I had bought parts to completely re-do the stereo over a year ago, but there were always more important things that needed to be done first, so the parts just sat around gathering dust. Well, I finally felt like I could spare some time off from serious work to do something "fun", so I got all my stuff together and got busy.
Parts list:
Head unit: Pioneer Premier DEH-P490IB (with 4v RCA pre-outs)
Front speakers: JBL GTO508C: 2 ohm, 55w RMS per speaker
Rear speakers: JBL GTO938: 2 ohm, 100w RMS per speaker
Amp: Rockford Fosgate R400-4D: 75w RMS x4 @ 2 ohms
RCA cables: JL Audio Core Series XD-CLRAIC4-18 (4-channel, 18 feet)
Some apparently junky C&E 12 AWG copper speaker wire (overkill, I know)
Rockford Fosgate AGU fuse holder and 60a DB Link fuse
Selterm copper sealed 4 AWG lugs
Sky High Car Audio 4 AWG OFC power and ground wires
Kilmat 80 mil sound deadening
Old HK amp to new RF amp:
I was going to remove ALL of the original HK wiring, but I'm glad I didn't, because I forgot to initially hook up the signal wire to the amp! There is also one weird connection under the dash on the driver's side that I didn't know what it did, so I just left it plugged in. Running the RCA cables up to the HU was a serious PITA.
I used a ton of this foam tape stuff for the project and was glad I bought a large roll of it.
I sure am glad I had bought some half-working/half-broken BavAuto Rainbow speakers for the rear of the car, because I would have otherwise had to buy adapters to mount up the rear 6x9s to the deck. Also, notice how much of the OEM speaker is covered up by the housing!
Mounting the amp was the first headache. I really wanted to reuse the original mounting bracket, but I could never install it in the car while retaining access to all of the connections on the amp.
So I eventually gave up and just cut up some 1/2" PVC board I had lying around to use as a bracket. I had to countersink two holes so that amp would sit flush:
Then it was back to the rest of the car. It felt a little overwhelming at this point:
I got busy mounting up the tweeters in the original housings. I had accumulated a bunch of spare HK and also non-HK parts in an effort to limp the HK system along until I was able to redo the whole thing, so I was able to pick and choose parts to use here. I found one non-HK tweeter in good shape, so I removed the tweeter from the housing, only to find the opening much smaller than the opening for HK tweeters. Not wanting to block any sound coming from the tweeter, I cut and ground the inside until the tweeter could project without being blocked.
I then applied some more of that foam tape:
And snapped that bad boy into place:
It turned out to be a very snug fit from the get go, but since the car gets so abused at rally-x, I wanted to be sure it was secure in the housing, so I applied some HVAC tape:
I re-did the tape after taking the pic when I noticed it was touching both terminals, so that's not an issue now.
My mid-range housings were all sorts of beat up, but I had a tan set in perfect shape, so I decided to just paint them instead. I sanded them down a bit, cleaned them with rubbing alcohol, and got to painting.
I think they turned out really well! I then put some HVAC foam insulation over the backs of them to keep stray noise from the door cavity from coming into the cabin:
And here they are installed:
Running the speaker cable to the driver's front speakers was easy enough since the amp is also on the DS, but running the speaker wires to the front PS was a tad more involved since the main battery cable runs along that side. I wanted to avoid running the two close and/or parallel to each other, and this is what I ended up with:
The battery cable runs under the black air ducts there.
Next up was the power wire for the amp, which was some 4 AWG OFC and nice copper Selterm lugs. I got to use my ballin' cable crimper, which made short work of it all.
Oh, and I picked up some black/red shrink tubing that is glue lined. It's a nice extra measure to keep moisture out!
Running the 12 AWG wire through the pass-through for the doors was a bit of a challenge, but I was able to force it through eventually and keep the install looking clean.
The fronts are ready for install:
Then I had to find a place to ground the amp. The little studs sticking up around the trunk were too small, so I decided to use an existing hole on the rear deck/shelf. I could stick a nice large M8 (IIRC) bolt through it, so I hogged it out a smidge and wire wheeled the paint off:
With the ground there, I kept the ground wire to something like 8" long, which is pretty good. It too was of course 4 AWG OFC.
Here's how I ran the power wire for the amp:
During the install, I realized that the $50 Pioneer HU I installed two years ago only had a single set of RCA pre-outs, so I needed something with at least four, and preferably six in case I decided to later add a sub. I decided to upgrade the HU in my other car, and put its HU in the M3. Even though both are Pioneers, the wiring harness didn't match up, so I had to rewire the damn thing again. I later learned that this thing here is a Metra adapter and not a stock part.
This gray wire popped out when I was redoing things and it took a while to figure out where it was supposed to go....
During a test fit of the HU, I had a lot of trouble getting it to push all the way into the dash on account of all the new RCA cables hanging off the back of the HU. There was a piece of plastic back there that was keeping the wires from moving freely, so I smashed it up until it was gone. Now my wires have plenty of space!
The HU I installed in the M3 is an older model and has the aux input on the back, so I had to fish my aux cable back up to it, and decided it would come out in place of the old hi-fi switch:
Anyways, here's the doors installed:
And with that, I had a fully working stereo! The change from stock is nothing short of dramatic, but then it probably should be with 3x the power and 20 year newer speakers. I don't hear any rattles, and after a little tweaking of the EQ, it sounds really nice! Granted, it's not as nice as what I've got in my other car, but I don't think I spent more than $300 on the whole thing, so I shouldn't expect perfection. I'm glad I took the time to run all new wire, because trying to decipher the OEM stuff would have sucked, and I also just didn't fully trust it.
I'm realizing I didn't upload my pics of the fuse holder installed for the main power wire, I'll try to post those up. I promise, it's fused!