Zoomahh's 2012 SkyActiv ice upgrade

[zoomahh]

Hey all,
Well I finally did it!! My stereo upgrade is done, pics have been uploaded, and I'm finishing the writeup this weekend. I guarantee it's gonna be a great read for everyone. Like I always said, one can always learn from anyone.
Stay tuned to this thread, I promise it'll be worth your time :D

[zoomahh]

My SkyActiv I.C.E Upgrade
I finally got some time to do my writeup complete with pics too :huge smiley . Before I begin, let me just say that I'm no "McGuyver" by any stretch and I don't know alot about car audio. What I did know was that I had to get something better than the stock crap speakers the come with the car. I'm sure there are probably easier ways to go about doing the job the way we did it, but what we did, we did well and we took our time. I also want to give a HUGE shout out to Jalal because if it wasn't for him, I probably would have chickened out of tackling this job by myself. Maximum respect dude :super smiley . The main problem that scared me was breaking a piece of the dash, or trim because of not knowing where all the screws, panel fasteners, and how to remove certain trim pieces and in what order.

I hope anyone interested in doing their own ICE upgrade will read through this lengthy article since I took alot of time to take these pics and do the write-up. I made sure to take shots of the tricky areas and even shot a short video of Jalal removing the headunit in hopes this will help anyone else out there about to do an ICE upgrade.

About 2 months ago, Jalal aka "jshacm", and I were pm'ing each other back n forth about stereo stuff and we got to talking about the upgrade I was planning. After a bit of discussion he offered to come over to my place and help. As it turns out, he lives only 30 minutes from my place. So we set the date for Sunday June 24.

Although we didn't know it at the time, the install from start to finish was to span over 3 days, that is to say, 3 separate Sundays. This was due to a few factors;
1. Weather; On the first install day, it rained off and on and really threw our schedule off. It may also be interesting to note that on the 2012's, if the battery is disconnected, you cannot even put the tranny in neutral in order to push the car :( . So we had to make sure there weren't any live wires touching metal, hook the battery back up, put car in neutral, and push the car into the small one car garage. Anyone that has ever had to do this in the middle of an ice upgrade will know WTF I'm talking about when you have to do this quickly :P

2. Unforeseen modding to fit the speakers; Something I hadn't planned on since the front and rear speakers I was using came from my 07 mazda 3. Both the front and rear doors presented the same problem, so this was where my trusty lil dremmel 300 came in handy :) In an article Dave2010gt posted, he mentioned having to mod the speaker openings as well....now I must do the same if I wanted to fit my speakers in the doors.
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0830.jpg
***NOTE*** If I was going to do this from scratch with new speakers, new install etc., I would first go to the Crutchfield Canada site, and use their handy search engine that actually matches up speakers that will fit your car. You don't have to buy from them if you don't want to, but you can still use the search feature, then go buy elsewhere if you want.

3. Time; Because of these small problems that cropped up, it killed much of our first day and wasted valuable time. We started at 1130 in the morning, and worked till 2230 hrs. Jalal wanted to keep going but we both knew we had to go to work the next morning and we were still at least another 3 hours minimum, from getting my front speakers operational. So we had to call it.....and adjourn to another in Saturday 2 weeks....which meant going without a stereo for 2 weeks :O till he was able to return to continue the job.

But let's backup a bit first. I'm the type of guy that likes to plan things out, prepare, and try to foresee any problems before they arise and solve it right then and there. In addition to that, I had an idea of how I wanted to install my amp n speakers this time around. For instance, the last time I did an amp install, I ran my power line and signal wire taped side by side. As a result, this caused alot of "electrical noise" (ie whenever I would start the car or turn it off, I would get a loud POP from the speakers, or when I would turn on certain accessories on the car) that I had to put up with for 4 years . So after reading about other people's ice upgrades, I decided I was going to wire it differently. I also read that if any wires had to cross the powerline, it is best to run them at a 90 degree angle to minimize electrical noise. This is exactly what I was going to do...Like "Holmes on Homes" said, "Do it right the first time, and you won't have to do it again"....words to live by when it comes to modding eh? :P

[zoomahh]

Here was my plan for the wire layout;
• Power line (the big thick 4 awg red one), would run from the battery, through the firewall, under the scuff plates, around the back seats and to the amp. (interesting point to note that we had no problem finding an access area to pass the powerline through). We found that "plastic hole cover" the factory uses to plug if one does not have a manual transmission : .

