Alfa Pages

[prauguste]

Hello,

Due to a serious liking of music by Piero Umillani, Piero Piccioni, Ennio Morricone, Marc4 plus others, I need to get my incar stereo system sorted out.

Has anyone found a replacement setup for the front dashboard speakers in a P4 or just simply disconnected the pair that are there?

Has anyone been able to build a credible sound system with the P4's limitations?

Has anyone come up with a solution for strengthening the rear parcel shelf to accept a pair of heavy duty 6 x 9s?

I need help? I am looking to pay and work with someone to sort this out. All wiring is in place but needs reconnecting as I recently removed the head unit for repair. But in addition, I want to install a pair of 6 x 9's that are invisible to see, power amp, replacement font and rear speakers.

Dont trust Incar entertainment shop because of the lack of knowledge of Alfa wiring system. Does anyone have a free weekend? I am based in Middlesex nr Heathrow but can travel.

Thanks


Patrick

[Ben_nz]

I made a parcel shelf for my s2 out of plywood, with one or two strengthening bars, and fitted the speakers from some free old component speaker boxes to it. You can sort of see it in this old picture:

It sounded okay (good bass compared to when the speakers were in their original plastic pods), but because I made it quickly, it looked bad and rattled over bumps. Even though I made it disconnectable, it got in the way when transporting bulky items. And because the speakers were free, they were pretty lousy and couldn't handle much power. In my quest for more volume I ended up going back to the standard parcel shelf and fitting speakers in the rear doors.

The 33 sucks for car audio (press the hazard lights button slowly and the radio will reset!), and there's nowhere to put speakers in the s2 except for those crappy little rectangular spaces in the dashboard. In the owners manual they're labelled "provision for speakers", but that should be amended to "measly provision for crappy little speakers".
The biggest speakers I managed to fit in the doors were 5 1/2 inch front and back, and even then only really budget speakers would fit because the larger magnets of quality speakers bump into the electric window mechanism, the door locking arm etc.

My current setup is:
5 1/2 inch two-way speakers in the front and rear doors,
rear ones fitted by removing door locking knob arms
front ones fitted using 6-inch speaker standoffs to allow speaker magnets to clear electric window mechanism
Dealer-fitted 7-watt radio/cassette head unit replaced with 54-watt radio/CD unit, no separate amp, no sub.

The bass isn't so great, obviously, but the volume's acceptable. The rickety s2 dash and crashy suspension means the CD skips on bumpy roads. But it's better than when I got the car - I ripped the factory speaker cones before too long by cranking up Rage Against the Machine's 'Killing in the Name' one rainy traffic jam.

[Bellamachinna]

Hi...

I`m not a fan, of car audio...
For me the sound of the Boxer engine, is more than enough, to keep me entertained.

In my car, there is, only a Alpine head unit, with 4 Clarion speakears (2 on front doors, and the other 2 on the rear shelf...

The only use i give to this, is to listen to traffic news...
I cant understand, why people try to make their cars go faster, corner better, and then put audio systems on the cars that increase the car weight that the power modifications, are useless...

Dont take this personally... But, to listen to good music, with quality, stay home...
The 33 has already bad interior plastics, that vibrate more than usual with all those potholes, speedbumps...
Throw in, a heavy and vibrating audio install, and you got a receipt for craked and squeeky plastics...
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All'interno della mia macchina, vi sedete, tenete sopra e CHIUDETE IN SU...

[paulhide]

For everyday driving the sound of the boxer is the only music I need, but on long motorway journeys It's definitely good to have a few tunes.
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Owner's Club 33 Registrar. Now from P4 & S2 1.7 QV
http://www.alfa-pages.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=5188

[Ben_nz]

[mt]

If i'm doing any distance on a motorway i get bored if i don't have music to listen to, any engine becomes a drone at a constant rpm regardless of how good it sounds under acceleration.
And in this weather the standard 33 speaker setup simply doesn't suffice at *cough* 70mph on the motorway with the windows down.

