Z31 Stereo

Stereo Page

I was somewhat impressed that a car produced in 1984 would have a stereo as clean sounding as my Z had. However, the look of the stereo, the unoperationality of the tape deck, and many other broken features of the stereo led me to upgrade even this part of the Z. I started by putting in some Sony speakers in the rear, a direct replacement. But to my disappointment, the Sony's sounded worse than the original Hitachi fullrange speakers. The stereo just wasn't cutting it for me...and I can't stand that silver coated stereo.

The first step was to get some CD capabilites in the car. I installed a Sony single-loading disc player with 35 watts/channel. That helped a bit.

(NEWEST AMP SETUP PICS BELOW)

Nissan's stereo wiring blew me away. To this day I don't understand how they set up the old speakers...all I know is that if one of the speakers was disconnected the matching front/rear speaker would go out. They had them on some kind of series setup...yet they still faded from front to rear. I have no idea what they did...anyways, once I found that out I just joined the +,- wire on the rear speakers and installed new wires to go from the head unit to the rear speakers. I understand if you re-wire the front speakers your Z will stop talking to you...the existing wiring is important to keep on...but you can replace the rear ones entirely and just join the old rear + and - to ground the fronts properly.

Total power in the stereo right now is 600 (amp...300 of that being RMS) and 35 x 4 from the head unit (only two channels currently used, though, and 22 x 4 RMS). So really, my max, undistorted consumption is about 344 watts, soon to be 450 (as I plan to stop using the head unit channels entirely and run the fronts off the amp as well...I'll be adding a mono amp exclusively for the sub). If you want a taste of the music I've grown up with and still love, let me know and I'll send you some.

Just as a bit of a technical note...RMS is all that matters with speakers. Don't listen to MAX or PMPO ratings. They are BULLCRAP. I've come to distinguish between REAL WATTS and FAKE WATTS. For example, everything YAMAHA makes has very conservative watt ratings, and they can be trusted (RMS says 200, then it is AT LEAST that). Yamaha will state 200 RMS and 400 MAX. While other companies might say they have a 200 watts RMS speaker, and claim 800 MAX, which is ridiculous and very misleading, esp. in a short add that doesn't state RMS. Most car stereo head units only put out about 1/2 the wattage they claim per channel. My Sony claims 35 and actually does about 18-22. Others are worse. They'll state 45 or 50 when it's really only 20 or so. To have REAL power, you have to add amps, and good ones.

New speakers were definately in order. I installed some JBL 5x7's in the rear.

I had to remove most the molding in the car to get to those old metal mounts. I threw them away as soon as I could. I then made the proper adjustments to fit in the JBL's. I would soon see that I'd have to prop them up in the same way the old ones were proped up in order to prevent the shock bolt from hitting the bottom of the speakers. The JBL's have deeper and larger magnets than the old Hitachi's. They sport 120 watts each. The mounts look nice...kinda a low profile look actually. Man I hated those old mounts. The grilles fell off everytime I hit a bump. I plan to refinish the mounts one more time. I didn't sand them very well the first time. They'll probably get a semi-flat finish this time instead of a high gloss.

(I have redone the mounts since this picture - better paint)

(nice flat look - although the angle isn't the best for sound - I might redesign them)

I also installed front speakers. I originally bought AUDIOVOX Prestige Series (yeah, I know what you're saying...AUDIOVOX suck!!! AUDIOVOX Prestige Series are actually powerful and well built speakers), but they run a little big and weren't a direct bolt on up front. The guy I bought the AUDIOVOX from said he was sorry they didn't fit and gave me these (below) brand new Pioneers as a replacement. He's go the best business in town...kicks but on all other local car audio shops. The Pioneers are rated at 125 watts max, so about 50 or so RMS.

Pioneer and other companies make 3-hole speaker replacements that fit directly into the old hole, but one problem arises. The speakers are inset about 1.5" from the panel, so the grille has to be bolted up differently. You could just reuse the existing grille, but it doesn't look very good. I bolted in the speaker and replaced the door panel w/out the old speaker grille. The old speaker grille had a cloth cover with elastic around the edge. It covered the stock grille for looks. I took that cloth and glued it into the inside of the new speaker grilles (about 5 spots of silicone on the inner edge) and let it dry. Then I took 4 speaker clips and clamped the plastic part (mount) of the speaker grille to the door panel. (these clips are flat with a hole that a screw goes through....they clip onto the edge of the door panel). When you screw through the clips they clamp down on the door panel...the plastic part of the speaker grille is now set in place. Then just snap in the speaker grille and that's it. The reason I used the cloth from the previous set up is because the circular hole in the door panel has a smaller diameter than the speaker (dumb design element) and you can see this horrid yellowish plastic through the speaker grille if it doesn't have anything there to hide what's inside. Now it has a very nice two-toned look (beige under black...look close). It substracted about 5 yrs. of age from the look of the car.