• All the other wires from the amp going to the headunit would run under the scuff plates along the passenger side of the car to the headunit. The only difference with the rear speaker wires is that they will run from the amp, to the right and left side of the car respectively, over the top of the rear doors, and down the center pillars. This way, they would avoid being too close to the high voltage power line and thus minimize noise. We were able to get at the molex connectors quite easily for the rear doors, so we decided to drill these molex connectors and pass through that nice quality Monster 16 awg wire I told you about earlier ;)

• As for wire connections, I wanted to make sure each connection was tight, secure, and easy to remove and replace if need be. So for ease of hook-up at the amp and cross-over connector locations, I wanted to go with the "U" shaped spade connectors, and plus it looked much better too. I find that just twisting wire and inserting into the connectors just wasn't good enough. And for the wiring behind the OEM headunit, I wanted to use marrettes. This ensured a tight connection, and easy to apply instead of just twisting 2 wires together and covering with electrical tape. See pics below;

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0915.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0892.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0900-1.jpg

• For the tweeters, I wanted to make a quick disconnect here as well. The OEM tweeters had a quick disconnect plug here also, (in case inner door panel had to be removed), so I wanted to do the same. I had lots of computer paraphernalia hanging around from previous builds, so I just grabbed an extra fan/accessory molex connector and used that as my quick disconnects;
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0894.jpg
Wire gauge etc;

• Powerline; 4 awg high grade (very flexible, durable, easy to work with)

• Front speaker wire; had to use the stock OEM (20awg? I believe) wires because I was unable to access the front molex connections....We tried, believe me......more on this later. But I did use a strand of some nice 16 awg Rocketfish speaker wire I got from FutureShop to run from the cross-over to the woofer.

• Rear speaker wire; High grade Monster 16 awg. (Nice to work with, flexible, - and + cables were sealed in another see-through sleeve PLUS both wires were then "twisted" to further reduce electrical noise..if I have a close shot of it, I'll post it...nice wire indeed ;)

***See "Vehicle Wire Layout" below;

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/2012wirelayoutforiceupgrade.jpg

The next thing I had to tackle was how to hook-up my amp to the headunit. The amp I have is the Kicker KX 600.4...a really nice amp, that I got off an Ottawa Mazda forum member a few years back for a nice price. It's a BIG, heavy, rugged, strong amp and it just happens that it had a pair of "high-level inputs". Audiophiles will know what these are but for anyone that doesn't, they are used when the headunit you have (OEM for instance), does not have RCA jacks. They essentially carry the "audio signal", as if it were a speaker, to the amp as a channel 1 and channel 2. Then one just has to run the speaker wires from amp to speakers.

When I bought the amp from the guy, it didn't have any accessories with it (like the proper plugs for the high-level inputs). I tried to contact kicker to see if I could get these input plugs, but the cost of ordering, having them shipped from the USA, etc etc etc, plus I didn't have the time (install day was 1 week away), so I decided to make my own. After looking at the size of the plug, I thought they looked very similar to the plugs that's used to connect floppy drives to computers....so again I hit my computer parts box and dug out 2 floppy drive cables, cut em, and did a test fit....VOILA!!! they worked!!! All I hadda do was sand the guide fins off and they fit like a glove...even the "black ground wires" were in the same place as they would be for the floppy drive. I simply grabbed some extra 18 awg speaker wire I had lying around, and soldered them together !

