Scuderia Audio 599 GTB Speaker Upgrade Kit - Sneak Peek

We have several hours into trying to model all kinds of speakers into the two locations beside the large package tray subwoofer. The holes in the sheet metal under these two locations is under 4 1/2". I've seen folks install aftermarket 5 1/4" speaker into those locations, but we have managed to find a way to put one of the Morel 6 1/2" carbon nano speakers there. This means more sound pressure and lower mid bass from these locations. I'm putting the order in for the adapter plates today.

We have discovered that the 599's with the Bose option have the large hole cut into both the package tray and the package tray cover for the large 10" sub. However, the non Bose cars have no holes in either the package tray or the cover. Since no one is going to want to put a Sawzall to their car, I'll have to sell a Bose and a non Bose version of the kit.

The carbon fiber skinned 3D printed tweeter pods are on their way here from overseas. With any luck, both those and the rear adapter plates will be here by the end of next week. At that point I'll be selling kits.

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The carbon fiber hyper directional tweeter pods finally arrived. They look spectacular in person. Guaranteed to improve the sound quality of your high end.
In car pictures coming this weekend, thanks to a super generous 599 F Chatter.
Just waiting on the rear package tray mid bass adapter plates. They can't get here soon enough!

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Many thanks to my generous F Chatter friend for allowing me to test fit these new carbon fiber tweeter pods in his 599. I am happy to report that they fit perfectly.


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Thank you!!
I have updated my website (www.scuderiaaudio.com) with a new 599 GTB section. At the moment it contains all of new products except for the rear package tray mini subwoofers (still waiting on the initial shipment of the adapter plates to arrive). They should be here in a couple of days. Will update this thread as soon as I publish the new product on my website.

 

Project Complete.
I received my last items, the laser cut stainless steel adapter plates that hold the 6 1/2" mid bass speakers to the rear package tray to the left and right of the ten inch subwoofer. They are perfect. These mid bass speakers will fit in either a Bose equipped or a non Bose equipped car.
I have updated my website, just go to www.scuderiaaudio.com and look in the new 599 section.
Here is a picture of the "Super System" (the complete upgrade).

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Last year I had to eliminate my large rear subwoofer system for the 599 because that 10" specialty sub was discontinued. I recently found out that a new 9" sub from the same manufacturer had been recently released, so I retooled my stainless mounting adapter to compensate. Additionally, I had to retool the side rear 3D printed mounting fixtures, the rear package tray mid bass mounting fixtures and the front subwoofer mounting fixtures as all of those speakers were discontinued in favor of new and improved models.

 

Okay here is the completed kit. Almost everything had to be retooled.
Now the system has carbon fiber side rear drivers, carbon fiber rear package tray mid bass drivers and carbon fiber hyper directional tweeter pods.

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More good news on the 599/612 front. After an extremely long search, I have finally sourced the electronic parts that will allow me to fabricate plug and play wiring harnesses that will allow you to replace the OEM amplifier in these cars for more powerful aftermarket offerings.

 

The stock amplifier has only one (large) connector that carries all of the electrical signals (input signals from the radio, output signals to all of the speakers, power, ground, amp turn on). The stereo harness in the car plugs into this amplifier connector. I now have a custom harness that has exact same connector as the stock amp. So instead of the stock harness plugging into the stock amp, the stock harness plugs into my harness which plugs into a high end aftermarket amp. The cars' electronics has no idea that anything has changed.
Watch my video to get a better picture of how this works. It's for a 458 but the concept is the same.

 

I hit a snag. The female connector that is part of the test harness I am constructing is missing 4 wires. Ideally, I'll be able to find the electrical crimp pins for this connector and just add the remaining wires myself. These pins are proving to be difficult to find. I have feelers out with a couple of electronic parts warehouses. As a backup plan, I ordered another female connector off of fleaBay and will dissect that harness to get the pins and wires I need. Once I have this test harness complete, I can use it to verify that I can run my portable test system with a 599 JBL amplifier. Once I do this, I can start making amplifier bypass harnesses using my test harness as a guide. I won't have the pin/wiring problems with the bypass harnesses. The harnesses I have sourced have all the wires.

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I heard back from ConnectorExperts. They have the parts I need. I'll write up another update after completing the test harness.

 

Okay, test harness complete. Now I need to get my hands on a 599 JBL amplifier. I don't need the car, just the amp. I'll hook up my test harness to the amp, power supply, head unit, two front speakers, two rear speakers, rear sub and front (passenger footwell) sub. If all the speakers fire, then making the production amp bypass harnesses will be nothing more than a bunch of mindless soldering of wires and connectors. To test, I just plug the new bypass harness into my test harness and to the aftermarket amp on the other end. If all speakers fire, then all the R&D will be complete and the new product will find its way onto my website ala carte and as part of a complete digital signal processor amplifier replacement kit.


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An extremely generous 599 owner loaned me his amplifier today. I set up my portable system, plugged in the amp and everything worked perfectly. All the speakers fire as they should. Both subwoofers sound properly crossed over. This tells me three things:
1. The amp works.
2. My test harness works.
3. The official Ferrari documentation is correct.

Now I'll give the amplifier back, then start manufacturing production amplifier bypass harnesses.
This may sound biased, but here is my honest opinion: The stock amp sounds fine until you turn up the volume. It runs out of steam very quickly and the distortion is awful. The 599, 612 and Quattroporte models are prime for this amplifier upgrade system.


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I finally had a break from recent orders this weekend. My first 599/612 amp bypass harness is about 75% complete.

The following connections have been completed:

INPUTS
LF+ input
LF- input
RF+ input
RF- input
LR+ input
LR- input
RR+ input
RR- input

FRONT SPEAKERS
LF+ output
LF- output
RF+ output
RF- output

REAR SPEAKERS
LR+ output
LR- output
RR+ output
RR- output

POWER/GROUND/ACC
12v Constant
12v Amp Turn on
Ground

Waiting for connectors for:

REAR PACKAGE TRAY
LP+ output (left package tray)
LP- output
RP+ output
RP- output
CP+ output (center package tray sub)
CP- output

FRONT WHEEL WELL
FW+ output (front wheel well sub)
FW- output

The connectors should arrive in 2-3 days.

 

The completed harness. The input wires follow the standard ISO radio wiring color codes (White=LF, Gray=RF, Green=LR, Purple=RR) so these are not marked. All of the speaker wires are clearly marked and conform to 599/612 OEM speaker placement (Left Front, Center Front, Right Front, Left Rear, Right Rear, Front Sub, Rear Sub). The power/ground/turn on wires also follow the standard color scheme (Red=12V, Black=Ground, Blue=Turn On). Just hook up this harness to your new aftermarket amp, unplug the factory harness from the OEM amp and plug the factory harness into this harness and you're good to go.


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