I don't intend this to be a full DIY since I didn't take near enough photos, and actually the kit comes with fairly decent instructions (which I'll comment on.)
The kit
987/986 Boxster Rear Speaker Kit
987/986 Boxster Rear Speaker Kit
Check out the deal on 987/986 Boxster Rear Speaker Kit at Suncoast Porsche Parts & Accessories
www.suncoastparts.com
Has two speaker panels that take the place of the worthless storage bins at the end of the storage unit that mounts above the top engine cover. This unit has 3 bins in it, two small ones - one at each end, and a large central one with doors. I guess one could put a wallet or sunglasses, maybe even a pair of gloves in the end bins, but in 3 years of ownership, I've never stored a thing in them. Wasted space IMHO, and with as tight an interior as the 987 Boxster has - one is loath to let space go to waste.
Plus I like making subtle modifications to cars I own. I usually find when I run out of ideas for these modifications, I start to lose interest in the vehicle. Since this one is intended to outlast me (I'm old..) I keep thinking of things I'd like to change. That's ranged from exhaust tips, to horns, to a painted console, new steering wheel, and dash trim on the interior, to an updated "head" unit (radio for us old pharts), backup camera, and other odds and bits.
So - the kit from Suncoast had been on my DIY list for the Boxster almost since I got the car. Last Christmas my wife and son got together and bought it for me - which is a wonderful thing - but with advancing age come less flexibility and working in the cramped interior of the Boxster wasn't a winter sort of project - even in my garage - tools would be cold and that makes everything more difficult.
This past weekend - Sunday was supposed to be a storm (which never really arrived) and Monday was supposed to be warm with more rain (a minimal amount arrived.) The key thing was warm, it made it possible for me to move enough to tackle this sort of job.
So - the kit came out, I put the top in service position and removed the storage bin, bringing it indoors to work on it in some sort of comfort (seems every workspace in my garage has something on it - and that would require standing while I did the work, something I can't do for too long) - so our spare Thanksgiving table in our den was put to use to assemble the speaker system.
I basically followed the instructions that accompanied the kit. The kit is extremely complete - right down to specialized Porsche fasteners for the electrical connectors, a selection of connectors and cables depending on if you had a stock radio or the Bose system (with its amplifier), and needed clips and tie-wraps and other small parts you'd never think to order if you were putting the kit together yourself. Apparently, at some time Porsche offered such a kit - and Sunset has found a company that improved on (better speakers) that kit, and offers it for a very reasonable price (considering the complexity and completeness.)
I'll just comment on things I found out weren't covered and a few things I did differently.
o - One must remove the small storage bins in the storage unit. this would be easy if Porsche hadn't glued them in using hot glue across the base of them where they meet the front panel of the unit. The instructions mentioned using a razor knife I believe to detach this. That doesn't work, the factory used a lot of glue that was now hard as a rock. What did work was a Dremel tool (TM) with a metal cutting wheel. I used this to cut the plastic lip the bins were attached to, and once that was cut they could be wiggled out. I then used a cylindrical cutting tool to smooth the remaining rough plastic on the lip. Trying to do this with a razor knife would be risking your life. Beg, steal, borrow a Dremel if you don't own one (you really should - makes a great Father's Day gift.)
o - Once that was done - the speaker assemblies were supposed to be installed followed by installing the metal grilles (which are actual Porsche parts.) That's a really stupid way to do it - the grilles should be installed BEFORE the speakers. Installing the speakers greatly limits access to the back of the grilles making it hard to impossible to correctly fasten them in. Do the grilles FIRST.
o - I used some 2-sided-adhesive butyl-rubber tape one of the inmates here had gifted me with some time ago (Hi Ed! thanks!) It's about 3/4" wide and about 1/16" thick - and was perfect for attaching the bottom edge of the grilles. The top edges of the grilles were hot-glued in (which would be impossible if the speakers were in place.) The grilles were about 1/8" too long for the space they sit in, so a bit of snipping with tin-snips adjusted the fit. When done they looked like they belonged there - which they did since they are real Porsche parts.