Even the wire color connections matched up with the way it's laid out on the amp (4 wires; yellow, black, black, red) yellow=left front +, black = left front -, black=right front -, and red=right front +. Then I did the same for channel 2, the rear speakers. See pic below. Once they were together, I labelled them to get em ready for install day.

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0810.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0809.jpg

The next hurdle I had to jump was get a hold of some female spade connectors to make the connections to my speakers. I was having a hard time finding them so I went to a FutureShop location where I bought lots of stuff in the past. Talked to one of the guys in the audio department, bought some nice RocketFish 16 awg speaker wire, and he grabbed a handful of speaker connectors from the install bay and said "on the house"...saaaweet :D (however The Source sells em as well for about $5.00 for 3 pairs) After that I made a trip to Princess Auto because Jalal said that would be the best place to get some trim panel removers...that's where I scored these bad-boyzz for $ 14.99 ! ! No ICE modder should be without a set o these babies ;)

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0909.jpg

All during the time leading up to Saturday, I was compiling a list of items and tools I already had, and tasks that still needed to be done. In addition to that, I bookmarked and printed a few webpage's on ice installs that we could refer to if need be.. . . and we did :P I also butt connected the "U"spade connectors wherever I could to save us a bit of time on install day #1. In addition to the item list, I also printed out my car's wire layout plan for the amp n speaker wires so Jalal would have an idea of what I had in mind. I didn't know it then, but the OEM sail panels with the tweeter grills that came with the car were going to be too small to fit the 2" diameter Type R tweeters I was planning to throw in there.

[zoomahh]

DAY ONE . . . SUNDAY JUNE 24 2012

D-DAY Sunday June 24 has finally arrived and Jalal showed up promptly at 1100 hrs complete with his tools :) . Here was all the equipment I had piled up in the garage in preparation for the job. Note the pair of speakers closest to the amp. . . . I didn't know it at the time, but these ones were blown :O . . . more on that later;

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0812.jpg

The first thing we had to do was remove the battery and the case that surrounded the battery so we could pass the powerline through the firewall.

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0813.jpg

We thought this was going to be a pain but as it turned out, all we had to do was remove the battery because we were able to move the case enough to give us a bit of room. Once I drilled the hole through the plastic plug where the clutch would normally be, I pushed the wire up and Jalal was able to grab it.

First we had to remove the sail panels on the front doors and they were easy to remove. Here's where the clips are;

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0829.jpg

Then remove 3 screws that hold the panel on. ***They are in the same spots for both the front and back doors (first one is behind the plastic plate behind the latch you grab to open the door. Right where the lock is, that's where you carefully insert the angled trim popper to pry it up and out. the other 2 are behind the silver trim piece on the door handle;

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0817.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0815.jpg

Next was the door panels so I let Jalal take over since he's done it more often and knew where the inner panel trim clips were.***Look around the edge of the door panels in the photos and you'll see little white circles. That's where the clips are.

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0889.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0888.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0887.jpg

The back doors are in the same place but for learning purposes, Jalal used the trim popper to point to where they were. The first shot shows where one should start pulling from since you are able to get your fingers in and gently pull back on the panel. Once the panel starts to come away from the door frame, you'll hear a pop, you have one released, and you can use the trim popper to do the rest. The following pics are in order as to how to get the panel off. This same sequence can be used on the front doors as well;

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0824.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0819.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0820.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0822.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0821.jpg

The next thing we had to do was fix the backing plate for the amp to the back of the rear seat (driver's side). I read somewhere that was best to avoid any part of the amp making contact with metal. So the previous week was when I set to getting it done and ready to save us time. For that I used a 1/4" piece of plywood and sized it so it would land on the seat frame edges. This would make for a solid foundation and give me more room for mounting the amp anywhere on the seat back I wanted. I didn't want to mount it on the underside of the trunk because the amp's exhaust fan wouldn't be able to move the hot air out of the case properly.

So I simply unzipped the seat cover and pulled back the cover, put the board in place, drilled a few holes, and screwed it down.

