scionguy87

I will be installing a mono subwoofer amp and a single subwoofer this coming week. Any tips on the best/easiest place to mount the amp and if there are any particularly challenging trim pieces to remove?

It seems like I may not even have to pull up the door sills because I can get my fingers underneath enough to put cabling in. It will only be about a 300w rms amp so the cables shouldn't be too large in diameter.

Also, is there an easy way to pull the head unit or should I just see if my dealer can pull it for me?

Thanks,
Mike

mrwilson99

iTrader: (3)

Do 4 gauge wiring, but I would remove the back seats (seat cushion and back) along with the wooden piece where you secure the babyseats.

Wiring should be easy as you will have room (as there are three pre-drilled holes) already where you can run your power and rca cables through.

Run power from your driver side and rca in the passenger side. Invest in some better quality cables and make sure your amp is secure and that it will not move as you can disconnect the power or ground wire if not properly secured.

07ohiotc

I can help with this, as i recently(month or two ago) installed 2 10" subs with a 800 watt amp.

First off, run your power from the battery through the rubber grommet on the driver sides and down underneath the door sills. i would highly recommend you take these off. Dont worry theyre really easy just pull up on one said and work your way towards the other. theres about 4 plastic clips that hold it into place. The first time you do it it will feel like its breaking, but its not. I suggest this because underneath the door sill, there are wires running already inside of plastic hooks, and these hooks do a good job of holding your wires and makes it easier. Once you get through the door sill, go behind the seat belt and up between the seat and the cupholder area. then you can push the wire behind the side panel and also push the wire down between the seat (no one will see it don't worry). and then feed the wire behind the seat and inbetween the wood paneling behind the seat, you can hold all the excess wiring here too. finally pull the wire out through the middle of the 2 wooden panels.

Do the same thing for the RCA cables on the passenger side, but come from the head unit underneath the glove box, and drop down behind the kick panels and then under the door sill.. etc..

Also the head unit is very easy to replace (if you havent boughten one i suggest crutchfield.com because they have awesome install kits that come with them, also a wire harness) Now im not sure exactly how it come out for the xB, so i would suggest looking up a thread on this. crutchfields instructions are very good and should also instruct you how too as well.

as for amp placement i would suggest screwing it into your box either on top, sides, or back. doesnt really matter too much

*I have a tc, so yours might be different around the back seat area. i realized halfway through you have an xB. but the door sills should be roughly the same and come up easy. I might also be wrong about all this but this might prove helpful.

scionguy87

Thanks for the replies everyone, looks like it won't be too much of a hassle. Do the rear seats either fold forward or just lift up, it seems like there is some open space for storage or something but I couldn't figure out how to get to the area.

I will not be replacing the head unit as of yet because I want to retain the stock USB/AUX in the center console and I was told with all aftermarket units I would have to reroute that to the glovebox (without custom rewiring). 2.4v sub preamps should be pretty good for me and I like the controls of the stock Pioneer.

I'll report back tomorrow night hopefully this will go well!

Mike

buickid

The radio is deadly simple to remove. Pull the plastic piece with the vents straight out. Then pull the black piece thats under the radio but above the shifter straight out. Then remove the four bolts that secure the radio. (Its metric). Simple!

KaneoheKoa

To sorta quote the original Star Wars (Death Star battle), "Watch your back, ScionGuy, watch your back!" Getting the rear lower seat off takes a good strong pull/jerk. Did it wrong the first time and my back doth protested mightily.

scionguy87

Hahah thanks for the advice everyone.

In regards to the rear seat, can you literally just pull the base of the seat upward and disengage it or do you have to remove the black plastic piece as well?

rexB

I actually mounted my amp under the driver seat. It was small enough to fit and the rear passenger rugs keep it in place. I have the stealth setup with a 10" under the passenger seat.

The door pieces are easy to remove. My wires actually fit snug inside the original wire clips that organize all the other wiring in the car.

As for the head unit trim, its a piece of cake to remove. Take both hands and adjust your hands width to about the same width of the stock radio. Take your fingers and squeeze the plastic trim on both top and bottom. Give it a nice tug and it just pops off.

Enjoy your setup! Pics when done!

KaneoheKoa

Another word of caution from the "Been There, Done That &^$*#!!" file. When using lots of wire ties, cut off the excess with flush cutting diagonal cutters. Clip off the ends right where they come off the box end. It's neater and saves you from scratching up your hand when you reach inside and move the wires back.

scionguy87

Thanks for the tips everyone I will be posting pics soon, we mounted the amp under the rear drivers side seat and ran the power through the drivers side door sill and the rcas through the center console area. The xb is so easy to dismantle so it was fairly easy but we did run into one problem: figuring out which wire to use in coordination with the amp remote turn on. I used the gray ACC wire and whenever I get a deep continuous base hit I am blowing the 7.5 amp fuse. What wire are people using for this that is a higher amp?

07ohiotc

for the amp remote turn on wire, i wired mine into the back of my hu. my hu had a wire for amp remote turn on and i just soldered the two together. do you have an aftermarket hu or stock one? other then that you could probably just put it into a fuse box somewhere in your car, id say with a 10 amp fuse

scionguy87

I have the stock 2011 Pioneer head unit, I did not see any specific wire for this application in the harness if the wiring diagram in the sticky thread is correct.

rexB

I ran my remote wire to the ACC fuse. I've had no problems whatsoever.

Another solution would be routing the remote wire directly to the battery with a switch and a fuse. This way, you can turn the sub on/off whenever you need to. My friend used an OEM style rocker switch to keep it clean.

07ohiotc

yeah the stock head units dont have the wire you need, but i agree with rexB you could always power it straight to the battery with a switch or fuse. i was thinking about doing that until i found i had the wire from my head unit

scionguy87

I haven't had a chance to re-wire the amp power yet but I do have some pics of the install that I uploaded to Flickr but I don't know how to post em here.

Btw, I ended up using an old Clarion 200w amp and a Phoenix Gold 10" subwoofer that believe it or not was taken out of my Mom's Mustang about 6 years ago. Funny thing is it hits really hard! I also installed Kicker 6" speakers in the front door and they make a pretty noticible difference as well in clarity.

rexB

Nice! Great to know you finally have a system up. How'd you route the remote wire by the way?

scionguy87

I ran the remote wire with the rca's up under the carpet and center console. It was more convenient and cheaper than buying longer RCA's and running them on the other door sills opposite of the ones carrying the power wire. My friend is a mechanical engineer and works for Honda so it was awesome to have the help lol. We got so damn lucky though because when we put the plastic finishing piece back on the base of the back seats it was about 2mm away from where we mounted the amp! It looks pretty perfect though, stealth and still easy to adjust gain/lpf and whatnot when necessary.

Now to redo the remote wire to it's own 10 or 15 amp fuse direct to the box since it is shorting out the ACC fuse on large hits.

buickid

The remote wire should not be blowing any fuses. It shouldn't be drawing more than ~50mA of current. If it is, you have a fault amp or some serious installation issues. You didn't run the remote wire to the B+ input on the amp did you? I wouldn't be using anything greater than a 1A fuse for a remote wire...

buickid

After thought, check the current on the remote wire with a multimeter. Should be at the absolute max, 100mA.

rexB

Hmm.. interesting. The remote wire shouldn't be drawing that much power on hard hits since it only sends a signal to turn the amp on and off, hence why the wire is so thin. I would think the hard hits would affect your electrical system overall with dimming lights on the dashboard during the hard hits since the main draw of the power is the battery.