2k1 Civic LX Coupe New Audio System DIY Alpine Type X
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2k1 Civic LX Coupe New Audio System DIY Alpine Type X
Hello All,
I recently bought a mint condition 2001 Honda Civic LX Coupe and have pour all my researched many resources and pour $$$ into improving its sound sytem. I do alot of driving so this is a must for me, not to mention I am an audiophile
Here is what’s nice:
My complete sound system costed me $800 bucks, all new high-quality stuff, where as the shop quoted me almost $2k installed, with the very same components. Of course I was able to cut down cost by doing my own install. I will post up the DIY here for your reference.
I wanted a good quality brand-name system, and all installation must be hidden and discrete. I have had over 5 different cars and I've experimented with, u guessed it, over 5 different setups, including mixing and matching brands name. This time, I wanted to try an all Alpine setup. Below are my components:
Alpine CDE-103BT: I bought this at Crutchfield. There are a number of positive feedback on this unit, so I went for it. My main concern was the unit had to have Bluetooth, discrete Ipod hookup (meaning the wire is hidden in the rear and the Ipod hidden in the glove box), direct USB connection, and at least 2 sets of rear preouts. Got it for $180 after $20 bucks coupon. Lol
Alpine SPX-17REF 6.5” Components Speakers: If you had to spend the most money on your setups, use it on the front components. I can’t stress this enough. It’s what you’ll hear when you drive your car for the next ???-years, and good speakers will produce the right note with great imagine. Let’s hear how music was meant to be heard guys! I was debating on which sets to buy for a very long time, and finally decided on these cause of all the positive reviews I’ve read. Paid $200 at OnlinecarAudio.com. (FYI: I’ve used Type-R before, and I feel the high is a little too bright; ears will fatigue after long driving. These Type X tweeters are more natural and easier on the ears). These are professional quality speakers.
Alpine MRP-F300: 50x4 RMS or 150x2 Bridged. My intention is to have the front two channels drive the SPX-17REF (75wats RMS rated) and the rear two bridged into 1 channel to drive my 8” subwoofer (200watts RMS rated). Paid $150 on Ebay brand new
Boston S95 6x9: The reason I chose Boston over Alpine for the rear is because my I only needed the rear to do its “rear fill” and not overpowering my front components setups. I will be driving these speakers with the CDE-103BT rear channels, which puts out a rated 18watts RMS each channel. During my search, I had to have a set of speakers that has less than 36watts RMS, and these speakers are rated at 35watts RMS. Usually you need an amp that has at least half of the speaker’s rated power in order to produce any dramatic sound. The alpine Type S 6x9 is rated at 75watts RMS and Type R, at 110watts RMS. You need an amp to make those speakers sing, or else they’ll distort when you turn up the volume. With exception, I didn’t go w/ Alpine on this one. Paid $75 online.
JL 8W3V3-4 Woofers: I just needed an extra oophms at the low ends and these really rock! They slam hard and have no problem producing the low notes with authority. I want to stay away from the 10’s and 12’s cause I think they are overated, not necessary, and I don’t want to grab too much attention from others. (not to mention the trunk space required to accommodate those). My 8” sealed box is small enough to not interfere with cargo space. Paid $150 online.
Kicker 4channel 09ZCK84</SPAN> amp kit: Has everything you need to install a 4 channel amplifier, including RCA’s and high quality cables. Paid $60 at HookedonTronics.
There you have it. $815 budget.
Now for the DIY.
I am assuming you know how to take off the panels, etc… there’s diy for that everywhere. See below:
https://www.civicforums.com/forums/110-audio/153831-removing-door-panel-adding-new-speakers.html
I am also assuming that you have some mobile electronic skills, so I won’t go too much into details on the installs. Just on the ones I thought were important.
First install: The Head Unit.