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0814.jpg

We then proceeded to install the speakers. . . . . . THIS was where the "fun" began..... as we were trying the fit, we noticed the speakers were coming too close to the metal of the door frame. That is to say, we noticed the speaker magnet being attracted to the metal.

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0830.jpg

We didn't want any "ground-outs" happening so I had to remove a portion of the frame in order to fit them in properly. This consumed a huge amount of time. . . and....this was when it started to rain :( we had to wait till it slowed down and when it didn't let up we decided to put it in the garage (remember what I said earlier about not being able to put it in gear without power?)
Once that was done, we also made a last minute decision to put some sound deadener in the doors ***note red highlighter on door panel. No way I was going to try to remove the inner door skin. As Dave2010gt said during his install thread, "if the recoil spring/cord falls out of place...your fubarred B I G time ! !" On a positive note though, we were still able to reach quite far up in and around the door insides to plaster that good stuff in there, so that is what we did;

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0883.jpg

The next thing was start sorting out all the wires, and prepared them to run along the passenger side. I mentioned earlier that we also labelled each wire for easy identification. Keep in mind that's alot of wires (the high-level wires, ch1 and ch2, front right/left, and rear right/left, plus signal wire) and labelling them BEFORE laying them in place is just solid planning. During the week at work, I printed out a bunch of small labels (ch1 front right etc etc) so we would have something easy to read, easy stick on, and easy to indentify during installation or should I decide to add to the system, or change something in the future.

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0881.jpg

After that I started by grounding the amp. For that I used the same gauge wire as my powerline, 4 awg, and grounded it to one of the seatbelt bolts on the car chassis. But not before I used a grinding disc to remove the paint in order for the cable to make a solid connection :)

Before we realized what was going on.....the day was over...it was 1030pm. Like I said, Jalal even suggested we at least get the front speakers going so at least I would have some tunes to listen to till part 2 of install day, but we hadn't even wired the headunit yet :( . . . So I called it a day. We made a plan to continue the job in 2 weeks.
The time between the next install day was spent getting the wire schematics for the headunit so we would be well prepared. The other task I had to complete was to order another pair of sail panels from the dealer so I could make my own holes to fit the tweeters I was going to install. Once they arrived, I used a perfect 2" diameter lid from a bottle to trace the holes where I wanted to put the tweeters in. I had to be extremely accurate here since there wasn't alot of wiggle room between the panel's support posts, and where the retaining clips were. Not much to tell here so I'll let the photos tell the story and it wasn't hard work, I just had to have patience, and take my time. It took many test fits and grinding bit by bit until the tweeter just had enough room to drop in place. Then I did the same to the other one. The following pics are in order;

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0868.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0867.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0869.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0870.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0871.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0872.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0873.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0874.jpg

And V O I L A , presto or whatever ya wanna say, it was done :D

[zoomahh]

DAY 2 SUNDAY JULY 08 2012

Day 2 was finally here so we picked up where we left off and removed the door panels so we could finish the sound deadening and to have the panels off for when we did the sound test;

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0885.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0886.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0883-1.jpg

Note the sound deadener (photo above), we also placed around the opening where the speaker sat. With the non-conducting foil-like substrate on one side, and the tar with adhesive on the other, it also provided a great "cushion" for the speakers to sit on to eliminate any possible vibration/noise and whatever and would also prevent any grounding out. The great thing about this sound deadener stuff is that the adhesive sticks like nothing I've ever seen ! ! ! And was actually very easy to work with.

Then we made the connections at the amp location and proceeded to run them up to the front of the car;

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0884.jpg

The next thing we had to do was get the headunit out to hook up the wires. The first thing to do was remove the hvac panel that sits right above the radio. I shot a video of Jalal removing it. And check out the timing. It took less than a minute....don't believe me? See for yourself :) a vid says a thousand words I always say :P

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/th_MVI_0878.jpg (http://s97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/?action=view&current=MVI_0878.mp4)

After that, there are only 2 screws to remove before the head unit can be taken out completely;

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0880.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0879.jpg

Once we had the headunit out, it was time to hook up the wires.