I've managed to fit a set of 6x9s in the bottom of the door before, but they sounded awful down there. In my current 33 i have a set of Alpine S-type 5 1/4 inch components in the front, the woofer is mounted in a cheap. plastic pod attached to the door panel but still sounds better than anything else i've tried. However, when money and time allow i will be making up a pod out of MDF and trying to utilise as much space behind the panel as possible. At this stage i will upgrade to 6" components.

And in my opinion that is the way to get the best sound in the front as there isn't enough space in the door for flush mounted speakers to work properly.

[bobbber]

There is a way of upgrading the standard 33 front speaker housings to accept larger speakers here :

http://shopping.kelkoo.co.uk/ctl/do/search?fromform=true&siteSearchQuery=alfa+33

It LOOKS as though they would hang down though using this configuration - could be nasty on the shins in an accident

I had something similar in my 2CV and when I hit a wall in it - it nearly shreaded my mates legs off!

Also, SOME of the alfa 33 door panels have speakers in them.

Bob
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Fiat Bravo 165 Sport

[gritsop]

Hi,

Here are some photos from my recently installed SONY loudspeakers in the parcel shelf. Actually the car used to have some cheap PIONEER imitation loudspeakers which over the years started creating annoying sounds, which proved to be a worn membrane.

So I bought the loudspeakers you see on the photos for 45 €. They have made quite a difference compared to the old ones especially in bass portion of acoustic frequencies. I have a pair of PIONEER speakers in the front under the dashboard. These speakers are designed for high frequencies since they cannot reproduce any bass sounds.

Now with this setup I can adjust the balance and create an acceptable sound containing every frequency. There have been cases when the rear passengers have requested to turn the volume down as they cannot hear the front people. The blame is on the good bass reproduction of the speakers BUT also the bass sounds coming from my new catalyst and rear silencer

Just a note, the car audio is a 30+30 W unit.






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Thanassis Gritsopoulos
1991 Alfa 33 1.4 IE
2001 Alfa 147 1.6 Distinctive

http://www.alfa-restoration.co.uk
Parts Shop: www.alfa-restoration.co.uk/shop

[Rich B]

An option on the 33 series 3 was a upgraded speaker system. This consisted of the standard 4 door speakers, plus a load of speakers in the smaller of the two parcel shelves (the one against the rear seat backs). As far as I'm aware there were 2 sub woofers, 2 mid range and 2 tweeters in this set up.

If you could perhaps get hold of one of these it might be good (although they are exceedingly rare - I've been pipped to the post in buying one twice, the last being on German e-bay by 1 euro, damn!!). Anyone got one??

[Matt Stolton]

The problem with putting speakers on blazen display in your parcel shelf, is that some little sh1t will smash your windows, just to knick 'em.

In my white P4, I fitted 3.5" JL Audio TR350 into the front knee height locations, using custom made bits of resin reinforced hardboard. These slid into the groves left by the original speakers, which is where the item on kelkoo also fits. In the rear doors, which in a P4 have holes already, I fitted 4.0" JL Audio TR400 each side.

In the boot I went a little silly with a 5 channel Alpine amp, bolted to the back of a 2x10" JL Audio subs in a wedge shaped cabinet. Front end was a Alpine Radio Cassette, with 6 CD changer in the boot. With the rears crossed over at 130Hz and above, the fronts at 190Hz and above, and the 2x10" doing 130Hz and below, all sounded very loud, but clean with no distortion.

Amusingly, without using any (heavy) dinomat or equivalent, there were no significant vibrations, or panel resonances to interfere with the sound. Even the boot with 250W RMS of bass thumping in it from 2x10 inch JL subs, didn't really rattle, even from outside.

Overall, with the 1F cap (stops your lights flasing on a bass beat), upgraded (think it was a 164s) alternator and some silly fat cabling, I did probably spend £1000 ish, but it did work, so don't let anyone tell you the 33 can't handle a daft system. I also wired it so that if the amp and bassbin unit was removed, the cable feeding the 4 mid tops patched, via an 8 pole speakon plug, into the headunit direct, so you still got (basic) sound with a full boot.

