy. MC

...I can make life easier for you buddy...don't bother for the meagre gains in the most acoustically poor platform and car...these things are so noisy...I've Bose and a Bluetooth ready HU but literally never ever turn it on!I TBH mines a high days and holidays car so much rather roll the windows down and turn the engine up ... If you manage it though think of the sense of satisfaction...

Thanks GMG but I've already got the amp in and the door speakers changed - even with the speaker sitting an inch proud on the dash the sound is honestly 10x the Bose. I was on the fence for ages as to whether to tear everything apart but then I read a post from about 10 years ago from an audio engineer who put his test mics in the car and realised the bose amp was killing a load of frequencies no matter what you did with the sound settings. That did it for me and even though it's been a massive pain in the arse I would still thoroughly recommend removing anything that says "bose" on it in the 996 and putting in even the most meagre modern equipment for a much cleaner and fuller sound.

...seriously I never turn the stereo on

I’ve seen some 996’s with the cabling on top of the cable shields. This was bad quality control from the factory. All the wires should be underneath. Only way to correct is what had been done and cut the part away although not ideal.

@Menace that's interesting. so are you saying this cut into that shield might have been done by porsche? i am going to get the binnacle out and see if i can move the cables under the bar... it doesn't look like they would foul anything assuming they will stretch.

Hi, The cable being on top of the cowling for sure but someone has cut it to push the wires in the correct space as moving the cables underneath would be almost possible.

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Hello, I’m having exactly the same issue with the APX4 on drivers side. Did you manage to resolve this? If so, what was the fix? Cheers