2018 golf R - upgrading "Premium" fender audio system

pnutz37 · December 21, 2021

Very clean work. Good job. Can't wait to see the final product!!

BboyTaktix · December 28, 2021

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE! With some time off comes PROGRESS. yay.

Got my speaker wire bundles all set up - decided to go 8ft which should give me 1-2 feet of extra just in case - only have to get from trunk to under driver seat. Did each pair in tech flex with a different color shrink wrap so I could distinguish each pair;

I also terminated the amplifier side of those bundles (the 4-channel is ferrules and the smaller 2-channel has fork terminals) but did not snap a photo. I have yet to run these wires in the car. Will be one of the last things I do.

BboyTaktix · December 28, 2021

Next were the doors - got both rear doors done.

Did decent coverage on the sound dampening. A bit more on the inner door skin, and one piece on the oter door skin which will probably be less prone to rattle due to all the curves of the sheet metal.

The doors are quite solid and tolerance is good. One thing to like about these german cars.

First had to drill out rivets of OEM speaker. Then made the hole a little bigger and used M5 threaded riv-nuts in the holes. Now I can screw any speaker using an M5 machine screw - including OEM speakers if and when I return to stock.

The rear fill speakers I bought actually fit almost perfectly to OEM holes so I used the bolts to attach them as well as the bracket that I made out of HPDE. Notice how I also made a small groove for speaker wires to pass through. I used the FAST ring backing to seal the HPDE bracket on the sheet metal.

Used fast rings although it was difficult to find a spot to stick them given that there was a cross bar right behind the speaker, so I just did my best to trim and stick them around/on top of it.

Photos of left door:

BboyTaktix · December 28, 2021

for some reason my photos now all exceed the max total size - any particular reason for this?

Dafaseles · December 28, 2021

1 hour ago, BboyTaktix said:

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE! With some time off comes PROGRESS. yay.

Got my speaker wire bundles all set up - decided to go 8ft which should give me 1-2 feet of extra just in case - only have to get from trunk to under driver seat. Did each pair in tech flex with a different color shrink wrap so I could distinguish each pair;

I also terminated the amplifier side of those bundles (the 4-channel is ferrules and the smaller 2-channel has fork terminals) but did not snap a photo. I have yet to run these wires in the car. Will be one of the last things I do.

Yeah, I'm going to have to find a bunch of different colors. I really like that idea!

BboyTaktix · December 28, 2021

17 minutes ago, Dafaseles said:

Yeah, I'm going to have to find a bunch of different colors. I really like that idea!

I bought a little kit for like $15 that has every size (about 8 sizes) shrink wrap, and each of the sizes had 2 or 3 of every colour. Worked out great! If you want to go HAM, they even sell the pro-flex on different Color’s but would have costed an arm and a leg to buy a roll of each colour. This way I only needed 2 rolls and had some left over for other wiring.

Dafaseles · December 28, 2021

4 minutes ago, BboyTaktix said:

I bought a little kit for like $15 that has every size (about 8 sizes) shrink wrap, and each of the sizes had 2 or 3 of every colour. Worked out great! If you want to go HAM, they even sell the pro-flex on different Color’s but would have costed an arm and a leg to buy a roll of each colour. This way I only needed 2 rolls and had some left over for other wiring.

Preferably, I'd need 10 different colors 🤣 I'll have to look into it for sure.

How did you go about making that plastic bracket? Just using the router or what? I'm going to have to make a couple myself

BboyTaktix · December 29, 2021

6 hours ago, Dafaseles said:

Preferably, I'd need 10 different colors 🤣 I'll have to look into it for sure.

How did you go about making that plastic bracket? Just using the router or what? I'm going to have to make a couple myself

yes I ended up using the router. It was a learning experience for sure. First off, HPDE can be very dangerous. It catches on the router bit if you try to cut too much marrrial. Happened to me a few times but luckily my fingers were placed far enough away they didn’t get pulled into it. The best way to proceed is to cut with a jigsaw first then finish with the router, ensuring the router bit is cutting around half of its diameter or less.

I ran into a few issues - the first was I tried to copy the profile of the OEM speaker but the widest part of its ring didn’t sit flush on the table, because of the speaker magnet (the speaker and the mounting bracket are all one piece in this car). So I had to use my circle jig and cut out the outside then do the same with the inside to make the ring. Tested to fit with OEM and new speaker and fit well so transferred the mounting holes over then copied it to HPDE using a flush trim bit (well, jigsaw to rough cut then flush trim bit)

Dafaseles · December 29, 2021

5 minutes ago, BboyTaktix said:

yes I ended up using the router. It was a learning experience for sure. First off, HPDE can be very dangerous. It catches on the router bit if you try to cut too much marrrial. Happened to me a few times but luckily my fingers were placed far enough away they didn’t get pulled into it. The best way to proceed is to cut with a jigsaw first then finish with the router, ensuring the router bit is cutting around half of its diameter or less.

I ran into a few issues - the first was I tried to copy the profile of the OEM speaker but the widest part of its ring didn’t sit flush on the table, because of the speaker magnet (the speaker and the mounting bracket are all one piece in this car). So I had to use my circle jig and cut out the outside then do the same with the inside to make the ring. Tested to fit with OEM and new speaker and fit well so transferred the mounting holes over then copied it to HPDE using a flush trim bit (well, jigsaw to rough cut then flush trim bit)

Perfect!

BboyTaktix · December 31, 2021

HAPPY HOLIDAYS update!

I don't know if I reached my max picture quota but I cannot seem to post more photos. Only can post 335kb or smaller. weird.

Anyways, got all 4 doors completed - Sound deadened inner and outer door skin, custom HPDE brackets and fast rings. Deadened the plastic door card on the front doors as well for good measure.

Also finished swapping tweeters in A-pillars. It was a journey to remove the first one - found a good guide online but still struggled a bit on the first one. Once I found an optimal way, the second one was off within minutes (next day). Fabbed up some ABS plastic brackets that lined up with OEM speaker hole, hot glued it to the back of A-pillar. New tweeters were press-fit into that bracket and wires secured with zip tie.

Tried everything with just the OEM amp and it all worked wonderfully, tested the polarity of all speakers and all good.

One weird thing, the tweeters do a weird triple click when I turn the car on. Not sure what that is - maybe due to different impedance than OEM speakers and amp is doing some kind of check? I hope this issue doesn't carry over to the new system.

Another thing is I am not sure if the 20uF capacitor I soldered onto positive side of tweeters was bipolar or not - there was a + sign that seemed to be more on one side but it wasn't clear at all. So I put that side away from tweeter (if that makes sense) since I figure current should flow into + and out - side even if on the positive wire.

Front door and speakers install;