Nissan Skyline GT-R : Installing a New Radio or Stereo or Headunit, Speakers, and a Subwoofer

While the magical sound of the RB26dett may be the only noise you need, the real life means I like a radio. Our R32 GT-R had a Japanese Mini disc player head unit, that only picked up Radio Disney in the US(different frequencies 76-90ish). Best Buy had a Pioneer headunit for $65, or right around $70 with tax. Very basic. I am well over my big stereo phase.

Headunit
Adapter harness
Front Speakers
Rear Speakers
Subwoofer

The R32 and R33 use different radio adapter harnesses.

One option if you have a working radio is a cigarette lighter bluetooth adapter. They work pretty well to get bluetooth music from your phone to the car speakers.

Along with the radio, making the install a little easier are two adapters. The first is a NIS-A115 Nissan (1987 up) antenna adapter harness. That is from the Nissan twin connector to the standard single that almost all head units use. However if you never use over the air radio, you can skip it if you ground the radio to a bolt. Otherwise the radio is grounded through the antenna.

The next harness to make life a little easier is the power and speaker connector adapter. NN02B (1982-1994 Nissan).

Install is pretty easy.

Remove shift knob
Remove shift boot
Remove ashtray
Remove stereo surround. (Careful these are now made of platinum, or priced like it)
There are several self tapping screws that hold the AC and radio in.
Once those screws are out, the A/C and radio comes out as assembly.
Most aftermarket radio's will fit right in with either OEM or supplied screws.

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Radio Bracket

Nissan Skyline R32 radio bracket part numbers

Maybe your car came from Japan, and was missing the radio brackets. It happens. Here are the part numbers for the OEM R32 radio brackets 28037 and 28307 +A in the above diagram

28038-01U10

28039-01U10

08566-51610 Discontinued screw

Radio delete bracket or filler plate

Nissan Radio delete filler plate 68470-60M00

Speakers for R32

4 x 6 Kenwood N'Fit plates in the door of an R32 GT-R

The factory door speakers in an R32 are 4 x 6 plates. One of those odd sizes. 4 x 6 plates suck. I tried them, I wanted to go down the path of least resistance, and they really just aren't good enough. The Nismo had a Kenwood N'Fit system in it. The speaker surrounds were all gone. . It seems the consensus on the internet is to just fabricate up a plate, and bolt a 6.5 inch speaker to it. Lacking any motivation to go on a building spree, I found some Polk Audio 4" x 6" plates. They more or less should have screwed right in, but the Nissan and the Polk need some help to get along.

Polk Audio separates plates replacing the N'Fit. These are pretty worthless. Buy or build an adapter and put 6.5 inch speakers in the doors.

6.5 inch door speaker adapter from carstereoadapters.com

Kenwood N'fit rear speakers mounted to deck in Nismo

For the rear, the Nismo didn't have the cutouts in the deck panel for the speakers. The metal cutouts were there. It had Kenwood N'Fit lightup speakers on the deck. Those were also all torn up. I tried to fix them, poked a hole in one of the light up sections, which pissed me off. I replaced the 4 inch speakers with some 4 inch speakers.

Speaker Adapters SAK143_55 89-94 Nissan R32 Skyline Fits 6.5" Speakers

Overall the 4 x 6 plates, and redone rear speakers were all pretty underwhelming. I would not recommend going this path. The #bluecar has a very different setup. It had Alpine 6.5 speakers in the doors, the rear deck. I replaced the hurt front Alpines with some JBL speakers. Then in the rear I added a Bose Sparetire subwoofer. I used the factory connector to the rear amp to provide power, ground, signal, and line level speaker input.

Rear speaker cutout in the Nismo. The hold down stud for the Kenwood N-Fit speaker is visible.

The Bose sparetire sub idea came from my Infiniti FX. It had a decent stereo in it, Bose based. Not award winning, not ground shaking, but decent enough sound. I noticed that it had a subwoofer that was mounted/stored in the spare tire. You can find them on eBay for $60- $100 with the connector. Make sure you get one with the connector. One less step, one less thing to try and find. It just needed power, ground, and signal in. There are many styles of these subs. This one had a single speaker in it.

Bose Spare tire subwoofer in an R32 GT-R. I could cut or melt it to fit a bit better, but for now its just tall

However it fits ok, not great. I flipped the spare tire over, and then put the sub in it. It raises the floor/carpet about two inches I have some ideas about how to make it back to flush, but some involve hammers, some involve welding, some involve spare tires from other cars. I don't want to lose any function, or any convenience.