Installing hatch speakers

[Happy Dragon]

I have a 2000 Firebird that did not come with hatch speakers.
I purchased some hatch panels with speakers off ebay and
will be receiving them in the mail today.

I looked in the hatch area and took the panels off but didn't
spot any extra speaker wires, what should I be looking for
or what should I do?

I don't know if the panels with speakers will be coming supplied
with the wire speaker plugs, if this is the case can the speakers
be wired in without the factory plugs?

If you have a photo of the wiring in the hatch area that
pertains to these speakers that can point out which wires to
connect to I would appreciate the help.


Thanks,
Happy Dragon

[WhiteBird00]

If your car doesn't have the Monsoon system, there will be no hatch speakers nor wiring for them. The base audio system had only four full-range speakers - doors and sail panels. It didn't have components in the doors, subs in the sail panels or an external amplifier.

Check the option codes on the door for code W54 or W55 to see if it originally had the Monsoon system.

[Happy Dragon]

I don't believe my car came with Monsoon.
I have a 2000 Firebird with four speakers,
well tweeters built into the mids in the
doors but no separate tweeters. So
technically that means six speakers but
the door panels are not deluxe with two
separate speakers in the doors which
soon I hope to upgrade to deluxe door
panels. I guess I'll have the same problem
when I place deluxe door panels in due
to it not being a Monsoon system.
Does that mean I'm poop out of luck?

Can't I just splice into the sail panel/sub
speakers to get the hatch speakers going
or would that degrade the sound in both
sets of speakers and possibly damage the
factory head unit?

Thanks for any helpful advice.

[99345hp]

I dont know if the factory headunit is capable of supporting a 2ohm load. What you would have to do is take jumper wires off of the sail panel speakers and go + to + and - to -. I think this is a big no no, but that is the only way I can think of to do it.

[Flaring Afro]

why are you going through the trouble? just having 4 good aftermarket speakers would be better than your factory head unit powering 4, let alone 6. More speakers means less power per speaker so if anything it will get worse. You're going to need an amplifier.

This is what I'd suggest. Get a 4 channel amplifier to power the fronts and rears. Then for the sails, get a 2 channel amplifier to power the subs you put there (i assume this is what you plan on). Then when you get the new front door panels, aftermarket components come with their own crossovers that should channel the power to both the tweeter and mid, i think. I'd get a head unit too, considering the cheapest one you could find would probably have better audio quality and one with a pre-out for the amplifier would make things clearer.

[WhiteBird00]

It depends on whether the car has factory speakers in the sail panels. The coaxial speakers in the doors certainly aren't factory equipment.

If the car still has factory sail panel speakers then they are 10-ohm "extended range" (GM's name not mine) speakers. You could wire 4-ohm hatch speakers in parallel and end up with 2.85 ohms which is not safe for the head unit as mentioned above. You would have to get 8-ohm speakers for the hatch to end up with 4.4 ohms - a safe load for the HU. The problem is worse if the hatch speakers have also been replaced with common aftermarket 4-ohm speakers (two 4-ohm speakers in parallel creates a 2-ohm load)...although you could wire them in series for a total 8-ohm load that is safe for the head unit but cuts your power output in half.

The bigger question is why would you want hatch speakers? They are used as rear fill in a Monsoon system because there is nothing but bass coming from the sail panel subs. Your car already has full-range sound coming from behind you so why would you need more?

[Happy Dragon]

WhiteBird00, apparently I'm going to need to speak with you over the phone.
PM me your number please.

I want as many speakers as I can get but wanted it to be like factory.
I don't have Monsoon but am upgrading my vehicle to be a TA from a FireBird
and thought the hatch panel speakers were a part of the Monsoon system.

I purchased the hatch panels and soon will purchase deluxe door panels
to finish off the look, all I need to do is make it sound right.

If what I need to do is completely rewire the audio system then so be it.
I wanted the deluxe door panels and hatch speakers.

The question is how to get them to work fully and correctly considering
my current 4 speaker set up with tweeters built into the front mid's and
how to get it to what the factory 8/10 speaker setup is when I have the
deluxe door panels added.

If the deluxe door panels have 2 speakers in each side thats an 8 speaker
setup with speakers in the hatch, where are the extra 2 speakers for the
10 speaker setup?

Thanks

[Happy Dragon]

Oh... ok, I assumed the hatch panels were 6 x 9's but they're 2 separate speakers.
10 speakers.

I'm going from 4 speakers to 10 speakers.

Still looking for Tan Deluxe Door Panels though.

I didn't find any wires to hook up to my speakers
but I did find a plug underneath the left side hatch
panel I'm assuming is for a CD changer I think.

[WhiteBird00]

Well, you're going to need additional amplification to run the extra speakers effectively. The Monsoon system has an external 8-channel amp that powers all of the speakers except the door and hatch tweeters (which run directly off the head unit). But it wouldn't be worth the effort (or cost) to install a complete Monsoon system because you'd have to replace the existing speakers along with adding new ones, add a Monsoon amp, rewire from the head unit to the amp and back to the speakers, and you'd still only end up with a system that wasn't particularly impressive. Don't get me wrong - the Monsoon system isn't bad but I don't think it's good enough to be worth trying to install in a car that didn't have it from the factory.

I recommend you add an aftermarket amp and set up a system that best suits your listening preferences rather than trying to mimic the factory system. You could put some components in the doors and hatch, and replace the sail panel speakers with 6.5" subs (Kee Audio carries them) or add a second amp and a sub/stealthbox in the back for more bass. Basically, you could build whatever system you like using the factory speaker locations without trying to duplicate the factory system.