o - The speaker assemblies are simply screwed in place. There is one center screw that can cause problems, mostly because it wasn't used for the storage box assemblies, and the stud/hole it screws into isn't threaded. With the speakers in place, this was REALLY hard to get started due to the magnets capturing the screw and Torx driver.. I finally figured out I should take the speakers out, thread that screw in so there are threads in the hole it's going into, and then it went together easily.
o - The orientation of the speakers on one side (left from memory) is such that the wiring connectors to them face the bottom of the storage unit. That bottom is open and I was afraid the carpeting the unit rests on might push these up into the speaker magnets causing a short circuit. Simple fix - I put electrical tape around that section of the magnets. On the other side, this isn't an issue.
Speaker assembly in place left side. Note the tape on magnets to avoid shorts, and the PITA screw location is marked. Thread the screw into that stud/hole and then remove it BEFORE mounting the speakers. There aren't any threads since that hole wasn't used with the storage bins.
The total amount of time doing this part of the work - is probably about 4 hours or so. If I did it again, with the lessons I learned I could probably cut that time down to 2-3 hours.
That's pretty much it for the preparation work... I'll continue in the next message, the day of installing it.
Installing it.
o - The wiring that was done in the storage unit housing leaves the connector for the speakers coming out the right side of the housing. Since this connector has to be accessible to R&R the housing when engine access is needed - the kit has instructions on mounting the connector in a mysterious hole in the roll-bar that I was never sure I found (I might have.. but was uncertain.) It was to be mounted using a clip they provided. For removal that would require first disconnecting the connector in rather an awkward spot, and then taking the connector out of the clip to the roll-bar. That seemed overkill to me.
I simply plugged the supplied wiring (with the mating connector) together and tucked them under the storage housing. There is plenty of room for them, and it would be much easier to access and disconnect it when removal was needed. I suspect this was where
Porsche
mounted it from the factory or from their kit.
o - The instructions also had you removing the top engine cover, the front/firewall engine cover, the carpeted cover for the seatbelt, the seat and the complete carpet on the starboard side (passenger in the US) seat area. The wiring was then run along the sill on that side, and across the floor behind the carpeting up front and finally to the radio. WAY too much work.
This probably is how
Porsche
did it - possibly from the factory, but when I installed my backup camera, I found a much easier path from the back to behind the center console stack.
I tucked the wiring behind the carpeted cover for the seatbelt by simply pulling that out a bit (nothing disconnected) and tucking it back behind it. When I reached the horizontal junction between the carpet cover for the firewall hatch, I tucked it under the bottom edge of that carpet cover - running it to - the center console. It then is easily tucked up under the edge of the center console - and run forward to the radio stack.
Running it this way - maybe 15 minutes. Doing it the
Porsche
way - probably a full day working at my arthritic speed.
Finally, I got it up in the radio console area (this required using a "fish" from inside the hole for the radio to the outside and pulling the cable in using the fish. Standard electrical procedure.. look it up if uncertain.)
o - The radio I have has a bunch of RCA outputs for external amps, including a subwoofer output, but since these are 3" speakers with 1" tweeters they weren't really designed for a lot of woofing, and I thought they'd work better as full-range speakers (within their limits).
The radio also has high-level outputs for front and rear speakers, left/right. As it was hooked up, the dash and upper door speakers were hooked to the front speaker outputs. The rear outputs were connected to the door-woofers.
I ended up hooking these up in parallel to the rear outputs and the door-woofers. This actually worked really well since the door woofers have a filter on them removing any signal probably above about 2kHz. By putting the new speakers in parallel the new speakers were then able to use the signal from about 100Hz to whatever the top end of the amp would output. It made the rear speaker a full-range speaker assembly, with speakers in the doors (existing) and speakers behind the seats.
I was able to balance out the system so it really sounds full range with low distortion. I can adjust the front/rear balance now using the controls on the radio.
