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The Poor Man's Install Guide to an eD Scion xB Stereo System
The Poor Man's Install Guide to an eD Scion xB Stereo System
Hey,
Just a regular guy trying to get more with less. I wanted a very above average stereo system without breaking my non-existent bank account. Nothing so SPL'd that my kids ears would shatter, but performance quality to at least make my ears bleed when I wanted to.
I chose Elemental Design due to the excellent technical construction, quality, and incredible customer service. I am using a down firing subwoofer enclosure under the passenger seat built by Quarterwave Designs.
I wanted everything to be stealth. I kept the stock Pioneer HU for the steering wheel controls, but might change to an Eclipse HU since they have a programmable option to make use of the Scion wheel controls.
Here we go...
There are several Pre-work sections below that can be done at any time so this can be done over days, weeks, or months.
(This does not include the Deadener installation specific information)
Ingredients:
Purchased from Elemental Designs:
2 channel LOC
eD Nine.2 Amp (tuned to 40v)
eD Nine.4 Amp (tuned to 22v)
eD 6500 Component Speakers
11Kv2 Dual 2 Ohm Subwoofer
Negative Battery Terminal 2-4g / 2-8g
Inline Fuse w/100 amp ANL Fuse
Purchased at Home Depot:
4g Wire
8g Wire
12g Speaker Wire
14g Blue Remote Wire
4g Wire Shrink Wrap
4/8g Ring Terminals
Flex Loam
2 - 8x10 sheets of .095 plexiglass
2 - good quality 6ft RCA stereo cables
Pre-work that can be done ahead of time.
Dual Amp Brackets (under seat stealth)
Ingredients used:
Wrench
Vise
File
Hacksaw
Drill
Tape Measure
(Home Depot)
1- 24" Threaded Rod 1/4" around (This is cut into four 5.25" rods)
4 - 1/4" large round washer (for feet)
32 - 1/4" Hex Nuts
4 - 1/4" Cap Nuts
I had to drill out larger holes in my Amp Brackets to accommodate a sturdier 1/4" Threaded Rod.
1) Thread some hex nuts onto the threaded rod so the vice has something to hold onto that will not hurt the threads.
2) Use the hacksaw to cut the 24" threaded rod into (4) four pieces, each piece 5.25" long.
3) Thread a hex nut onto the bottom of the rod.
4) Next, put a washer on the rod.
5) The thread 3 hex nuts. Tighten this carefully onto the base of the rod.
6) Put the bracket onto the rod next. Be careful to put it right side up to attach with the Amp.
7) Thread the last lower hex nut onto the rod and tighten everything down
8.) Decide how much space you want between the two Amps and place two hex nuts at that spot.
9) Then put a Bracket on the rod with the correct side upwards to attach with the Amp.
10) Put the last hex nut on and tighten them all down. The difficult part is to get it tight, without twisting the upper bracket once they are even.
11) Finish it off with the Cap nut on top.
12) Repeat the above three more times.
Now you have cheap, easy, adjustable height, Amp Holder Brackets.
Pre-work: Cut a small piece of 4g wire to connect the battery to the chassis at the front lug.
Pre-work: Cut out speaker spacers for Component door speakers
3/4 MDF I had in the garage.
Glue the cutouts together with some wood glue.
Clamp, and dry. I also used 3 drywall screws to hold them together.
Pre-work: Tweeter cutouts via Mr. Dremel
Hot glue the tweeter covers to the Plexiglas
Pre-work: Sound deaden rear doors and rear hatch (internal and external panels).
(You can find information about sound deadening out there already)
I deadened up to the rear seat drop off.
Pre-work: Sound deaden front doors (internal and external)
Remove screws, pop the door panel off and pull the control wires off. From sound deadening pre-work , I had removed the plastic barrier and used strips of it to cover the tar. Inside the door is deadened and covered with acoustic sound foam.
