What Did You Do To Your Car Today?

07GtS197

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It seems like every time I've seen a previous owner or a wire fire shop do anything with a car that had the Mach 460 system they go out of their way to do it the wrongest way possible.

The Mach system isn't hard to understand, the four tweeters are wired directly to the radio head unit (New Edge) or to the front amplifier (94-98) and then the rear two woofers are 8 ohms, wired in parallel to one of the rear amplifiers. The front two woofers are 8 ohms, wired in parallel to the other rear amplifier. The tweeters need to be high passed around 250hz if you're going to keep them and you can't just slap 4 ohm speakers in place of the woofers and still run them with the factory amps.

Generally the best bet is to delete the amps and all factory speakers, install components in front and wire them to your aftermarket head unit using the existing wiring that leads to the sail panel tweeters, and install coaxials in the rear (or under-mount 6x9's if you want more bass) - again using the wiring that was originally operating the tweeters. Ignore all mach 460 woofer wiring.

Any other level of integration than that either requires that you're an audio nerd who really knows what they're working with or it's gonna sound really bad.
I was trying to do some research on it but didn’t come up with much. I’m not much of an audiophile but I’m open to learn about such. I’m open to learning if you want to help I’d appreciate it.
 

Daryl

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Washed it. Drove it to jury duty where I nodded out 3x in the first 2 hours likely due to waking up @ 3:00am for work! Dude next to me slept the whole 2 hours. LOL
 
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shovel

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I’m open to learning if you want to help I’d appreciate it.

The previous post pretty much has it.

You can connect your aftermarket radio speaker leads directly to the ones labeled as such on your wire harness adapter, those lead to the tweeter pods in the doors (front) and to the tweeters on the rear mach woofer box thing (rear).

Take all the Mach speakers themselves (the door woofers if present, the tweeters in front but not the tweeter housings, the whole rear enclosure if it's a coupe or just the speakers if it's a convertible) and put them on ebay there is nothing about them that is valuable in the absence of a fully OEM Mach system. The OEM Mach amps are specialized to the exact speakers they were built for and sound bad on any other speakers.

Get a set of 6x8" or 6.5" components for the front. Cheap ones installed correctly will perform better than expensive ones installed badly. I'm not going to recommend a brand because I work for a company that manufactures speakers. See below for an important note. There's a wire at the top of your door that connects to the Mach tweeter, now that supplies all the audio to your door. Connect that to the crossover which came with your components, or if they're super cheap and don't have a crossover then connect that to your speakers as directed in the instructions. Ignore the previous wiring for the door woofers, this is not useful anymore. Install the tweeter in the triangular tweeter pod. There are adapters for this that require minimal cutting (of the adapter) or you can make your own out of cardboard or aluminum or whatever you're comfortable working with. Some installers literally just hold the tweeter in place and fill the void with hot glue and backer rod. I don't happen to like that, but it works.

Get a set of 6x8" coaxials for the rear. If you have a coupe, you have to take the plastic trim panels off both sides of the rear window (the triangular window frame that surrounds the rear side windows) before lifting off the rear shelf cover, don't try to shortcut that unless you like having unsightly cracks to deal with on your shelf cover. Mount the coaxials in the existing cutouts. Connect them to the wires that previously supplied sound to the Mach tweeters, those are your full range speaker signals now. Ignore the previous woofer wiring, it's not used anymore.. in fact it should have gone away with the amps and box.

That's it. You can get infinitely more complex if you want, that's on you.


Note about speakers: Ford uses a slightly funky speaker size, 6x8" and unfortunately there are multiple standards for the exact shape and spacing of the mounting holes. If you want to make your life slightly easier when installing, shop for ones that have the kinda more square sides instead of the little ears for mounting. Or just get 6.5" round speakers and use adapter plates.

1781822032774.png
 

07GtS197

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The previous post pretty much has it.

You can connect your aftermarket radio speaker leads directly to the ones labeled as such on your wire harness adapter, those lead to the tweeter pods in the doors (front) and to the tweeters on the rear mach woofer box thing (rear).

Take all the Mach speakers themselves (the door woofers if present, the tweeters in front but not the tweeter housings, the whole rear enclosure if it's a coupe or just the speakers if it's a convertible) and put them on ebay there is nothing about them that is valuable in the absence of a fully OEM Mach system. The OEM Mach amps are specialized to the exact speakers they were built for and sound bad on any other speakers.

Get a set of 6x8" or 6.5" components for the front. Cheap ones installed correctly will perform better than expensive ones installed badly. I'm not going to recommend a brand because I work for a company that manufactures speakers. See below for an important note. There's a wire at the top of your door that connects to the Mach tweeter, now that supplies all the audio to your door. Connect that to the crossover which came with your components, or if they're super cheap and don't have a crossover then connect that to your speakers as directed in the instructions. Ignore the previous wiring for the door woofers, this is not useful anymore. Install the tweeter in the triangular tweeter pod. There are adapters for this that require minimal cutting (of the adapter) or you can make your own out of cardboard or aluminum or whatever you're comfortable working with. Some installers literally just hold the tweeter in place and fill the void with hot glue and backer rod. I don't happen to like that, but it works.

Get a set of 6x8" coaxials for the rear. If you have a coupe, you have to take the plastic trim panels off both sides of the rear window (the triangular window frame that surrounds the rear side windows) before lifting off the rear shelf cover, don't try to shortcut that unless you like having unsightly cracks to deal with on your shelf cover. Mount the coaxials in the existing cutouts. Connect them to the wires that previously supplied sound to the Mach tweeters, those are your full range speaker signals now. Ignore the previous woofer wiring, it's not used anymore.. in fact it should have gone away with the amps and box.

That's it. You can get infinitely more complex if you want, that's on you.


Note about speakers: Ford uses a slightly funky speaker size, 6x8" and unfortunately there are multiple standards for the exact shape and spacing of the mounting holes. If you want to make your life slightly easier when installing, shop for ones that have the kinda more square sides instead of the little ears for mounting. Or just get 6.5" round speakers and use adapter plates.

View attachment 50188
I got the car with one woofer that was the wrong size and the other door had nothing and both tweeters gone. I have a set of four pioneer components I picked up used for a good price. Two are installed in the doors but the rear deck isn’t touched. It might not even have speakers for all I know. I’m going to look for some 2” speakers for the tweeter pods if I can.
 

Daryl

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Holy balls that was a long 9 hours outside in the heat. I didn't think the Borla could get any louder. Sounds like a freaking TransAm Racecar. I guess I'm getting old because this is too loud for me, lol.
View attachment 50199
Fitment looks great. Contours tight. Are you up for a sound clip? What is this on?
 

wmfateam

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Fitment looks great. Contours tight. Are you up for a sound clip? What is this on?
I tried to get one but the wind noise made it sound like crap. I'm going to have to pull my old GoPro out and put the external mic on the bumper. But I'll try and grab another sound clip on the way to dinner tonight. It's a 2024 Mustang GT. These are the Kook's long tubes with cats going into a Borla Cat back. I did a 1-3rd pull and the long tubes really clean up exhaust note.
 

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