Hello all. I am planning on swapping out my Bose system for a full Elemental Design system in my '01 S4. I have a couple of questions for those that have already taken on this type of project:

1. Do 6.5" speakers fit in the front doors with mdf adapters to give them more clearance?
2. Does the Metra 99-9105 kit work in the S4 as well?
3. Which Optima battery have you guys installed in your A4/S4

Thanks in advance,
Joe

1. considering the stock speakers are 4" I doubt a 6.5" will fit in the space, let alone be shallow enough to fit in the door. Most have upgraded to 5.25"

2. no one makes an install kit that works for the B5. It has to be custom made. I built one out of plywood and black abs plastic. Attached the plywood to the center console with screws. Attached the sleeve to the headunit to the plywood. Attached the abs plastic to the plywood with velcro. Installed the head unit to the sleeve. Voila, custom face plate.

3. Optimas require some fabricating to get them to fit in the battery compartment. Search the B5 S4 archives for Optima. There were a few guys runnig them, but I think everyone is now running Odyssey. I personally use a Die Hard for Euros which required fabricating some tie downs.

Thanks for the info. I will look into 5.25" front speakers. Will I need to run spacers up front?

Thanks,
Joe

Spacers will do the opposite since you're mounting the speaker from the back of the door panel. Putting a spacer between the speaker and the door panel actually puts it closer to the window which is what you're going to have clearnace issues with if you use a deep speaker.

Thanks for the replies.

His4,
The spacers I was referring to would go behind the speaker mounting ring, but in front of the door panel. So it would move the speaker away from the window. I believe you though I was going to put the spacer on the inside of the dooor panel and mount the speaker to that? That would not help me, obviously.

Thanks,
Joe

The mounting ring for the stock speaker is attached to the backside of the door panel. Anything attached to the back of the door panel will move the speaker back towards the window. The grill is not removable so the only way a spacer would work is if you cut out the stock grill and front mounted the speaker. There is no mounting posts on that side of the panel so you would need to fabricate your own. That area is not very big so it's unlikely that you would be able to mount anything larger than a 4" there without major door modification.

what i plan to do, as i did with my WRX, is to remove the Bose speakers and stock plastic mounting brackets. Enlarge the stock cutout to accept the 5.25 or 6.5" speakers. In order to move the speaker AWAY from the path of the window, I will fabricate 3/4" MDF rings the diameter of the speaker choice. I will mount that MDF ring to the doors sheetmetal on the side of the door panel. The new speaker will then be mounted to the MDF ring. This will pull the magnet of the new speaker away from the window.

I hope I clarified my earlier statement.

-Joe

When I looked into trying to fit a 6.5" mid in there, the biggest problem with trying to enlarge the stock cutout was that the map pocket is right next to the stock cutout leaving very little room for a larger cutout.

If I'm not mistaken the WRX door has a sheetmetal skin behind the plastic door panel. If you look behind the door panel on our cars, all you see is a huge hole and the outer sheetmetal. There is no sheet metal mounting surface directly behind the door panel. That's why I'm not visualizing how you're going to mount your MDF rings.

HIS4,

Now understand why we aren't on the same page. I haven't even removed my door panel yet. I was assuming I would see a skin that I could attach an MDF ring to just like my WRX.

Maybe some brackets or something ca be riveted to the door to allow mounting of a 6.5" speaker.

I'll remove my door panels to have a look and do some prep work.

Thanks,
Joe

PS
any pics of our doors without the panels?