A closer look at the C door speaker enclosure

Here’s a look at an older Lexus door speaker enclosure from the late 90’s for comparison.



Now I understand when people would say those cars were over-engineered from the factory. Obviously, we can’t get to this level of perfection easily but a simple layer of any type of material over the plastic vapor barrier should help. I’m taking a mild approach to keep the weight of the door down while maintaining ease of service in the future. What method did you use and how has it performed?

There are three large holes up front covered by the factory vapor barrier. Covering these holes with anything should both reduce road noise and increase the speaker performance. I used the 1/8 inch Dynaliner product which is easy to work with and apply. What I especially liked was how easy it was to remove. It literally just peels off the plastic without leaving a sticky residue. Long-term removal hasn’t been tested.


The rear door has two large holes that were also covered up with the same dynaliner. The stock radio doesn’t appear to have much output going to the rear speakers but it’s still a happier place now. It should also sound much better once an aftermarket head unit or amplifier are added to the mix.




The rear door bottoms don’t have any plastic drain plugs like the front. Probably a cost cutting measure but unsure if there is any reason to add them or their technical function.

 

For those curious, the front speaker opening has been beefed up with dynamat extreme and a Focal IS 165 TOY plug and play speaker is bolted down. The Focal tweeter does not drop in so I’m leaving that out of the mix. The rear speaker has the same dynamat treatment but a less expensive PowerBass OE652-TY plug and play speaker installed. Both woofers drop right in without any modifications.






If you don’t have a pair of Vampliers I highly recommend them. They really cut through the leftover rivets with ease. A two-handed rivet tool makes life so much easier as well.

 

Appreciate it! I noticed the simple design and construction gives us a lot of options for customization with noticeable improvements.