Next came the sub...I've gone through a few. I will post pics of my current sub soon. I used to switch this sub between the Z and my Nissan Quest (which has an Aiwa CDC-MP3 [plays mp3 disks] and my old 2-channel bridged to mono amp for the sub). I now have new sub in my Quest.

(Aiwa CDC-MP3)

The amp I now run in my Z is a 6-5-4-3-2 channel Jensen (I was surprised that it is actually quite nice...I normally go with expensive units like PPi or A/D/S, but I picked this up for only $60 and it works just as nice, actually...for my needs). It basically has 4 channels, each pair being bridgeable, but you can also run a third speaker on each set of 2 by taking + from one and - from the other (making the configurations possible 6-5-4-3-2). I currently run the rear speakers off two channels and the sub off the other 2 which are bridged together. I am getting the 1/2 version of the same amp soon, which I will run the sub off, and just use this one for the four normal speakers. The sound out of the JBL's far outweighs the front speakers right now because they're running off the amp. I cable up my amp directly to the battery. Had to get down and drill a hole through the firewall and get the carpet pulled up to route everthing. I've had to re-do my ground a few times to get things working right, but its steady now.

Specifications for Jensen Amp Model No. XA6040LX (red is my configuration) :

6 CH: 4 x 75 Watts RMS (4 ohms) [4 x 150 Watts peak] +2 x 150 Watts RMS Bridged (4 ohms) [2 x 300 Watts peak]

5 CH: 4 x 75 Watts RMS (4ohms) [4 x 150 Watts peak] + Bridged 150 Watts RMS (4 ohms) [300 Watts peak]

4 CH: 4 x 75 Watts RMS (4 ohms) [4 x 150 Watts peak] 4 x 100 Watts RMS (2 ohms) [4 x 200 Watts peak]

3 CH: 2 x 75 Watts RMS (4 ohms) [2 x 150 Watts peak] Bridged 150 Watts RMS (4 ohms) [300 Watts peak]

Driving REAR JBL 5x9" 100 Watt RMS speakers and a single 150 Watt RMS PPI 8" Subwoofer in Bandpass Box

2 CH: Bridged 2 x 150 WattsRMS (4 ohms) [600 Watts peak] 4 ohm

Power Rating@<00.05% THD

4-channel design bridgeble to 6-channel
Switchable low pass crossovers for driving subwoofers @ 100Hz reduce distortion and extend speaker life
MOSFET power supply for cooler, more stable operation
2 ohm stable operation for maximum efficiency
Bass Boost +6db @ 45Hz; Circuit and thermal overload protection prevents amp failure
Variable input sensitivity for perfect match with car stereo
Floating ground inputs
Gold-plated low level inputs and screw terminal connections for: power, ground, sensing and speaker outputs
Discrete bi-polar output transistors for maximum efficiency
Remote on/off sensor turns amp on and off with car stereo
Power LED indicator
State-of-the-art heat sink for efficient power dissipation
Soft turn-on circuit
Cool Diamond-Plate finish

Specifications for Jensen Amp Model No. XA1120 (red is my configuration):

3 CH: 2 x 75 Watts RMS (4 ohms) [2 x 150 Watts peak] + 1 x 150 Watts RMS Bridged (8 ohms) [1 x 300 Watts peak]

2 CH: 2 x 55 Watts RMS (4ohms) [2 x 110 Watts peak]

Driving front speakers (Pioneer 5 1/2" 75 Watt RMS)

2 CH: 2 x 83 Watts RMS (2ohms) [2 x 166 Watts peak]

1 CH: Bridged 166 Watts RMS (4 ohms) [332 Watts peak]

Power Rating@<00.05% THD

HERE IS THE NICEST SUB I'VE SEEN MADE FOR THE Z (don't know who owns it)