Subwoofer Amp DIY / Install... 56K no! Elemental Design enc
#1
Subwoofer Amp DIY / Install... 56K no! Elemental Design enc
Well, I haven't seen one of these around, so I'll post some pics with some small explainations about how I did this. I've taken a lot from you SL people, so it's about time I gave some back! Obviously, there is more than one way to do this. I'm sure mine was neither the best, nor worse, but it suits my needs and I'm happy with the results...
First and foremost, make sure you are prepared. You'll need a socket wrench set, drill, screwdriver, an amp wiring kit (rca wire, power wire, remote turn on wire, zip ties, and ground) and some speaker wire. Also, no need to say this because you all already know it, make sure... again, MAKE SURE you have your beer of choice at hand...
OK, now there's plenty of places to start and no particular order. Me, I just started ripping everything apart. I didn't take many pictures, so these may appear a little out of order. Pull up the plastic on the floor by the passenger side door and in the corner of the footwell. It should all just pop out, there may be one bolt in the footwell.
Take out the reciever and HVAC unit. These just pop out as well. You'll have to losen the top of the section with the shifter in it first. Then work up to the HVAC part. The Head Unit is simply held in with 2 phillips screws and 2 10mm nuts.
Also, take out the glove box. Simply open it, then push in the sides as you pull it the rest of the way down and out.
You are going to then want to start running wires. I ran my power wire from the battery,
under the intake
through the plastic under the driver's wiper...(you have to drill a hole)
and then through the ventilation system (behind the plastic on the passenger side window.) This is a picture of the plastic being held up and where the power wire goes into the car.
For some reason, I didn't get a picture of where it comes out on the other side. But here is what I did, and it worked out so easy! you'll have to take out the cabin air filter box behind where the glove box was. Push the power cord in from the engine side just about a foot. Now look up through where the cabin air-filter box was. See the power cord sticking out? Use something to grab it and pull it down. Now drill a little hole in the white plastic above the filter. Pull the power cord through that hole. If you drill the hole right, the cord will fit pretty snug, so you won't have any whistles or air gaps, but you could always tape or silicon it later if you wanted.
from here, pass the power cord towards the back, along the plastic that you pulled up and where the pre-existing wires already are. You'll also want to run the RCA cable and the remote turn on cable, at the same time, from the area behind the head unit, through the glove box, and along the same "wire run" with the power cable.
[img]
This is where I cheated a bit. But it makes things a lot easier. When you get to the spot where the rear right panel is, just pull the wires behind the seatbelt, and up uunderneath the plastic of the panel. No need to remove anything, just unclip the very bbottom so that you can pull the wires up behind it. Doing this this way, you will be able to see about 1 inch of the three wires right next to the rear seat. I don't really care that they are there...
Then just tuck the wires into the seat, so that you can't see them going from there to the trunk. I decided the easiest thing from here was to mount the amp. I chose to mount it right to the back of the seat. You'll want to mount it high, but make sure that you don't go above the plastic back to the seat. You'll feel where the edge of it is, and yes, unfortunately, it is just plastic.
Here's where I mounted it...
In this spot, it can fully recline and fully lay forward. But reclined, the spring loaded cover does fold down some...so what.
This is the bad part... notice how the bottom left (top right in pic) screw is missing in this pic?
Well, I screwed it in, then couldn't figure out why my seat was hard to put back up...apparently, I screwed it right into the seatbelt assembly...oops. Now I have a little whole about every foot of the seatbelt when pulled out...
Anyhow, you'll want to start wiring up your amp...
I located the ground to the bolts inside one of the plastic baby seat harness attachments...You can see the plastic things in these pictures, but it hides the ground nicely.
Next, you'll want to run your speaker wire though here... it was originally where I was going to run all my wires, so I just taped a piece of the speaker wire to the power wire and pulled it through. Notice also, I put my wire here becuase I was using the Elemental Designs enclosure in the trunk. I also painted some eDead beside the spare.
Solder the sub to the speaker wire connectors inside the enclosure. Then screw the sub in.
I'll leave the rest up to you. It will depend on you how you want to hook it up to your Head unit, and whether you are using the stock HU or not. But from here, you are pretty much done. Wire the sub to your amp, and wait til the end to plug the power into the battery. Paneling should pop back into place in minutes. While your at it, you may want to put a cabin air-filter in the box for it. Oh, and don't forget to vaccuum up the sawdust and tie up any lose cables.
Good luck everyone and thanks to Elemental Designs for making such a great set up.
First and foremost, make sure you are prepared. You'll need a socket wrench set, drill, screwdriver, an amp wiring kit (rca wire, power wire, remote turn on wire, zip ties, and ground) and some speaker wire. Also, no need to say this because you all already know it, make sure... again, MAKE SURE you have your beer of choice at hand...
OK, now there's plenty of places to start and no particular order. Me, I just started ripping everything apart. I didn't take many pictures, so these may appear a little out of order. Pull up the plastic on the floor by the passenger side door and in the corner of the footwell. It should all just pop out, there may be one bolt in the footwell.
Take out the reciever and HVAC unit. These just pop out as well. You'll have to losen the top of the section with the shifter in it first. Then work up to the HVAC part. The Head Unit is simply held in with 2 phillips screws and 2 10mm nuts.
Also, take out the glove box. Simply open it, then push in the sides as you pull it the rest of the way down and out.
You are going to then want to start running wires. I ran my power wire from the battery,
under the intake
through the plastic under the driver's wiper...(you have to drill a hole)
and then through the ventilation system (behind the plastic on the passenger side window.) This is a picture of the plastic being held up and where the power wire goes into the car.
