Clio 172
So I always had a good system in all of my cars, even my first car (fiesta mk3) was upgraded before I'd even passed my test with 6x9's and sub.
so after hours of surfing the tinterwebs I had come up with a solution to the clio's poor audio capability.
so firstly I know alot of you go for the pioneer direct fit setup but I'm not prepared to go spending loads on components and amps to run them (I worked this out to cost in the region of £350-£400 including the appropriate amp).
I also use the car for occasional track use so weight was also a concern.
so here we go,
I already have a alpine cde-102ri with kce-400bt currently installed in the car
full spec
http://www.alpine.co.uk/p/Products/cd-head-units19/cde-102ri
and bluetooth adaptor
http://www.alpine.co.uk/p/Products/bluetooth-and-usb8/kce-400bt
so I decided to match this up with:-
2x alpine spg-13c2 (200w peak and 50w rms) compared to the pioneer (180w peak and 35w rms)
full spec of both in links below
alpine http://www.caraudiodiscount.com/spg-13c2-200w-13cm-way-speakers-p-14393.html
pioneer http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/pioneer-ts-q131c-13cm-custom-fit-components
I also bought
1x alpine kpt-445a (4x 100w max and 45w rms)
link
http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/alpine-ktp-445a-power-pack
Before you ask, I didn't bother with components as my budget didn't allow expensive amps/excessive weight + this way I can retain the original tweeters too (a little less work)
so I actually bought these from my local http://www.caraudiocentre.co.uk/car-audio-centre-nottingham.htm and had them price match all of the above.
sadly nothing was in stock and the sales man told me he would have to get them from the warehouse, I wasn't happy as I wanted to fit it all today. he then told me the warehouse was 10mins away and he would fetch them now.
So off I went for a McDonald breakfast and before I'd even finished he called me to let me know they were there. winner!
So here's the kit
out with the old
If you dont already know its really easy, just pop of the covers with a flat head and remove the 4 torqx holding them in.
So I cut all the old connectors off and went ahead with soldering my new terminals in place. thanks to another forum post for polarity's.
link
http://www.cliosport.net/forum/showthread.php?88613-Clio-speaker-wire-colour
Due to a dicky soldering iron I didn't get any photos of this part, I found it best to crimp all the wires in place first and then go round soldering a blob onto the terminals one by one working your way round the car.
I then used some leftover bits of super-light dynamat, there's nothing worse than a farting speaker when you've got the volume up!
and here's the fitted pictures
wont let me add the 4th pic??
If you go with this setup I would always recommend fitting speakers before the amp to allow you to test them without putting to much power through them.
so at this stage i worked my way around the car at 25% volume to ensure I had the polarity's correct and that all were working correctly.
I then went ahead with removing my head-unit, unplugged the iso adaptor and fed the new cables to it (very simple just plug and play)
I had decided that the best place for the amp itself was going to be under the glove box (due to cable length and space) however there wasn't enough room to use the supplied bracket to mount it so out comes the Velcro.
I used some heat-shrink over the cables that connect to the amp in a attempt to get rid of the rainbow effect. minor fail the heat-shrink I had available was to thin and wouldn't go over the plug so I sliced it open and used cable ties to hold them in place.
so all in all this install probably took me about an hour, yes you read right 1 hour. This is a record for me! whoopwhoop. granted it wasn't the most demanding of tasks but all my prior installs took around 2 days pmsl. (several amps capacitors etc)
so once it was all installed the time consuming part began,
I cant recommend enough to get 4/5 of your favourite tracks on some media ( CD or whatever) and go through adjusting the base, treble and balance to your taste.
(DO NOT TURN THE VOLUME UP UNTIL THE SYSTEM IS RUN IN)
I had the volume at around 60% (21 on my hu) but its not as simple as it sounds, it varies across genre's so you need to ensure you find the most suitable across your media also adjusting the freq, width, high pass filter and low pass filters if applicable. (any distortion switch off or turn down immediately)
so over another hour later I was done.
I couldn't be happier with this for so many reasons, here's a few.
Value for money was great at £180 all in.
Fitting time was 2 hours from poor shabby audio to great punchy music.