If buying from Crutchfield, they include everything you’ll need to install it, including instructions. Installation was a snap, but this DIY focuses on things that I couldn’t find during my research or from Crutchfield’s installation. I want to make mention of the stereo kit that Crutchfield sent out. It is by no means matches the texture or color of our dash. I had to improvise. What I ended up doing is going to Home Depot, buy 220 sand paper, sanding down the kit until it is almost smooth then sprayed one light layer of Satin-Black paint. Let it dry in bout an hour, then spray a 2nd and 3rd layer using Flat Black. These are like a dollar a can so no biggie. By the time it dried, the color came out to a satisfactory match that I can live with. (as you can tell I’m pretty **** about things not matching up properly). At this point, it’s good to also run the turn-on remote wire and 2 sets of speakers wires to the back where the amp is located. These wires will be hooked up to the amp to run the front speakers.
Second the front speakers:
Since the LX coupe did not come with oem tweeter mounts, I had two choices. Either drill holes on the door panels and do a flush mount, or running out to the dealer and getting the sail panels from an EX model. These are sometimes refer to as “tweeter mounts” or “garnish” for some odd reason. They are about $9 bucks each. I chose the latter one because the stock mounting location enables me to have the tweeter mounted a little higher and closer to the ears. This is important! Believe me. The best benefit is also it looks OEM and no cutting on door panel is necessary.
The alpine tweeter mounts are bigger that the stock EX sail panel. You will need to grind down the inside of the sail panel hole like below, and also sand the outside of the tweeter flush mount down so that they’ll fit like a glove. Fish off with some glue to secure in place. See below.
For the woofer, this was more difficult to do, but possible. Simply take the old door speakers out, cut and toss the inside of the oem speaker and reuse its bracket. This bracket prevents you from drilling on the door cause the stock OEM bracket has a very secured clip that you can reuse.
The Alpine woofers are not only big in magnet size, but also in depth. You can resolve this by using the alpine spacer that came with the speaker, mounting that onto the stock bracket, and mount the speaker into the spacer. This way you will be able to fit the magnet into the oem cutouts. Problem is now you are .5” taller than the oem speakers, so you will need to trim off the speaker trim on the door panel or it wont snap in. Trim as close to the honeycomb shape as possible. IT’s easier to trim plastic then metal.
Rear Speakers.
Fitting the 6x9 was straight forward once all inside panels are apart. Here’s the problem: The magnet of the speakers are so big that it interfered with the cross torsion bar that holds the trunk up. I had to remove that and install trunk shocks to avoid this problem. I used this instruction:
http://autodiyonline.com/honda-diys/...nk-shocks-diy/
Removing the bar is done by using the back of a hammer, or a pry bar. Put in diagonal on one side, twist and turn. You’ll know what I mean when you try it.
Running the amp: There’s tons of info on this one. I won’t get into details. I did fabricate a piece of wood and mount the amp onto that. I didn’t want to mount the amp in the back seat for two reasons: one is if I had to put the seat down to carry long stuff, I don’t want to amp to be damaged, and two, there’s nothing in the back seat to mount it to. lol. The back is all foam, unless you fabricate something to put behind the seat’s carpet to anchor the amp. The board is mounted via two sheetmetal screws that I anchor straight onto the rear side chassis. Then the amp covers up these screws and gets anchors down onto the wood board. (wood board is wrapped in a nice carbon fiber fabric cause that’s what I had laying around :P
There you have it. I should be done this weekend. Then I’ll post up pictures. My car is totally apart now so if you need any good pics of anything, let me know. Now is the time J
As always: Only use this as reference. I'm not responsible if you mess up! wear safety glasses and measure twice, cut once!
I recently bought a mint condition 2001 Honda Civic LX Coupe and have pour all my researched many resources and pour $$$ into improving its sound sytem. I do alot of driving so this is a must for me, not to mention I am an audiophile
Here is what’s nice:My complete sound system costed me $800 bucks, all new high-quality stuff, where as the shop quoted me almost $2k installed, with the very same components. Of course I was able to cut down cost by doing my own install. I will post up the DIY here for your reference.