For some reason, I didn't get a picture of where it comes out on the other side. But here is what I did, and it worked out so easy! you'll have to take out the cabin air filter box behind where the glove box was. Push the power cord in from the engine side just about a foot. Now look up through where the cabin air-filter box was. See the power cord sticking out? Use something to grab it and pull it down. Now drill a little hole in the white plastic above the filter. Pull the power cord through that hole. If you drill the hole right, the cord will fit pretty snug, so you won't have any whistles or air gaps, but you could always tape or silicon it later if you wanted.
from here, pass the power cord towards the back, along the plastic that you pulled up and where the pre-existing wires already are. You'll also want to run the RCA cable and the remote turn on cable, at the same time, from the area behind the head unit, through the glove box, and along the same "wire run" with the power cable.
[img]
This is where I cheated a bit. But it makes things a lot easier. When you get to the spot where the rear right panel is, just pull the wires behind the seatbelt, and up uunderneath the plastic of the panel. No need to remove anything, just unclip the very bbottom so that you can pull the wires up behind it. Doing this this way, you will be able to see about 1 inch of the three wires right next to the rear seat. I don't really care that they are there...
Then just tuck the wires into the seat, so that you can't see them going from there to the trunk. I decided the easiest thing from here was to mount the amp. I chose to mount it right to the back of the seat. You'll want to mount it high, but make sure that you don't go above the plastic back to the seat. You'll feel where the edge of it is, and yes, unfortunately, it is just plastic.
Here's where I mounted it...
In this spot, it can fully recline and fully lay forward. But reclined, the spring loaded cover does fold down some...so what.
This is the bad part... notice how the bottom left (top right in pic) screw is missing in this pic?
Well, I screwed it in, then couldn't figure out why my seat was hard to put back up...apparently, I screwed it right into the seatbelt assembly...oops. Now I have a little whole about every foot of the seatbelt when pulled out...
Anyhow, you'll want to start wiring up your amp...
I located the ground to the bolts inside one of the plastic baby seat harness attachments...You can see the plastic things in these pictures, but it hides the ground nicely.
Next, you'll want to run your speaker wire though here... it was originally where I was going to run all my wires, so I just taped a piece of the speaker wire to the power wire and pulled it through. Notice also, I put my wire here becuase I was using the Elemental Designs enclosure in the trunk. I also painted some eDead beside the spare.
Solder the sub to the speaker wire connectors inside the enclosure. Then screw the sub in.
I'll leave the rest up to you. It will depend on you how you want to hook it up to your Head unit, and whether you are using the stock HU or not. But from here, you are pretty much done. Wire the sub to your amp, and wait til the end to plug the power into the battery. Paneling should pop back into place in minutes. While your at it, you may want to put a cabin air-filter in the box for it. Oh, and don't forget to vaccuum up the sawdust and tie up any lose cables.
Good luck everyone and thanks to Elemental Designs for making such a great set up.
#6
kind of a lazy dirty install i think. you should always run power down one side of the car and audio wires down the opposite. had you pulled the bottom of the back seat out you wouldn't have the wires sticking out like that. I'm sure you don't care but thats my .02
#7
Originally Posted by jeremyc
kind of a lazy dirty install i think. you should always run power down one side of the car and audio wires down the opposite. had you pulled the bottom of the back seat out you wouldn't have the wires sticking out like that. I'm sure you don't care but thats my .02
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/SCION...spagenameZWDVW
He sells just the plug seperate from the kit too.
#8
Not bad, beer is always a nessecity! But you should ALWAYS run your audio cables the complete opposite side of your power cables. BTW, what is that thick blue wire, im guessing remote turn on? That may be a little on the overkill side, but it wont hurt anything.
#10
Wow, this install should never had been posted. Nothing but shortcuts!! Also, who in their right mind would run the power cable THROUGH the HVAC system??!! If ANYONE reads this thread PLEASE look under the dash right above the gas pedal. Toyota has left TWO nipples here to run wires through the firewall SAFELY!! Simply clip off the nipple on the engine side with a pair of diagnal cutters and pull the cable through. OMG I can't believe this post!!!
Again, I'm sorry for posting to such an old thread. PLEASE LOCK!
Again, I'm sorry for posting to such an old thread. PLEASE LOCK!
#12
Originally Posted by csorrows
Wow, this install should never had been posted. Nothing but shortcuts!! Also, who in their right mind would run the power cable THROUGH the HVAC system??!! If ANYONE reads this thread PLEASE look under the dash right above the gas pedal. Toyota has left TWO nipples here to run wires through the firewall SAFELY!! Simply clip off the nipple on the engine side with a pair of diagnal cutters and pull the cable through. OMG I can't believe this post!!!
Again, I'm sorry for posting to such an old thread. PLEASE LOCK!
Again, I'm sorry for posting to such an old thread. PLEASE LOCK!
One more little push pin would have also released the rear panel to run the wires behind it. Also a good idea to run power down driver side and RCA/speaker wire up passenger side or center console.
Phew...
#14
is it easier to reach the nipples from above or bottom.. i kept looking and looking but i couldn't find the darn things... what do they look like... above the gas pedal looks like two tubes running into the firewall... where are the nipples compared to that...
#18
Senior Member
Fail, INC
teamNJCT
Fresh Crew
SL Member
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: A dumpster
Posts: 6,972
LOL Im sorry, but wow what a lazy install. You do NOT need to drill a hole in your car to run the power cables. There already is a whole in the firewall with running wires that you could easily use.
Secondly you are never suppose to run Power cables and audio cables on the same side.
Dirty Instal thumb downs in my book.
Secondly you are never suppose to run Power cables and audio cables on the same side.
Dirty Instal thumb downs in my book.