One Stop Stereo / Radio & Speaker Replacement Thread

Having never owned a Ferrari before, never driven a Ferrari or really not being much a mechanic, I decided that within 24 hours of purchasing my first Ferrari it would be a good idea to rip the interior of the my 328 apart to install a new radio, amp and speakers.
I would not have attempting this without the terrific threads already posted in this forum.

The only thing that was not perfect, was I had to reference a handful of other threads to get the answers and there were some things I learned along the way that I had not read previously

So, I have decided to use this thread as the complete reference for replacing a head unit and speakers in a 328 – hopefully this will help future folks.


EQUIPMENT PURCHASE

The first key item is the equipment. I choose the following equipment based on the threads below and on my research. I bought them all on EBAY for the noted prices – I highly recommend these:

ALPINE CDE-102 CAR AUDIO HEAD UNIT - $134.00: The Alpine head unit has an IPOD controller on it and it is single DIM – so it fits perfectly into the existing space. It is also about as retro a look as I could find so it does not stand out too much.

Alpine KTP-445 Power Upgrade 4 Alpine Head Units KTP445 - $104.00: This amp is specifically made for Alpine head units and ended up fitting perfectly behind the firewall in the passenger footwell. While it is not acoustically as ideal as a “true amp” – I would argue if you are listening to an IPOD and given the significant amount of engine noise, anyone that says they can tell the difference has a unique sense of hearing, or at least they think they do. This amp does not need a separate power source, so it also saves time and effort.

JL AUDIO VR600-CSI CAR AUDIO 6" COMPONENT SPEAKERS - $172.00 – I got the lead on these from the thread below – these were PERFECT. The woofer fits perfectly into the door as the thread below describes and the tweeters, with some minor adjustments which I describe below, fit perfectly in the dash. There are two cross over devices that split the sound between the woofer and the tweeter; they are about the size of two decks of cards each. I was most worried about where I was going to put them; it turns out they fit snugly in behind the footwell of the passenger compartment as well right in front of the amp– so it was ideal for what I wanted (i.e. no significant alterations to the car) – I laid this out below.


STEREO / RADIO REMOVAL

There are a ton of threads on how to remove the center council to get behind the radio (1) first remove the cover to the fuse box which is attached with two screws (it is in the owner manual) (2) Unscrew two screws on the bottom of the center council that houses the two vents, radio and the clock, temp and fuel gauge – the whole council then slides down giving you access to the back of the radio and the gauges – very easy.

The new thing for me was that the speaker wiring on my car had only two wires, there was a single speaker wire to the left side and single wire to the right side, which meant the tweeter and woofer were on the same wire which, this was a problem with the JL Audio configuration because each speaker – the tweeter and the woofer – had to have its own wire. So what I had to do was run a new separate wire to each tweeter and disconnect and cap the existing wire that ran from the tweeter to the woofer. This was relatively straight forward once I figured out there was not supposed to be an existing separate speaker wires to the tweeter. More about this later.

The Alpine CDE-102 head unit fit perfectly in the old unit’s case, but given some light corrosion I replaced the old housing case with the one that came with my Alpine.
Removing and replacing the radio was the quickest part of the process, it took about 20 minutes


WIRING BEHIND THE PASSANGER FOOTPLATE

It is easy to remove the passenger footplate – there are six screws, three on each side. You will need to remove the place because you will put the amp and the cross over’s for the speakers in this area.

This is what it looked like when I opened it up

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The old radio and amp did not match the interconnect cables for the Alpine unit so I had to wire a new interconnect to the correct cables (the Alpine head unit comes with a interconnect cable, so this was simply a matter of cutting, splicing, connecting and taping wires together – very easy.

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wires connected to the Alpine supplied interconnect cable

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The Alpine amp I used does not require a separate power source so there is no new power wiring that needs to be done. The Alpine amp and the JL audio splitters just barely fit behind the foot plate – the photo was not clear so I laid out how they fit in the picture below:

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You will want to run the cables from the Amp to the stereo behind the top left screw connect pictured here:

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WIRING TO THE SPEAKERS

This is what took the most time. Both removing and replacing the tweeters and the woofer isn’t hard, just time consuming.

First we will start with the tweeters. The thread below is awesome and it saved me a ton of time and headache – it is a must read to remove the tweeters:

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=182798&highlight=jl+audio

The only thing I would add to the thread above is removing the passenger tweeter is a pain – it took me 20 minutes. I would recommend you remove some wiring from the fuse box as I did in the picture below to give you more room to work:

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The JL tweeter speakers fit PERFECTLY in the existing tweeter bracket. All you have to do is sand (or rotary) down the plastic portion of the existing bracket till it reaches the metal – the JL tweeter then snaps perfectly in place and looks pretty good:

REMOVE BRACKET

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Sand/carefully grind away most of the plastic

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Place JL audio tweeter into bracket and replace in dash

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On the passenger side - after getting the tweeter in the bracket and installed in the dash I attached speaker wire and ran it inside the dash above some of the relays then down behind the footwell on the passenger side. The tweeter on the driver side is much easier to remove (you have to remove the little pocket, change holder to the right of the steering wheel). On the Driver side I fished some speaker wire from the tweeter behind the gauges and also ran the wire down to the passenger footwell area where the amp is.

Now for the woofer – you will need to remove the door panel to replace the woofer – this write-up by a Fchat member is critical and I could not have done it without this – it is a must read:

http://ferrari.cdyn.com/carl_rose_docs/Ferrari%20328%20Inner%20Door%20Panel%20Removal.pdf

Once the door panel is removed it is simple to replace the speaker, and because you used the existing wiring, it was very quick – all in the door removal and speaker replacement took about 35 minutes (30 of it was removing the door panel). The JL Audio speakers fit perfectly and matched the drill holes perfectly.

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OTHER OBSERVATIONS / CONCLUSIONS

1) I twisted my body in ways I did not know was possible in order to get at things, be prepared (I also noted that Italian men must have must smaller hands or much better tools (probably a little of both)

2) With the ALPINE CDE-102, you are able to remove the IPod cable and stick the connector up-and-in-behind the dash so if you don’t want to use/see it you don’t have to

3) The removal of the pin that attaches the door latch mechanism to the door opening handle took me a while to figure out – I forgot to take a picture of it, but I will be replacing the driver’s door speaker next weekend and I will post it then – it is easy once you figure it out

 

I used the Alpine KTP-445, this amp is specifically made for the head unit and the added advantage is that it does not need a seperate power source. It is the size of a few packs of cigarettes put together, so nice and small.

Let me know if there is anything i can be helpful with.

Best,
Lewis