I wanted a good quality brand-name system, and all installation must be hidden and discrete. I have had over 5 different cars and I've experimented with, u guessed it, over 5 different setups, including mixing and matching brands name. This time, I wanted to try an all Alpine setup. Below are my components:
Alpine CDE-103BT: I bought this at Crutchfield. There are a number of positive feedback on this unit, so I went for it. My main concern was the unit had to have Bluetooth, discrete Ipod hookup (meaning the wire is hidden in the rear and the Ipod hidden in the glove box), direct USB connection, and at least 2 sets of rear preouts. Got it for $180 after $20 bucks coupon. Lol
Alpine SPX-17REF 6.5” Components Speakers: If you had to spend the most money on your setups, use it on the front components. I can’t stress this enough. It’s what you’ll hear when you drive your car for the next ???-years, and good speakers will produce the right note with great imagine. Let’s hear how music was meant to be heard guys! I was debating on which sets to buy for a very long time, and finally decided on these cause of all the positive reviews I’ve read. Paid $200 at OnlinecarAudio.com. (FYI: I’ve used Type-R before, and I feel the high is a little too bright; ears will fatigue after long driving. These Type X tweeters are more natural and easier on the ears). These are professional quality speakers.
Alpine MRP-F300: 50x4 RMS or 150x2 Bridged. My intention is to have the front two channels drive the SPX-17REF (75wats RMS rated) and the rear two bridged into 1 channel to drive my 8” subwoofer (200watts RMS rated). Paid $150 on Ebay brand new
Boston S95 6x9: The reason I chose Boston over Alpine for the rear is because my I only needed the rear to do its “rear fill” and not overpowering my front components setups. I will be driving these speakers with the CDE-103BT rear channels, which puts out a rated 18watts RMS each channel. During my search, I had to have a set of speakers that has less than 36watts RMS, and these speakers are rated at 35watts RMS. Usually you need an amp that has at least half of the speaker’s rated power in order to produce any dramatic sound. The alpine Type S 6x9 is rated at 75watts RMS and Type R, at 110watts RMS. You need an amp to make those speakers sing, or else they’ll distort when you turn up the volume. With exception, I didn’t go w/ Alpine on this one. Paid $75 online.
JL 8W3V3-4 Woofers: I just needed an extra oophms at the low ends and these really rock! They slam hard and have no problem producing the low notes with authority. I want to stay away from the 10’s and 12’s cause I think they are overated, not necessary, and I don’t want to grab too much attention from others. (not to mention the trunk space required to accommodate those). My 8” sealed box is small enough to not interfere with cargo space. Paid $150 online.
Kicker 4channel 09ZCK84</SPAN> amp kit: Has everything you need to install a 4 channel amplifier, including RCA’s and high quality cables. Paid $60 at HookedonTronics.
There you have it. $815 budget.
Now for the DIY.
I am assuming you know how to take off the panels, etc… there’s diy for that everywhere. See below:
https://www.civicforums.com/forums/110-audio/153831-removing-door-panel-adding-new-speakers.html
I am also assuming that you have some mobile electronic skills, so I won’t go too much into details on the installs. Just on the ones I thought were important.
First install: The Head Unit.
If buying from Crutchfield, they include everything you’ll need to install it, including instructions. Installation was a snap, but this DIY focuses on things that I couldn’t find during my research or from Crutchfield’s installation. I want to make mention of the stereo kit that Crutchfield sent out. It is by no means matches the texture or color of our dash. I had to improvise. What I ended up doing is going to Home Depot, buy 220 sand paper, sanding down the kit until it is almost smooth then sprayed one light layer of Satin-Black paint. Let it dry in bout an hour, then spray a 2nd and 3rd layer using Flat Black. These are like a dollar a can so no biggie. By the time it dried, the color came out to a satisfactory match that I can live with. (as you can tell I’m pretty **** about things not matching up properly). At this point, it’s good to also run the turn-on remote wire and 2 sets of speakers wires to the back where the amp is located. These wires will be hooked up to the amp to run the front speakers.
Second the front speakers:
Since the LX coupe did not come with oem tweeter mounts, I had two choices. Either drill holes on the door panels and do a flush mount, or running out to the dealer and getting the sail panels from an EX model. These are sometimes refer to as “tweeter mounts” or “garnish” for some odd reason. They are about $9 bucks each. I chose the latter one because the stock mounting location enables me to have the tweeter mounted a little higher and closer to the ears. This is important! Believe me. The best benefit is also it looks OEM and no cutting on door panel is necessary.
The alpine tweeter mounts are bigger that the stock EX sail panel. You will need to grind down the inside of the sail panel hole like below, and also sand the outside of the tweeter flush mount down so that they’ll fit like a glove. Fish off with some glue to secure in place. See below.
For the woofer, this was more difficult to do, but possible. Simply take the old door speakers out, cut and toss the inside of the oem speaker and reuse its bracket. This bracket prevents you from drilling on the door cause the stock OEM bracket has a very secured clip that you can reuse.
The Alpine woofers are not only big in magnet size, but also in depth. You can resolve this by using the alpine spacer that came with the speaker, mounting that onto the stock bracket, and mount the speaker into the spacer. This way you will be able to fit the magnet into the oem cutouts. Problem is now you are .5” taller than the oem speakers, so you will need to trim off the speaker trim on the door panel or it wont snap in. Trim as close to the honeycomb shape as possible. IT’s easier to trim plastic then metal.
Rear Speakers.
Fitting the 6x9 was straight forward once all inside panels are apart. Here’s the problem: The magnet of the speakers are so big that it interfered with the cross torsion bar that holds the trunk up. I had to remove that and install trunk shocks to avoid this problem. I used this instruction:
http://autodiyonline.com/honda-diys/...nk-shocks-diy/
Removing the bar is done by using the back of a hammer, or a pry bar. Put in diagonal on one side, twist and turn. You’ll know what I mean when you try it.
Running the amp: There’s tons of info on this one. I won’t get into details. I did fabricate a piece of wood and mount the amp onto that. I didn’t want to mount the amp in the back seat for two reasons: one is if I had to put the seat down to carry long stuff, I don’t want to amp to be damaged, and two, there’s nothing in the back seat to mount it to. lol. The back is all foam, unless you fabricate something to put behind the seat’s carpet to anchor the amp. The board is mounted via two sheetmetal screws that I anchor straight onto the rear side chassis. Then the amp covers up these screws and gets anchors down onto the wood board. (wood board is wrapped in a nice carbon fiber fabric cause that’s what I had laying around :P
There you have it. I should be done this weekend. Then I’ll post up pictures. My car is totally apart now so if you need any good pics of anything, let me know. Now is the time J
As always: Only use this as reference. I'm not responsible if you mess up! wear safety glasses and measure twice, cut once!
I am Epic
Joined: Jun 2011
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Re: 2k1 Civic LX Coupe New Audio System DIY Alpine Type X
Thats a nice deck bro but do be warned that the sun will wash out the screen in that spot making it unreadable. Apparently you can move that deck to the bottom slot but its a lot of work and you need a double din harness.
What i did was cut a piece of cardboard and i slide it right inside my CD player ( i dont use it anyways) so it sits there 24/7 keeping the sun off. Looks a bit tacky but it helps. But still not as well if the deck was installed on the bottom slot.
The best way to fix this would be to get a double din with an adjustable face. But to me, double dins are theives toys.
What i did was cut a piece of cardboard and i slide it right inside my CD player ( i dont use it anyways) so it sits there 24/7 keeping the sun off. Looks a bit tacky but it helps. But still not as well if the deck was installed on the bottom slot.
The best way to fix this would be to get a double din with an adjustable face. But to me, double dins are theives toys.
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