The bass mid and treble's are fantastic.
and that's not even run in yet, most retailers would recommend you don't go above 60-70% volume until 20-30 hours of music has passed through the voice-coil to ensure it loosens up correctly otherwise you could end up blowing the speaker and voiding your warranty.
part two coming soon.......
so after hours of surfing the tinterwebs I had come up with a solution to the clio's poor audio capability.
so firstly I know alot of you go for the pioneer direct fit setup but I'm not prepared to go spending loads on components and amps to run them (I worked this out to cost in the region of £350-£400 including the appropriate amp).
I also use the car for occasional track use so weight was also a concern.
so here we go,
I already have a alpine cde-102ri with kce-400bt currently installed in the car
full spec
http://www.alpine.co.uk/p/Products/cd-head-units19/cde-102ri
and bluetooth adaptor
http://www.alpine.co.uk/p/Products/bluetooth-and-usb8/kce-400bt
so I decided to match this up with:-
2x alpine spg-13c2 (200w peak and 50w rms) compared to the pioneer (180w peak and 35w rms)
full spec of both in links below
alpine http://www.caraudiodiscount.com/spg-13c2-200w-13cm-way-speakers-p-14393.html
pioneer http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/pioneer-ts-q131c-13cm-custom-fit-components
I also bought
1x alpine kpt-445a (4x 100w max and 45w rms)
link
http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/alpine-ktp-445a-power-pack
Before you ask, I didn't bother with components as my budget didn't allow expensive amps/excessive weight + this way I can retain the original tweeters too (a little less work)
so I actually bought these from my local http://www.caraudiocentre.co.uk/car-audio-centre-nottingham.htm and had them price match all of the above.
sadly nothing was in stock and the sales man told me he would have to get them from the warehouse, I wasn't happy as I wanted to fit it all today. he then told me the warehouse was 10mins away and he would fetch them now.
So off I went for a McDonald breakfast and before I'd even finished he called me to let me know they were there. winner!
So here's the kit
out with the old
If you dont already know its really easy, just pop of the covers with a flat head and remove the 4 torqx holding them in.
So I cut all the old connectors off and went ahead with soldering my new terminals in place. thanks to another forum post for polarity's.
link
http://www.cliosport.net/forum/showthread.php?88613-Clio-speaker-wire-colour
Due to a dicky soldering iron I didn't get any photos of this part, I found it best to crimp all the wires in place first and then go round soldering a blob onto the terminals one by one working your way round the car.
I then used some leftover bits of super-light dynamat, there's nothing worse than a farting speaker when you've got the volume up!
and here's the fitted pictures
wont let me add the 4th pic??
If you go with this setup I would always recommend fitting speakers before the amp to allow you to test them without putting to much power through them.
so at this stage i worked my way around the car at 25% volume to ensure I had the polarity's correct and that all were working correctly.
I then went ahead with removing my head-unit, unplugged the iso adaptor and fed the new cables to it (very simple just plug and play)
I had decided that the best place for the amp itself was going to be under the glove box (due to cable length and space) however there wasn't enough room to use the supplied bracket to mount it so out comes the Velcro.
I used some heat-shrink over the cables that connect to the amp in a attempt to get rid of the rainbow effect. minor fail the heat-shrink I had available was to thin and wouldn't go over the plug so I sliced it open and used cable ties to hold them in place.
so all in all this install probably took me about an hour, yes you read right 1 hour. This is a record for me! whoopwhoop. granted it wasn't the most demanding of tasks but all my prior installs took around 2 days pmsl. (several amps capacitors etc)
so once it was all installed the time consuming part began,
I cant recommend enough to get 4/5 of your favourite tracks on some media ( CD or whatever) and go through adjusting the base, treble and balance to your taste.
(DO NOT TURN THE VOLUME UP UNTIL THE SYSTEM IS RUN IN)
I had the volume at around 60% (21 on my hu) but its not as simple as it sounds, it varies across genre's so you need to ensure you find the most suitable across your media also adjusting the freq, width, high pass filter and low pass filters if applicable. (any distortion switch off or turn down immediately)
so over another hour later I was done.
I couldn't be happier with this for so many reasons, here's a few.
Value for money was great at £180 all in.
Fitting time was 2 hours from poor shabby audio to great punchy music.
The bass mid and treble's are fantastic.
and that's not even run in yet, most retailers would recommend you don't go above 60-70% volume until 20-30 hours of music has passed through the voice-coil to ensure it loosens up correctly otherwise you could end up blowing the speaker and voiding your warranty.
part two coming soon.......
Last edited:
