DIY: Installing Aftermarket Subs w/ Stock HU ( and Premium Sound System)

[BigMoney8481]

My amp does not have an auto-on feature so i had to run the acc. It all depends on the company's specifications.

The amp you have is probably not designed to run at 8ohms. That's why it is not listed in the specifications. If you run it at 8ohms successfully than you are going to have <300wrms to your alpine.

Just run it at 2ohms. It says 100Hz b/c this is signal where the power rating was taken from and where they calculated the thermal distortion. It's fine. Hook it up and let 'er rip.

[fiji06si13]

subscribed....great diy

[csalcido]

did you build your own box? I'm looking to buy/make the outer box like yours, it looks perfect


[url=http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=524&i=dsc01398copyva2.jpg]

[shadedream]

Originally Posted by fabb600

I tried following the link you used for getting power to the trunk for my 2008 sedan. I see the circle where there is supposed to be a plug. But I don't see an actual removable plug. It's just hard metal as far as I can tell. Are you guys cutting or punching this "plug" out or did you have a simple plastic plug to just pop out of the firewall?

I've a 2007 Coupe and ran into the same problem. After about an hour of hanging upside down under the dash and playing around in the wheel well I found the path. If you're looking up under the dash follow the hood release cable and there's a plug back there hidden. The one I'm talking about is JUST a plug (there's another one which Im GUESSING is the outside temperature guage). Feed the cable through the hole just slightly, then pull back the inside of the wheel well and look back towards the cabin and up, the cable wont be directly visible, but in the top inside of the fender back by the firewall you can reach up and around the top metal piece and it will be laying there. You have to feed it back towards the firewall and pull it down into the opened wheel well area. Its hard to explain and took forever for me to figure out where the cable was going when I fed it through the hole.

From here you want to open the hood and remove the plastic piece along the top of the fender inside the engine bay (behind the battery). Once removed you should be able to feed the cable up from in the wheel well to the battery.

I can try to take some photos of if later if this is still too vague if you need.

The part I had the hard time with was removing the center console. I couldnt get the whole console un-attached to run it under the carpet so in the back its running out from under the console, under the floor mat and visible from the floor to the bottom of the back seat in the center (could only get the top part of half of the console off).

Given the cones on my woofers wore out (they're old, the foam surrounds broke pretty quickly since they'd been sitting for a while from my old car), I may get in there and try to fix the wire running through the console and under the carpet when I buy some new woofers.

[BoostedSi]

Is this LOC a good choice? SVENR - Peripherals SVENR Premium 2-Channel LOC w/ Remote Turn-On - Accessories - Peripheral - Discount Car Stereo.com - Detail (got from previous post)

It says that I wont need to run a wire from my fuse box or head unit to get a remote turn-on signal. If this is true and you all agree, I will go with this one for sure.


Thanks guys

[mahan]

Hey guys,

I vaugely remember seeing a "Subwoofer" level control in the manual for the stock HU (The section where you adjust the Treble, Bass, Fader etc). Is there such a thing? And if so, is there a possible way of controlling the subwoofer output on an aftermarket sub+sub amp? When i got my civic it only came with the stock HU and the 4 speakers, no subwoofer, but I have a PPI 2400 amp and a rockford 10inch sub which I would like to install. Having read some of the posts I know that I will have to run a power wire (+) from the batter, and another wire for the ACC signal to the PPI amp, and connect the ground to a metal point of the body in the trunk, but I would really like to be able to use the stock HU's subwoofer output control function. Any input would be appreciated. Also, where is the stock amp located? Also I noticed on one of the posts that the stock amp has 2 outputs for the subwoofer:

Subwoofer 1 + Green
Subwoofer 1 - Red

Are these amplified outputs or preouts? How much wattage and impedance do these connectors handle? Do these have to have a load accross them to get the Subwoofer level control to show up on the HU audio adjustment? Is it possible to connect a LOC to these outputs rather than the rear speaker outputs?

Thanks for your help.

[GulfCoastGhostHunters]

yes I did build my own box. it's just a simple 2 12 sealed, chambered box. Then I wrapped the front in red vinyl. Next, I looked on ebay for trunk liner to match the trunk carpeting (it's a really hard color to find, btw) Then I took quarter board and began the tedious work of building a trim panel. I put the carpet on, then got some black paint and lightly sprayed it on the carpet to darken it down to match. Then I used velcro on the box and the trim panel to attach it.

all in all it took about 5-6 hours.

[GulfCoastGhostHunters]

Originally Posted by BoostedSi

Is this LOC a good choice? SVENR - Peripherals SVENR Premium 2-Channel LOC w/ Remote Turn-On - Accessories - Peripheral - Discount Car Stereo.com - Detail (got from previous post)

It says that I wont need to run a wire from my fuse box or head unit to get a remote turn-on signal. If this is true and you all agree, I will go with this one for sure.


Thanks guys

it seems as if that would work, i'd try it out. it would save a lot of time!

[St3vo28]

Noob talking.

[St3vo28]

Is it recommended to install the subs and amp yourself of have a professional do it?
If I were to do it myself, what wires do i need?

[BigMoney8481]

power wire ground wire (same gauge), speaker wire, and acc remote if applicable.