****NOTE****the following is taken from my thread I posted in the electrical section for the "wire schematic for 2011 mz3" since what I explained there was exactly what we did that day. The link to that thread;
http://www.torontomazda3.ca/forum/showthread.php?64576-2011-Headunit-wire-schematic-n-junction-layout

I made a point of noting the wire colors and id marks of the speaker wire on the doors (i.e. lavender wire with yellow stripe) and labelled them appropriately so we could id them when we got to the head unit. But when we got the headunit out and unplugged the molex with the speaker wires etc, we noticed that the wire colors changed (my order of emotions at the time) probably some Mazda electricians sick joke to f*&K up what WOULD have been a modders otherwise perfect day. So luckily I printed out a few forum posts before install day and the service manual sheets I got from my source that id'd the spots where the wires were by number. After some deciphering we were able to figure out which wires were the left front, right front etc etc.

We saved the most important wire for last.......the blue signal wire . Now in another post, Year of the Rat said that the wire we needed to hook up to was a yellow wire w silver dots. Now some people indeed have had success with this one and some didn't so this cast some doubt as to whether we should use this wire. Dave2010gt said the wire he used was a "red" wire and THAT one was the one to use. We took into consideration the earlier finding about the speaker wires being different colors by the time it reached the molex and decided it might not be a good idea to go with it unless we were able to POSITIVELY identify this wire known as the "ignition switch", "12v ignition", "the signal wire", whatever you wanna call it. I don't think anyone was wrong as to which wire they used. I think this is what was/is causing trouble with sooo many different stories from people doing the headunit hookups about which wire to use because I think with each model year, Mazda was making small modifications as to where the wire was placed in the molex, what color they used, and NOT to mention using a different color wire en route to the headunit harness with each model year!!!

I mean WHO THE F*(K ever heard of changing wire colors enroute from the speaker to the headunit !!! So we went with the brown wire with a silver dot. Turned out this wire was a live wire that controlled overhead illumination, radio lights, and electric door locks controlled by the electric key fob! But the radio worked and we had SOUND ! ! ! ! WOOT WOOT ! ! ! It's alive it's alive...ahem...sorry back on track.

One thing we noticed though was that there was some bad static, clicks n pops coming from the rear speakers. I knew it wasn't our hookup because that was some solid wiring we did. WE even drilled the molex connectors to get the 16 awg wire through. I found out after listening to it more closely during the week that the rear speakers were blown :( It happened when they were in my other car from driving too much low frequency through them. Oh well, my birthday was coming up soon so I ordered a pair of Alpine Type R 6x8's and would install them when I did the tweeters n crossovers.

All was good except that Jalal had to cut out because he had a dinner date with his girlfriend. It was 530pm and the tweeters still weren't installed. Ahhh well it was all good since the stereo was up n running and I could install the tweeters and crossovers myself next weekend and I now knew how to remove the headunit because I had the photos we took as a reference. So we put the door panels back on and called it a day.

After Jalal left, I discovered another wrinkle. While I was testing the volumes and stuff, when I turned my car off, the amp didn't turn off :O ....Then I knew we must have tapped into the wrong wire. :headbang oook...another item to fix for next weekend appropriately named "Install day # 3".