However, apart from the boot space issue, which was still practical enough, you could barely see anything. A passing theif would only see 2x4" speakers in the back doors, and probably not bother breaking in for such a small prize.
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Regards

Matt

Ex Alfa 33 'GTA' (P4 with Knobs On)
Now cruising in a 166 3.2 Ti!!

[prauguste]

Hi Matt,

I also have a white P4 and I am looking to sort the stereo system out this week starting on Thursday. I am really interested in your setup and wondered if I could take a look sometime as I am also in London. Also, I
wondered if you might want to help me out and earn a bit of cash over the weekend. pm me and let me know what you think.

Thanks

Patrick

[Matt Stolton]

1st problem - My P4 got wiped out in an incident with a Jeep Cherokee and the M6 central reservation, so there is little to see.....

2nd Problem - I haven't got a day off in the next 4 weeks, so much as I would love to help, it could be some time before I get 5 spare minutes.

3rd Problem - I'm a mercenary bugger at the best of times, and it would cost you a fortune for me to do it for you.

At the end of the day it is easy.

Take your seats out (Front seats are held down by 4 allen head bolts each, rear seats one self tapper screw holds down each side pad which then pulls up, seat base pulls up (from memory) rear split seats undo a couple of nuts and they come out. The carpet has a plastic trim along each sill which is held done by shouldered self tappers. Simply undo all screws, plastic trim comes away, and you can easily get under carpet. Alternatively, take carpet out, give it a damn good shampoo and clean, lay cables, and put clean carpet back in!! However doing that does let you see exactly where the floor is rusting, which make you feel "dispondent".

Remove the front trays under the steering wheel and glovebox. This gives you easy access to cable routes from the battery area to your headunit and beyond. You will also see how the original speakers slide in. There a several 3.5" speakers that will fit into their place, but you will need to fashion a baffle to make a round replacement speaker square and slotty. Keith has a design for something similar on his site, or are available from internet in a plastic finish.

Run a 10mm cable (red is traditional) from battery, via a 40A or 60A fuse to boot of car under carpet. Mount fuse as close to battery as is practicable. Run phono lead from head unit to amp location under carpet, but away from 10mm cable or it will induce alternator whine.

Terminate 10mm cable in boot into a distribution block. From this you can feed multiple amps or whatever you fancy.

Run speaker cable (use double insulated to avoid chaffing and shorts) from speaker locations to amp locations.

Where any cable passes through any metal, or is at risk of chaffing, use a grommet, I like to also use a cable tie, either side of the grommet, to stop the cable pulling through the grommet.

Plug everything together as per instruction manuals.

For ground reference, use a 10mm cable from amp/device ground/0V terminal to any convenient M8 lug in the boot. Terminate 10mm cable using a large crimp eyelet, and secure to M8 stud with a bolt.

A La Haynes manual, reconstruction is the reverse of destruction etc, etc.

The best thing to do, is to take your seats out, learn where your cable routes are going to be, and use a peice of string and measure them. That way you only need to buy the correct lengths of cable. Planning is everything. At each end of a cable you will need a crimp (or two) connector, so again plan in advance, order an extra couple for the ones you loose, and just go for it.

Alfa 33s are very easy to hide cables in, and, as long as you don't go too mad with the size of cabin mounted speakers, you can hide these too.

The alternative to cabin mount speakers, is getting a stealth shelf so that the speakers are hidden.

Once again planning is everything, really sit and think, and think again about things like "if I hide that cable there, will someone sit/kick/pour beer over it?" Don't forget things move, like rear seats fold flat, front seats slide back and forth, boot release cable still needs to be to move freely, etc

It isn't that tricky. There are plaenty of resources on the internet for ideas on how to hide cables, how to make your own door cards, and things like that, so budget needn't be to much of a constraint, as long as you have the patience and a modicum of common sense, it is easy to achieve a good result.
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Regards

Matt

Ex Alfa 33 'GTA' (P4 with Knobs On)
Now cruising in a 166 3.2 Ti!!

