JasonH

I took yesterday off from work and installed my factory Bazooka VSE sub and the amber factory interior lighting kit. As always, I bought my stuff from McGeorge Parts. Go buy stuff from them so they can keep offering the best prices on Scion and TRD accessories! I even got FREE TRD valve caps! How's that for service!

Anyway, I installed both at the same time, as recommended by the installation instructions. I won't give every step, but I'll try to point out a few things I found tricky. Per the instructions, remove the negative battery cable. Basically, you start by ripping your interior apart. As many have said, it's pretty easy to take out the shifter surround, stereo surround and other interior panels. Make sure you have a clean surface to put everything on (like a blanket or something,) since you'll end up with quite a pile of parts that you don't want to damage:



Taking everything out is easy, with one exception: the passenger side plastic cargo hook at the upper rear of the trunk. It has a small hole that you need to shove something in to release the clip. I did not have a small enough screwdriver (and I have a lot of screwdrivers) so I ended up using a small allen key. With a little fiddling, I got it to release. If you don't release the clips, you will probably damage the hook or panel removing it, so take your time and find something suitable to "pick the lock" as it were. Once everything is out, your car will look like this:



(You don't have to remove the cupholder unless you're doing the lights.)

I also found the place for the cabin filter, so I took some pics. Does anybody know if the Corolla or Matrix filter fits?



So, back to the project at hand. Once you have your interior apart, it's time to straighten out your subwoofer wiring harness and route it through the car along the passenger side. Not difficult, just follow the directions. Make sure your subwoofer connector reaches to almost the back of the car. You have plenty of harness length and you don't want to get it all in only to find out you can't plug in the sub.

One modification I made was to add a switch to the remote wire for the sub. Normally, it's on whenever the ignition is turned to "ON" or "ACC". With the switch, I can turn it off even if the stereo is on. I figured this would be much easier than having to turn the bass on the head unit all the way down when listening to Howard Stern or whatever. It's easy to do: Find the blue/white wire going to the subwoofer and cut it near the stereo connector. Strip the ends, add enough wire to each to get to the switch panel on the left of the steering wheel, then install a SPST switch (single pole, single throw = least fancy kind of switch.) My subwoofer switch is on the right. Down is on, but you can do it however you want:



Now you'll want to prepare the sub to go in. You need to remove the speaker grille and remove the driver. A blue nylon cord was on mine, pull the cord hard and the grille will come off. The cord isn't attached to anything, so remember to reinstall it later if you want to get the grille off easily (the gain control is behind the grille.) The quality looks pretty good. It almost looks like a custom sub, kind of hand-made. I don't think these are rolling off a huge assembly line. It seems very solid and fits the car perfectly. Even the driver is a decent dual voice coil unit with a good deal of heft. Here are some pics of the sub and driver:





Once the harness is run, you'll mount the hardware for the sub. Once the upper hardware is mounted, you'll get to a step that I found confusing, about using a 5/8" punch to put a hole in a panel. Well, the panel they mean is the interior carpeted panel that will go over the bolt that the sub attaches to. You put the panel in place, mark the spot and make a hole. I used my step drill bit and it worked fine. A regular drill would be ok too.

Now you start reassembling everything. Once I finished getting the trunk area back together, I started on the lights. Once again, the instructions are straightforward. Use the templates to drill your holes. A step drill bit makes drilling the switch panel plates simple. For the cupholder holes, it calls for a "J" size bit. Well, I found out this is a little bigger than a quarter inch. I drilled a 1/8" pilot, then 1/4", then used a round file to deburr and enlarge the hole. Worked fine. You will need a rivet gun to install the under-dash lights. You can buy them cheap or borrow one from somebody. The lights go in pretty quick once you get going.



Next, I installed the sub. You might need to move it around a little to get the two bolts to line up. DON'T FORGET to put the big flat washer on the upper bolt before you put the sub in. Then the other washer goes inside the sub. Make 'em nice and tight so it doesn't move around. A stubby wrench or small ratchet will make the upper nut inside the sub easier to tighten. Then hook up and reinstall the driver. I left the cover off so I can adjust the gain until I get it "right". Here are some pics:



Next, you hook the harness to your head unit, reinstall the head unit, then replace the stereo surround/climate control panel, THEN the shifter surround. Remember to reconnect the cigarette lighter. That should be everything, clean up your tools or whetever, then reconnect your battery cable. You'll need to reset the windows and sunroof (in the instructions) and your clock and stereo settings. Here's a back pic of the single-disc head unit. The far right square connector is where the subwoofer harness connects. The one next to it is for power and stuff.



It took me about 4 hours working steadily, but not quickly, to install all this. I took my time since I didn't want to damage anything and I wanted to do it right. The sub sounds great, although I'm still playing around with settings to get it all right. It has more than enough volume for the car, in fact, I might even block off the port to add some tightness and lower the volume. If you turn the gain all the way up, you get deafening volume from the sub with the volume at 20 on the head unit. I think my gain is set just above the middle, which really cranks at higher volumes, but doesn't overpower the music at lower ones.