Pop the floor kick panel off
Use a 1/4 sharp drill bit to remove the stock speaker rivets. Place the drill bit, spinning fast, onto the rivet. Push down very lightly and gently, barely, grind away until it pops off. Don't push hard or it will just spin.
Pop the speaker out, and use a Dremel to shear the rivets off at the sheet metal.
Drink a beer.
Thread the speaker wire through the rubber grommet. Good luck. Some tips: use something oily / WD-40 on the wire or it sticks to the rubber. I used a small piece of clothes hanger to pull it thru.
(what a pain)
Use 3 machine screws/bolts to attach the speaker brackets.
I cut some sheet metal to cover the outer shell.
I used 1" drywall screws to attach the speaker to the brackets.
If you sound deaden the front doors completely, or cover the holes, you will need to use your hacksaw blade to cut the Styrofoam attached to the panel in half.
The inside of the speaker grill has a 1/2" or so plastic spacer. Snip a spot and use your pliers to twist/cut the spacer off and leave the inside grill smooth.
I also use spray adhesive along the top to attach the acoustic foam and let it hang down.
Tadaaaaa. Back to stock. You can hang your speaker wire here until you build the system.
Remove Interior Seats/ Brackets/Carpet
Remove Armrest if applicable
Take off protective plastic covers and remove bolts
Remove front bolts
Unhook Sensor wires from under seat
Remove Seat. Use a Sharpie to circle and mark any bolt holes on the sheet metal.
Pop off Side Sills
Remove Seat belts, Mark Bolts
Remove screw under felt fabric, and snap out the ipod plastic piece. Get a bowl to put everything in. Smoke a bowl.
Lift the center console from the rear and pull up the front. There are two pop tabs holding the front down.
Take off center plastic
Pull up the carpet from the front to the rear. There are some tabs and spots, just pull and bend it backwards.
I think I just cut mine at the gas pedal, no biggie. The rear seats just lift up in the front and the carpet pulls out. There is a tab or two.
You can see where I stopped the rear deadening that was done an earlier weekend.
Heater ducts. (Don't Deaden over their holes, like I did)
Cut peel stick, Cut peel stick, Cut peel stick
I used blue painters tape to hold up the grey insulation material under the dash and put Deadener as far up as I could on the firewall.
I left the Styrofoam in place and deadened over it.
I ran my speaker wires to the center with the RCA and blue wires from the dash. Beware running wires with deadening material. The black tar sticks from the deadener smears like butter all over the wire. Keep some Turpentine and paper towels handy. (Ventilate please)
Make a 14g speaker wire run from the far left side to the far right side for the subwoofer.
I ran the 4g power wire thru the existing firewall grommet and straight down the driver side door under the sill.
Ignore the power block sitting in the picture
Put the carpet back in. Don't forget to put the heater ducts back also.
ATTACH THE SEAT BELTS.
As you can see, you will need to run the wires on the right of the stick and then cross to the left.
Ignore where the wires in the picture are. I found this out after trying to put the center console back down flush.
Bend the 4g positive wire to your required position.
I removed the jack and put it in the rear trunk, then bent the jack bracket forward with my foot. If this is not desired, you can mount things further back but the amps will be visible from behind the seat. In hindsight, I would have done this before putting the carpet back.
Drill holes for the Power Block and use metal screws to mount.
Keep the amps situated and pushed to the inside of the car. There is a bracket underneath the seat that will hit it on the outside.
Put Velcro on the bottom of the crossovers. Beware, it really sticks.
I put blue painters tape, or equivalent, on the jack bracket so the wires were not rubbing sharp metal.
Some wires are run under the carpet, some outside of it.
4G into power block.
8G out to each amp.
4G from each amp to chassis ground.
I cut the carpet and put one ground on the backside of the rear seat bolt chassis bracket.
The other ground is on the backside of the front seat chassis bracket.
Remove Dash and Glove box
Remove Glove box. Check and change filter.
Remove the 3 A/C control dials. Remove the two screws.
Gently pry off the lower section of the silver dash. Pop it off at the top.
Remove the Oven and unhook wires.