[zoomahh]

DAY 3 SUNDAY JULY 15 2012

So my new Alpine Type R's for the rears to replace the blown ones, arrived at my work that week in time for today and now I could finally finish the job at last ! ! What we thought we could do in a day, instead took 3 full days. And we planned as much as we could and even still took 3 days. We did take our time which enabled us to do the job neatly, and the way we wanted it to. Without having to cut corners. Today I was on my own because Jalal was on weekend shifts but I was confident in what was left to do since I had done it before. Ok here we go;

The tweeters were mounted on the sail panels and the quick disconnects were soldered;

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0890.jpg

Door panels had to come off again :rolls eyes and headunit had to come out again. I'll start with re-wiring of the front speakers since it had to be redone with the addition of the crossovers and tweeters. The photos are pretty much in order as to how I approached that part of the job. Note how neat the connections are with the U shaped spade connectors;

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0894.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0892.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0891.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0893.jpg

Because I chose to mount the crossovers on the lower door panels (I wanted to be able to adjust the db + or - on the tweeters) I also had to mark them in some way so that if I ever had to disconnect the crossover, I wouldn't have to remove the door panel. I decided to used color coded zip ties. Here's how I did it;

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/th_MVI_0895.jpg (http://s97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/?action=view&current=MVI_0895.mp4)

And then attached the same color of ziptie on the connection closest to the crossover end of the wire.
This is a shot of the headunit wire harness showing the "wrong wire" I used, and the RIGHT wire I needed to connect to;

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0900.jpg

Once that was done, I tested the speakers and all was good and working properly :) I then started tying wires down, taping lose oem plugs over to eliminate rattles, putting the panels back on and the radio back in.

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0897.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0896.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0903.jpg

Hang in there gentlemen, the show's almost over......wire cleanup engine bay;

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0905.jpg

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0906.jpg

Amp nesting area before;

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0899.jpg EGHAD what a mess :O

after

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0911.jpg http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0916.jpg http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0915.jpg

ooohhhh yeah, na dats whut ahm tokin bout :)

crossover mounted location

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0898.jpg

Driver and passenger doors w/new Alpine Tweeters (which can tilt/swivel to suit interior listening environment)

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0919.jpg http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l229/paybax/My%20SkyActiv%20ICE%20Upgrade/IMG_0918.jpg

That's it gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed it and if you have any questions, fire away.....
Have a nice day :)

[Mazdy]

Wow...

[Jackal]

Impressive. Great write-up and pics!

[zoomahh]

TYVM :D

[113GT]

interesting choice for the crossover location. Not sure if I am a fan of that.

congrats on the new system though! enjoy it!! ;)

[Lactose]

Amazing write up. Also not a fan of the crossover, but still amazing work

[113GT]

i can see the crossover location to be a problem if it is snowing hard or raining and the wires get wet....

i would change their location to inside the door or inside the glovebox..

[zoomahh]

Funny you guys should say that because in my other 3, when we were mounting the crossovers, I was a bit hesitant when the guy that was helping me suggested to mount it there. But from a theft perspective, not rain or snow. And ya know what? I had em there for over 4 1/2 years with no issues, so I said why not...I'll do it again...Plus, I don't plan on leaving my door open very long at that time of year either ;)

I've also gotten used to diligently brushing excess snow off my roof as well so its all good :)

[zoomahh]

interesting choice for the crossover location. Not sure if I am a fan of that.

congrats on the new system though! enjoy it!! ;)

Thanx dude ;)

I'm already enjoying it!! And with the Type R 6x8's in the back, it puts out enough punch to satisfy my thirst for bass :) no doubt nothing beats a good sub, but I wanted another set of door speakers to give a full rounded out sound. Plus they say if your going to buy speakers it's best to stay with the same type. And that I did.

[jshacm]

System looks sweet! I bet it sounds way better now. Makes me want to tackle another install after I come back from my trip!

[zoomahh]

/\ /\ /\ @ Jscham...It's addictive isn't it? BTW.... You know that sound deadener we put in the doors? It DEF paid off. It makes the music sound ..... "solid", "tight", know what I mean?
Oh ya and since we did the doors with that stuff, I notice when I close each of my doors, they have that "thump" sound like the doors on a Mercedes :huge smile I LOVE it !!!

[dave2010GT]

Well done very well done!

I have some points I'd like to throw out there because everyone has the .02 and I'm not different.