[prauguste]

Hello Matt,

Sorry to hear about your P4. I really appreciate your advice and I will attempt to give it a go. By the way what happend to your white P4 did you scrap it or keep it?

Thanks

Patrick

[Matt Stolton]

I am off the opion that any car that suffers damage to the chassis from an incident should be scrapped. The design of crumple zones and similar stuff, is designed to deform once, to save the life of the occupants.

Once it is bent, if you straighten it, you are work hardening it, and making it brittle, so next time it will snap rather than deform to absorb energy. Snapping absorbs less energy, so more energy is tranferred to the space in which you and your passengers are in.....

Even if you cut out the bad bits and weld good bits in, it is not as strong as one peice of original metal, and in the area of the weld overlap, it may be too strong and wouldn't deform.

I know have a new P4 chassis, courtesy of Dave the Alfa 33 registrar from AROC, which is slowly being rebuilt. It needs new sills/jacking points etc, but has never been bent, so is a good starting point. All the good bits from the previous car are being / have been transferred, but the engine/ O/s cambelt took a smack from the central reservation, so the engine had to go back to the builder for a thorough pressure test, etc.

Amusingly, even though I was doing 70mph, in 5th, so about 2000 rpm, I only bent 1 exhaust valve!! And thats at 11.5:1 CR!!! Amusingly, my engineer has said that that means we can skim some more off, and raise the CR a little higher!! Well this is of course to help control emissions officer

When I get five minutes I will load a page of pictures to my website, before and after type stuff, and let you have the link.
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Regards

Matt

Ex Alfa 33 'GTA' (P4 with Knobs On)
Now cruising in a 166 3.2 Ti!!

[stedee]

hi matt
you said your cr was 11.5 - 1!!
isnt the 33 16v 10 -1 as standard
basically i have got some head work to do so i was thinking of getting them skimmed
2 questions - is raising the cr ok with reliability
and is it fast - it bloody should be!!!!
steve
proud owner of mint p4 with 36000 miles on the clock (shame the engine has bent a valve)
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brum brum

[Ben_nz]

How do you manage to do 2000rpm at 70mph? My car would be doing 3500rpm.

I had my timing belt jump off when reversing at only a few kph, and managed to bend all the valves on one side. =(

[Matt Stolton]

Raising CR too high leads to many issues, pinking etc, but on my engine which has much larger valves, is a good way to claw back some torque, and can help with cleaning emmissions slightly.

Along with all the mods, I reckon it probably had 180 bhp, but that was all the mods, induction, headwork/porting, higher CR, bigger valves and exhaust all working together. Individual tweaks will do minimal amounts of improvements as something else will limit your BHP figure.

With regards to reliabilty, I reckon higher CR will put more strain on obvious things like the head gasket, and big and little end bearings. Isn't going to make your crank overly happy either. However, going back to the entire package idea of implementing mods, the engine was balanced and lightened as a unit, to try and claw back some reliability. Equally tolerances have been improved so extra strain should be balanced out by improved building technique and more accurate components.

It was very fast
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Regards

Matt

Ex Alfa 33 'GTA' (P4 with Knobs On)
Now cruising in a 166 3.2 Ti!!

[Rich B]

getting back on topic, I mentioned the "rear hi-fi shelf" in my previous post, well I've just managed to get one! I'm delighted, should be arriving from Belgium next week, I'll let you know what its like.

[LabRat33P4]

I'll take some photo's of my rear setup tomorrow, but i've got 2 6.5 splits on a custom top to the small section of my p4's parcel tray, i carpeted it in black auto carpet, so it blends in nicely to factory.

I've also got a 10" JL Sub in a box of roughly 1 cubic foot volume, so it doesn't take up too much boot space.

Currently have 2 door pods mocked up, just have to fibreglass them, then carve out the styrofoam from the back. These are for 5 1/4 splits i have for the front.

Sounds good at the moment with just the rear speakers and sub though.

--Rob

[Rich B]

here are some pictures of my hi-fi parcel shelf (a rare option when new)