[amd64bit]

Originally Posted by St3vo28

Is it recommended to install the subs and amp yourself of have a professional do it?
If I were to do it myself, what wires do i need?

Honestly I would recommend doing it yourself. I just had my system installed today by Onsite Audio in BR and im not impressed. They rejected the sub that i had originally bought and told me i needed a better box. So i forked out the extra money for a type s instead of the type r i had which is unfortunate. However i did need a better box so not to disappointed there but whatever. They also had left the stock sub plugged in after tapping it with an loc which gave a strange problem. When i turned the radio off and the trunk was closed, the aftermarket sub would start playing a hard note and wouldnt stop until either i turned the radio on or open the trunk. Freakin wierd. Later i found out that the stock sub and the aftermarket would battle each other like getting feedback through a mic until i turned on the radio or opened the trunk. So they installed an amp turn on switch for another ten dollars, so i d have to turn the amp off before i turn the radio off. When i got home, i just unplugged the stock sub and no longer had this problem. However I think i might plug it back in and just deal with it, because my aftermarket sub cant handle some of the higher bass frequencies that I regularly listen to. Ill have to tinker with it for a while and ill post back. I know earlier in this thread somebody recommended not to use both subs, but im gonna try it anyway.

[St3vo28]

But I have NO CLUE how to do it myself
and looking at the radio..it looks way too complicated to do it yourself
and how would you run the wires from the battery to the trunk

[amd64bit]

Well the shop just ran my wire through that little plug that this thread was talking about earlier, and then just ran it under the driver side door sill, up though the carpet, under the back seat, below the hinge for the back seat and screwed the amp to the back of the larger fold down section of the rear seat. They ran the rca cable from the loc(mounted to the rear seat latch) to left under the left side carpet cover of the trunk. and grounded the amp right under the carpet where the left side trunk carpet meets the bottom carpet mat, right near the seat hinge. The hardest part id say is routing the power cable thru that little plug and somehow worming your arm or whatever thru the engine compartment to pull it thru the hole. Nit sure what they did about the acc cable though. Cant seem to trace it under the dash. Hope that helps.

[amd64bit]

BTW in response to my earlier reply about having both subs plugged in, yea thats a no go. Stock sub just isnt worth having it plugged in at the same time. Too much interference. Only reason i wanted to try that was because my aftermarket sub wasnt playing any of the higher frequencies, but i figured out that i just needed to set the LPF a lot higher, they had it set to 50, i brought it up to about 120 and it plays everything just fine now. However i am not pleased with the performance of the type s. Just doesnt pack quite the power punch im lookin for. Im lookin for a tighter bass response and I do believe my type r will cover that,(way bigger magnets than the type s).
Which brings me to the question of the day. I need someone with decent technical knowledge to answer this.
The power wire kit they put in was an 8 gauge kit for this Kenwood KAC-8103D 1-Channel amp which is running at 300 w rms at 4 ohms. I want to purchase the Kenwood KAC-9103D or maybe the newer KAC-9104D(with cooling fan) which both run at 500w rms at 4 ohms and switch it out with the 8103D so i can put my type r in instead of the type s.
My question is will the 8 gauge power wire be sufficient enough for the larger amp? Or will I need to purchase a 4 gauge kit and re-run the cables? I plan on doing this very soon(by myself this time...) and I need to know this. Also the fuse ratings differ between the 8103 and 9103, the 8103 says 40A x 1 and the the 9103 says 30A x 2, whats the difference? Any help would be MUCH appreciated.

Also I am going to be trying to sell the type s with the 8103 amp with sub box included for bout $180(price negotiable) if anyone is interested. Everything is brand spankin new. Anyone know what other threads i might be able to advertise this deal?

[St3vo28]

Originally Posted by amd64bit

Also I am going to be trying to sell the type s with the 8103 amp with sub box included for bout $180(price negotiable) if anyone is interested. Everything is brand spankin new. Anyone know what other threads i might be able to advertise this deal?

Any pics?

[BigMoney8481]

I am not sure exactly how much cable I ran. But when you are talking a power cable with a distance over 12 feet... anything over 400wRMS should be 4 gauge. So 500wRMS is in the 4 gauge territory. Im pretty sure it was around 16 feet for 4 gauge should be fine up to 600~700wRMS.

[amd64bit]

Doh.. I forgot that my type r is a DVC 4 ohm sub, so unfortunatly i can only wire it at 2 ohms, which i guess means that i dont need to get another amp, i can just keep the amp i have, but i suppose i still need to rerun a 4 gauge power kit. Cause the amp I have is stable at 2ohm running 500wRMS. So the bastards at onsite just screwed me over period i guess. And they took my type r manual and left me with the type s manual instead. Well for anyone reading this I hope this motivates you to just do the install yourself. Dont waste your money. So i guess ill just be trying to sell the sub and box only for bout $110. Yea ill try to post some pics sometime. Preciate the help bigmoney.

[BigMoney8481]

no problem

[amd64bit]

I would be correct in saying that this amp is perfectly suitable for the type r at 2 ohms right? And whats up with the fuse, the 4 gauge kit would come with a higher rated fuse right?