Pros
- Plywood panel in seats (I like that planning and idea very smart)
- Big +1 on sound deadening, you should have taken the door skin off and gone for complete door coverage (outer metal and then on top of the door skin itself)
- Wiring job is very clean
- Also how you paid attention to seperating speaker wire from power wire while running the wires in the car.
- Quick connect for the tweeters is a neat idea but you should have ran new speaker wire for those as well.

Cons
- NEED A HEAD UNIT (your only getting 20% - 30% if that from that setup with the stock deck believe me!
- I'm not a fan of that cross over spot I think you should have either put them on top of the amp on the same panel or in the door.
- It's Alpine but hey I'm biassed :p

Overall nice job and enjoy it but seriously get a deck at some point and then listen to that system come alive!

[zoomahh]

Hey Dave,
Thanks alot man really... it means alot coming from someone with as much experience as yourself.
In response to your points;
-removing inner doorskins for more sound deadener.....I mentioned early in the article....too chicken, I remember reading your article on how to do that and the ONE SENTENCE that rang through my head when I thought about was "and if that inner ring comes apart, you are truly FUBARRED" was almost as scary as having your dick cut off :O lolz
- for running new wire for the tweeter wire...you must have misread it... I DID run new speaker wire. What I said was "the stock tweeter wire had it's own disconnect so I wanted to create the same thing with this setup" So yeah, I did use new wire and NOT stock ;)
- However I did have to use the stock for the front speakers. I tried to pm you with more info on how to get to the front molex but you never responded....So on install day, Jalal and I tried....got only so far... and we had to call it, and move on...it's not a given though, maybe we can talk sometime and I can get more info on it and complete it ok? :)
- ya ya ya ya I know I need a headunit, beLIEVE me I know....but budget was a factor... that AND...the fact that I'm married...nuff said :)
- ya I know your biassed, after all, your a pioneer fanboy huh :P j/k

[jshacm]

Dave your crazy to have done the front molex but I give you tons of respect for it

[bradrel]

Nice work!! I have a similar setup in my car and love it

[113GT]

/\ /\ /\ @ Jscham...It's addictive isn't it? BTW.... You know that sound deadener we put in the doors? It DEF paid off. It makes the music sound ..... "solid", "tight", know what I mean?
Oh ya and since we did the doors with that stuff, I notice when I close each of my doors, they have that "thump" sound like the doors on a Mercedes :huge smile I LOVE it !!!

my 3 always had that thump when closing the doors lol

i dont have sound deadening either.

many cars in this class have a tinny cheap sound but the 3 always stood out with a nice low end thump.

[zoomahh]

@ 113 ya I know what ya mean, but NOW it has a more solid thump if ya know whut I mean ;)

[113GT]

i can imagine lol

by the way, zoomah, this is totally off topic but i am curious. How old are you?

[zoomahh]

i can imagine lol

by the way, zoomah, this is totally off topic but i am curious. How old are you?

.......................old...lol that's a "way out in left field question" :P

[Toby]

Great effort on the install and also in the write-up.

Much appreciated.

[zoomahh]

Great effort on the install and also in the write-up.

Much appreciated.

TYVM :)

[Tbradley_2]

nice work. I will be starting a similar setup soon!

[zoomahh]

nice work. I will be starting a similar setup soon!

Awesome! ! shoot me an "e" if you have any questions. I'll do what I can to help. And I hope the writeup helps ;)

[zoomahh]

WOW I never thought a post of mine would EVER top 1G ! ! !
I guess it's worth reading huh :)

[kwnsracing4]

the photo of what was right and wrong for the acc. wire helped me out a lot. however i am trying to put a sub and amp in my car and hook it to my stock headunit. i have an input converter. what wires do i need to hook the converter too. it is asking for my left - left+ right- right + and a ground. i want to put this box in the dash so can you help me to figure out what wires are for the 2 door speakers first off. what colors are they and witch one is - witch one is + i am trying to do this ASAP i need to use my car soon and so i need to get it put back together. txt or call if faster. 541-993-1915