After much thought I have started working on a stereo system for my car, a 1983 Ferrari 308 GTSi QV.
To start with, none of these cars came from the factory with a stereo. They had block out plates where the stereo goes but come with door speakers and a power antenna. As this was one of the last cars Enzo Ferrari himself worked on, his thoughts were, you should be listening to his beautiful engine, not some lousy stereo! To further his ideals on this subject, the speaker grills on the doors are covered in thick leather with pin holes in them.
When I bought the car, it had and still has an early 80's Alpine cassette deck. Down the line I would like to put a full power screen GPS Stereo system in, but that will require some fabrication to make it fit. I do want to keep the vintage radio in there because it matches the car.
Today I started the very long and lengthy process to get this radio reworked and up and running. The stereo does work but needs deoxit and the deck needs new belts. The digital tuner works well and has 5 station presets and digital clock.
To start with, I dug out these vintage Infinity speakers that I got from the Infinity research and development facility in Canoga Park, California in the late 80's. They were having an employees only sale and I when with a buddy who worked there. Basically I loaded up boxes full of speakers and then just paid $20 per box!
I may have walked out with 20-30 speakers!
These are among some of the ones I have left.
So, to start with, today I replaced the weathered Pioneer door speakers that someone had put int there that were too big in the first place. The speakers that were in there were 5 1/5 inch in a 4 inch hole.
Here is the speaker with the tweeter installed in the door.
The next issues I have is I have a bitchen 4 channel amp with full built in cross overs that will allow me to dial in each speaker. The problem I have is, the only place to mount the amp is in the tiny truck, which is behind the engine and there is no passageway from the trunk to the passenger compartment. So I need to figure our how to get speaker wires for 4 speakers, 4 RCA wires, a 10 gauge power line from the battery in the front of the car and a switch wire to turn the amp on.
I have started building small speaker cubbies that will go behind the driver and passenger's heads on either side of the back window that will hold a 4 inch speaker in each cubby. Once I have those in and the stereo becomes a 4 speaker system with an amp, I will then cut the leather door speaker grills out, replace them with speaker covering and dial it all in.
This is one of my summer's bigger projects.I have all the parts needed but it's just going to be allot of work.
To start with, none of these cars came from the factory with a stereo. They had block out plates where the stereo goes but come with door speakers and a power antenna. As this was one of the last cars Enzo Ferrari himself worked on, his thoughts were, you should be listening to his beautiful engine, not some lousy stereo! To further his ideals on this subject, the speaker grills on the doors are covered in thick leather with pin holes in them.
When I bought the car, it had and still has an early 80's Alpine cassette deck. Down the line I would like to put a full power screen GPS Stereo system in, but that will require some fabrication to make it fit. I do want to keep the vintage radio in there because it matches the car.
Today I started the very long and lengthy process to get this radio reworked and up and running. The stereo does work but needs deoxit and the deck needs new belts. The digital tuner works well and has 5 station presets and digital clock.
To start with, I dug out these vintage Infinity speakers that I got from the Infinity research and development facility in Canoga Park, California in the late 80's. They were having an employees only sale and I when with a buddy who worked there. Basically I loaded up boxes full of speakers and then just paid $20 per box!
I may have walked out with 20-30 speakers!These are among some of the ones I have left.
So, to start with, today I replaced the weathered Pioneer door speakers that someone had put int there that were too big in the first place. The speakers that were in there were 5 1/5 inch in a 4 inch hole.
Here is the speaker with the tweeter installed in the door.
The next issues I have is I have a bitchen 4 channel amp with full built in cross overs that will allow me to dial in each speaker. The problem I have is, the only place to mount the amp is in the tiny truck, which is behind the engine and there is no passageway from the trunk to the passenger compartment. So I need to figure our how to get speaker wires for 4 speakers, 4 RCA wires, a 10 gauge power line from the battery in the front of the car and a switch wire to turn the amp on.
I have started building small speaker cubbies that will go behind the driver and passenger's heads on either side of the back window that will hold a 4 inch speaker in each cubby. Once I have those in and the stereo becomes a 4 speaker system with an amp, I will then cut the leather door speaker grills out, replace them with speaker covering and dial it all in.
This is one of my summer's bigger projects.I have all the parts needed but it's just going to be allot of work.
I like it a lot!