The lights are cool, too, but hard to take pictures of. They match the instrument and dash lighting prefectly, and are bright enough that if you dropped something on the floor you could find it, but not so bright as to be distracting. Although the tubes are visible in my pictures, they are not visible if you're seated and not leaning over or anything.



I hope you found this useful and enjoyed it. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

NJ_05tC

You are the MAN!

zoltiz

Awesome! Thanks for the pictures. Made my decision about the sub - Covers up my favorite storage thing and is hard to take out if necessary. Bazooka tube stays.

its_ikon

added to the tech section.

goofygrin

another great post!

blitzcat

Once the sub is in, does it not get in the way of opening the spare tire well? Does it block the 4th strap down point on the right rear?

I wish it didn't jut so far out, its going to be cramped with snowboard and me sleeping back there this winter.

JasonH

The 4th tie down is removed when you install the sub. I haven't tried to remove the spare tire cover, but the sub doesn't really rest on the cover, there's a gap at the bottom. It looks like you could slide the cargo mat and cover out from under the sub.

JasonH

I didn't get a lot of feedback on this one, so I wanted to bring it back to the top. Did you like this write-up? Did anybody have any questions? Thanks.

eugovector

Pics are very nice but you forgot the part where you dynamat the trunk.

JasonH

The bottom of the trunk area probably wouldn't benefit much from Dynamat sinc eit has a good deal of undercoating on the other side. Actually, all the panels that I uncovered seemed to be fairly "dead", and a dull thud is all that was heard when giving them a rap.

The sheet metal on the hatch would probably benefit from Dynamat, but I didn't have to take any of those panels out. Actually, nothing from the back makes a vibration that can be heard over the music when you crank it up. Some notes produce some vibrations in the dash or doors, but for the most part, the car is vibration-free.

Ibiza

In my old car there was a certain not that made an unbearable(to me) rattle in the door...

gregaloo

I can't thank you enough for your awesome posts, JasonH. They're so helpful, and I know I wouldn't of even thought about attempting my mudguards if it weren't for your How-To post on them. Great work and thanks again!

wilder

Not sure if this is the answer you're looking for, but just go and buy like a 3M furnace filter and cut your own. I bought a filter to use with my Celica (had the same filter tray) and I'm using the same filter for my tC. If you buy a decent sized filter you can get quite a few out of it.

nikeman

My sister has a TC and she wants me to do some stuff to it. She didnt get the sub option but she has a 10" sub she took out of her old car. She wants me to put it in her TC where the factory bazooka sub would go. I havnt even looked at her car much yet and i was just curious if maybe the sub is already in the trunk and is the car wired for it already or did u run all the wires also?

Just curious.

lucky

Im not seeing any pictures. No "X's", just blank spots.

RanmaP

I had the question, and then found there isn't any prewiring there. Since I'd figure I buy the factory sub and add it later... but I think you get the wiring harness with the sub and you run it yourself.

From what JasonH shows, it a bit work to me so I am going after market using a RCA line converter.

I only need to think of a good place to mount my amp. I want it out of the way and not attached to the sub box since I want to be able to remove the sub when I need cargo room. (maybe take out the spare and install it there?)

criz

Thanks so much, all those pics are great. :D

I think I'm gonna go for the amber lighting too eventually. It looks like it compliments the dash and looks more soothing than the "rave" blue.

I can't wait to get my tC so I can open it up, take it apart. I want to know it "intimately."

iowagary

My car should be arriving soon and with all the tax and license and doc and all that, I'm going to be tighter on money than I thought. The installation doesn't look like a complete cakewalk, but I'm sure I can handle it. Are there any tools that you need for the install (other than things like screw drivers, allen wrenches, etc) that aren't included? I'm thinking about things specifically for taking off trim panels and things. What I really don't want to do is snap any clips off or screw up the interior pieces - advice?

JasonH

About the only strange thing that was required was the rivet gun. I have one so it was no big deal. The instructions tell you to use a "nylon panel removal tool" which looks like a nylon pry bar or screwdriver. I used a regular screwdriver in the places where I couldn't get something apart with my fingers. Having the step drill bit made drilling the panel holes easy, but a regular drill bit would work too, you just need to clean up the holes afterwards (the step drill bit deburrs as it drills.)

Most of the time was spent removing panels and reinstalling them. I took my time and tried not to force antything. It was a good strategy, since everything comes off easily if you do it the right way. Nothing requires excessive force.

iowagary

I think I should get a nylon panel removal tool - can you get something like that at home depot? I don't have a rivet gun - what in the installation do you use it for? How many things are you drilling holes in? I've got the cordless drill setup and all that. I should probably get a step bit - is that the one that enlarges the hole as it goes?