Budget-friendly Hidden Bluetooth Stereo System Install, $113 total system price, easy install Options

[FRUNKenstein]

When I bought my bahia red '73 914 in July, it did not come with a sound system. No head unit. No cutout in the dash to mount a head unit. No speakers in the speaker boxes in the driver & passenger footwells. No nuthin'. It does have some sort of alarm system wired up under there and I have one remote for the alarm system (a CompuSTAR CM1300 system), but the prior owner didn't know anything about it, so I assume it was installed by the prior-prior owner in 2016 or earlier. For the time being I will just ignore the alarm system until I decide to keep it or remove it.

But, back to the lack of stereo system. The factory speaker boxes in the footwells make it easy to mount speakers. But, I didn't want to cut a hole in the dash. With the other cars in my hooptie fleet, the headunit is basically useless - I just hook my iphone up via Bluetooth and control everything from the phone while I stream music or a radio station via an app. Upon searching the interwebs, I discover that a lot of classic car people just buy a Bluetooth unit with an amp built in, but without a faceplate. You wire it in under the dash and it stays hidden.

This is the one I bought off Amazon for $22.99:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XG33...=UTF8&psc=1









I did have to assemble it, which was a little annoying. It wasn't bad and took only a few minutes. But, the screws and spacers were tiny for my gorilla meathooks to manipulate.

I originally bought a set of 5x7 speakers to mount in the footwell boxes, but they were too large. So, I bought a set of 3-way Pioneer 4x6 speakers from Best Buy for $90:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/pioneer-4-x-6-...p?skuId=6454571









I mounted the speakers in the factory footwell boxes. The screw size for the speaker mounting thread inserts are M4-0.7. I bought some 10 mm and 14 mm lengths. I also used some "mending plates" to help hold the speakers in place since the footwell boxes are an odd size.





The install was pretty simple, other than the time spent on my back with my head stuffed in the footwells (brings back memories of replacing the ignition switch in multiple 996s). I connected the power to the cigarette lighter since it is switched power, plus it has a 16 amp fuse on that circuit, so the stereo shouldn't overload it. The Bluetooth/amp module is zip-tied to a dash support bracket out of sight, directly under the steering wheel. Based on advice in other threads here on 914world.com, I filled the speaker boxes with polyfill to help with the sound (my wife will never notice the missing sofa pillow).

The sound is about what you'd expect from a system that cost $113. It would horrify an audiophile. That being said, it gets plenty loud - it has a volume control knob that I could use by reaching under the dash, but it is easier to just set it on high and use my phone to adjust volume. It starts up and connects to my phone automatically. The start-up tone is just a short "beep" - there are some units like this that apparently have a really obnoxious start up announcement. All in all, I'm pleased with the results.