Remove the 4 screws holding the head unit. It will pull out and sit on the dash. There is lots of room.
I ran my RCA cables and attached the LOC. I used the front speaker leads because the rear leads are resisted down. (LF+ Pink) (LF- Purple) (RF+ LtGreen) (RF- Blue) Ground the LOC (black) to the HU ground (WHI/BLA) I hooked my Equalizer positive to the HU Positive (Blue/Yel). Equalizer negative to chassis.
I put my equalizer in the oven. Since it needed to stick out the back of the oven a 1/4 inch or so, I had to alter it.
It is very soft plastic, so a very thin Dremel tool cut thru it like butter.
Oven cut from behind.
Use the Dremel tool to reach into the dash and cut out the rear
The most upsetting cost was that I had to go and buy 8 RCA to RCA elbows for behind the Sony EQ. The EQ fit perfectly, but the RCA cables pushed into that black checkerboard and you cannot cut into that because it is the ventilation system, sigh.
The final Oven installed. I even have room for my wallet and a change holder purse.
Put the HU back in and the dash back together.
Remove the Tweeters and unsnap wire. Run 12g speaker wire from dash top to the right side center console to the crossover.
You can just reach the wire thru the dash from both sides.
Screw the tweets into place.
Put the center console down, and the seats back on.
RE-ATTACH THE SEAT AIRBAG SENSORS ON BOTH SEATS
From the front, there is still several inches of amp room available. The only limitation is that stupid bracket right above the red wires. If you bend it upwards, it interferes with the seat moving forward and backwards.
If you ask eD nicely, I bet they might even throw in a Barbie.
From Behind, nothing is visible.
From the side, this is not totally attractive, but does not bother me. I might put a cloth cover attached to the seat to keep
crumbs from falling down there.
Install Downfire Sub under passenger seat
Nice job on the step-by-step!
I'm going through the same type of install right now, so seeing how yours fit together gave me some new ideas.
How does the tweets sound up on the dash reflecting off the windshield? Really want to hide mine there also but am
afraid of the messed up soundstage.
Well, sadly, I am deaf in one ear and cannot hear in stereo, so i designed for POWER, HHHHA, MORE POWER... but, it sounds very nice. No one has had any negative comments. I noticed a dramatic improvement in soundstage myself.
As to 'sound stage,' the original "tweeters" in the dash are 13 ohm in parallel with the front door speakers, plus there is a capacitor in series with the tweeter to reduce the low frequency power the tweeters have to survive. What this means is that the tweeters are AT LEAST 6dB down in power from the door speakers, and more likely closer to 10 dB down.
When I replaced my dash top tweeters with wide range dual element drivers, I maintained the balance between doors and dash top by adding a 10W, 6.8 ohm resistor in series with each of the new 4 ohm dash top drivers. The 'stage' or 'sound imaging' remained good.
Without the added resistance, the dash top units were way too forward and pronounced, and tended to unbalance the sound stage, essentially drowning out the other speakers because of their distance from the listeners and hard reflecting surface (windshield) directing the sound to the listeners.
I suspect proper balance will require some fiddling with the sound levels from the different drivers in most set-ups, but in most cases the dash top units will need to have their levels controlled/reduced to blend properly with the remaining drivers.
And I am not a good judge due the fact that I have many hundreds of live bootleg concert cd's that I listen to exclusivly, so each cd is immeasurably different from each other. The equalizer is a must for my system and listening habits.
The 2 Amps are basically held in place with installation features. They are extremely heavy and the 4G/8G wires are very stiff and do not bend or move so they do not allow the amp to budge. The RCA connectors hold it in place on the other side. I put the large washers on the feet of the Amp brackets so the pointy ends of the feet do not push through to the sheet metal. Trust me, the Amps are not going anywhere.
The one big drawback is that adjusting the gains and pots is a major chore with everything installed in place.
11-26-2006 | 03:35 AM
The Poor Man's Install Guide to an eD Scion xB Stereo System
Nice job on the step-by-step! 