The radio I have is one from an out-of-business company - A Rosen Barracuda. I chose it because it was brand-new and cheap on eBay (it had originally been $1,000 when they were in business) and it could play anything and has quite good navigation (I prefer it to Helga the
Porsche
nav in my
Cayenne
..) It can do AM/FM/Traffic, Satellite, CD or DVD (both audio and video), auxiliary input, streaming BlueTooth, cellphone BlueTooth,
iPod
, USB and memory card. There isn't anything I've found it can't connect to or play. Updating the maps is $49/year, not like
Porsche
's $500 every decade or so. The maps are up to date and updates are available quarterly. The only downsides are - no factory support, it was a dealer/audio-shop installed system, so not much aftermarket support.
The only other issue is - there isn't much room behind the radio, and with all those connections - it's really difficult to get the radio pushed in flush with the surrounding dash.
Overall - my satisfaction with this "mod" is high. It has made a pleasant place to be even pleasanter, and that's likely to keep me in the car for the foreseeable future (which will make my wife happy.)
I'll try to take photos of it tomorrow - but not a lot to really see, just two grilles where there used to be two holes.
Love it,
@deilenberger
!!! Thanks for the write-up. I finally pulled the trigger on this over the weekend and the next shipping date (backordered) is 6/15. Looking forward to this and this will be a huge help.
This is really great - thanks! As a matter of interest, did you do a similar set of notes for installing the backup camera? I'm intersted in what sort of backup camera you got, and also some more details for routing the cable you mentioned above.
See my reply to your question on a backup camera.. it's already there.
Suncoast
kit arrives tomorrow after a two month backorder.
Any chance you could post a photo of the finished product,
@deilenberger
?
Also, are you saying if my head unit has open L and R RCA female jacks, they can just plug in there? If so, that would be stupidly easy. Sounds like this project will be easier than ripping open both door panels off to replace the busted door subwoofers...
I'll try to take some pics tomorrow in sunlight. As I mentioned - there isn't a lot to see. Grilles where there used to be holes.
And -- no, I can't say what your "head unit" has. No idea actually. Mine is an aftermarket unit, and I simply connected the speakers in parallel to the bigger/door speakers (woofers).
These use the internal amplifier in the "head-unit" (Radio) and there is another output for front speakers (the dash top & small door speakers).
These are also (unused in my case) AMPLIFIER level outputs - which normally would be RCA connectors (and they are on this unit.) These would be intended to go to the input stage of an amplifier, and wouldn't be capable of driving a loudspeaker.
The difference is a big one, the ones using RCA connectors are "line level" outputs, usually 1V max output at very low current. The amplified speaker outputs are usually around 10V output with high current capabilities (and current x voltage = Watts).
That’s a great explanation, Don!!! Many thanks.
I just reread it - and had to fix it.. but it is correct now. I think.
This is really interesting, Don! I'm sure it'll make more sense when I see it all when it arrives later today (ideally). I'm wondering if there will be quick release connectors so you can easily remove the storage compartment to work on the engine.
Again, I've got the ASK (mid-range) setup, which is neither base nor
BOSE
. I'm now pretty sure everything is going from my HU down to the ASK amplifier under the passenger seat (no dedicated secondary amplifier or RCA cable usage), and then back out to the seven speakers in the car. So I'm curious how this will patch in.
You're always a great help,
@deilenberger
- and your explanations are fantastic. Thanks.
It's a very comprehensive kit - and yes - there is a fast disconnect connector going to the speaker wiring inside the compartment. I didn't follow their rather complex instructions on running the wiring, I did a much simplified run which works just fine. Basically I tucked it behind carpeting and up under the edge of the center console. Took 10 minutes instead of about an hour at least that their routing would take (it involved disassembly of the interior..)
If I remember correctly - the ASK system doesn't use fiber to connect things. It uses RCA level outputs to drive the amplifier.. so what you'll want to find it where the connections from the amp to the speakers are made. The kit did include a connector on the "other" end of the wiring that was going to it. I cut that off to splice the wiring into my aftermarket radios amp output for the rear channel (which parallels the door woofers.) It's an amazingly good full clean sound with a good source (the best I have is CD's I ripped to MP3's and kept on an iPod - it's a very very nice sound. Better than the satellite radio actually..)
Promised a pic - but not a lot to see:
