Audio overhaul for my leggy (HOW TO SYSTEM INSTALL)

[nsrt4me]

So after about 2 weeks of owning my legacy, i decided that i could not deal with the factory system anymore and had to spring for the jdm double din dash kit. At first i was really skeptical about the price of the kit for what it was, but after realizing ill have the car for at least 4 years and drive it everyday, it was worth it for me. So i decided to take a few pics along the way and will try and do a how to for the legacy stereo. This is my first "how to" so please dont get too mad about the bad write up. And the pros feel free to add your critiques!

 

The components:

Pioneer AVH-3100DVD

Pioneer Bluetooth expansion unit(since its an older model)

Kicker KS600 5-1/4 coxial speakers for all doors

Kicker CompVR 12" dual voice coil 2 ohm subwoofer (2010 model)

Kicker 4 gauge power, ground wire, Kicker 4 channel rca wires and rem. turn on wire, Kicker 16gauge spkr wire, Kicker 80amp inline fuse

Kicker ZX 700.5 5 channel amp

Absolute 2 farad digital capacitor

random 6" mini crossflow fan(need another)

Crimestopper reverse camera (license plate mounted)

12v two prong switch

 

1. I laid out the pioneer wire harness and the jdm climate control harness along with the bluetooth harness and soldered them all together in my basement. Much easier than doing in the car. Zip tied extra wires together to keep it clean and easier to hide.

 

2.If you have any newer pioneer headunit, and probably almost any dvd unit, you can use this. Didnt work for me bc my older unit operates differently. Using a 12v relay that you can buy at radioshack, you run a wire from the rem. turn on(blue wire) to the switch, a wire to the parking brake(mint green wire) and a ground to chasis, then loop a small piece of wire to the vacant prong on the 12v relay to that ground. This relay setup will "trick" your headunit into thinking that the ebrake is on so you can view videos whenever.

I used a simple toggle switch, one prong wired to the mint green ebrake wire, and the other to a chasis ground. Flip the switch off then back on once the headunit is on, this disrupts the ground after the unit is on, making it think your ebrake is up. Enjoy videos whenever now.

 

3.I used the foam trunk organizer as my amp rack and to place my capacitor and crossflow fan(to keep it hidden and stealthy). I basically used serrated(?) kitchen knife and cut that S*&t !!! I put the amp over the foam and traced the shape with a white paint marker so i knew where to cut. This worked well, be sure to cut it tight to the shape so it holds the amp snug. This worked great and i did the same for the cap, and just used two screws to hold the fan in. I used a drill to put holes in for the wires which i ran in through the bottom to keep clean.

 

4. To start with the dash, I removed the factory headunit. Start by unscrewing the shift knob which is about 453623 turns! Then grab the plastic trim by the shifter boot and yank it up and out. On the back of the cig lighter you must unplug the harness. After that youll see screws on the silver plastic trim pieces on each side which must come out. After the trims are removed, now comes unscrewing the four headunit screws, then slide the unit out enough to access the harnesses, unplug them all. Remove that tired unit to make way for a new one!

 

5. The next thing I did was measured the length of speaker wires to each door, then add 3 feet to that length to be safe.

 

6. Remove the front door panels. First pop off the black plastic piece above the tweeter on each door. Then by using a plastic installers pry tool if you dont wanna goof up your door paint. Or a flathead screwdriver also works. Carefully go around the panel and pop it off starting at the bottom and working your way around. There are about 8 plastic pop things holding it in. Once you can lift the panel up as if its on a hinge, its popped off.

Then carefully wiggle and lift the panel up and off of the door. Youll notice that its still somehow attached, theres a small harness for the illum, lights on the bottom that you unclip. Then up behind the handle there is a black plastic door that snaps open revealing two cables. Turn them out then lift them out. Finally unplug the harness for the power lock and window. Remove panel. (same procedure for back doors aswell)

 

7. Unscrew the door speakers, and unplug their harnesses, throw some electrical tape around them and tuck them in the door so you can reuse them if you put the old speakers back in to sell the car.

 

8. Now carefully pop off the kick panel plastic on each side in the footwells, You have to give them a good yank to get em off. Then remove the plastic trim piece along the doors by pulling up. Also must pop off plastic pieces around drivers and pass side seatbelts.

 

9. Using a 12mm socket(10mm?) unscrew the four gold bolts that hold the metal piece over the seatbelts( you will need these out of the way to run the speaker wires into the back doors).

 

10. Now run your door speaker wires from the trunk to each door taking a simple path ( it helps to pop off the back seat bottom so you can hide the wires under).

 

11. You will laugh and doubt the next step, after hours of struggling to feed the speaker wires through the rubber boots to the doors, i found this wonderful technique. Take an old metal coathanger and straighten in out and use electrical tape to tape the wire to the metal end to fish through the rubber hose. but not just yet, the next part is the most important. Take some of that good old vaseline intensive care handcream and put some on that wire. Thats right, lube up that tip . This will make the wire slide through the rubber hose much easier as its a very tight fit(thats what she said). Once the wire is passed through, untape and pull an extra couple inches out the speaker hole to give some room to work with. Do this on each door.

 

12. Curse a little after struggling to pass the wire through the doors and get a drink, etc.

 

13.Now you can attempt to hide the wires under the carpet and under the panels, and into the trunk. But dont put the trim pieces back yet.

 

14. Re attach metal brackets over seatbelts (4 gold bolts each).

 

15. Strip the wire ends and use the proper connectors to attach to the speaker, and wrap some electrical tape around each to ensure they dont come loose over time. At this time you can add dynamat around the speaker area if your using it(my budget didnt fit it). Using speaker spacers, attach the new speakers into the doors making them snug so they dont rattle. Reattach the door panels in reverse order of how they came off, and basically snap the clips in by pushing against the panel where each clip is going around the door.

 

16. Remove plastic cover pieces in footwells under dash on driver and p. sides.

 

17.Pop your hood yo'. ( stare if you have a modded engine)

 

18. On the passenger side on the firewall youll see a big round rubber grommet which is where all the main wires run into the car, pop this out with a screwdriver( it takes some convincing). Take a razor and cut a small notch out of it on the top which will let you pass your 4g power wire through, then feed your power wire down and through that hole. Youll have to pull it from down in the footwell area pretty hard. Feed the wire most of the way through and on back to the trunk. Use some black plastic wire loom wrap stuff to cover the wire in the bay and protect from heat.

 

19. Now we will move to the trunk area, starting by popping the black plastic piece out from around the trunk latch catch thing. There are bolts there that you can use for an amp ground. Attach your 4g amp ground to one (sanding the metal by the bolt will make for a good ground).

 

20. Now you must run your rca wires and remote turn on wire to the front where the headunit will go, it helps to use a ziptie every 18" inches to keep these wires together, and be sure to run these wires on the drivers side of the car(opposite of power wire to avoid feedback and noise etc).

 

21. At this point, you can place your amp rack into the spare well and connect all your wires, but wait to connect your ground till last. Connect the power wire to the battery first. Then connect your ground to the amp. ** If your running a cooling fan which i highly advise, you can power it from the remote turn on wire on the amp , and ground to chasis, this will turn the fan on and off when the amp is on!

 

22. Now back to the dash. On the left in the dash area there is a black plastic area that must be cut out to fit the hazard button, use the tool of your choice. Theres no wires or anything that you could cut so dont worry. This is some tough plastic so it requires some muscle. I started bu using a 3/4 drill bit then basically snapped the rest with plyers because im ghetto like that. Clean all that junk out now!

 

23. Now screw together your new jdm double din pieces, and attach the climate unit into that aswell so it goes in as one piece. Screw it in and place it in the dash. Pull all the new stereo wires through and hook them up to the new headunit. If your using the toggle switch like me, I placed it in the ash tray and drilled a little hole in the back of it to run the wires through, so the switch is hidden from view.

 

24. If your not using a backup cam, you can put your car all back together now, install headunit and call it quits, if you are, continue reading.*

 

*25. For the backup cam, you must run a wire from the headunit to over in the passenger side where the wires are that run to the reverse lights. In the bundle of wires, there is BROWN wire with a GReen stripe, that is the the reverse light feed, which you must tap into.

 

26. In the trunk, you must tap a wire from the reverse light power to the camera power, and a ground from the chasis to the camera ground, i used the taillight bolt to ground it.

 

27. Remove the trunk decklid carpet to run the camera wires.

 

28. Now in order to run the wires into the trunk from where the camera is, you must drill a 1/2 inch hole up in the black plastic trim by the license plate light( there is metal behind here so it takes a little effort. Once you drill out the hole, you can feed the wires into the car, and attach the camera using the license plate screws. Use clear rtv sealant to fill in the hole you just created. Hook up your wires, and run the camera rca wires to the front of the car, and the headunit.

 

29. Reattach your deck lid carpet. close trunk.

 

30. Hide wires and reattach all trim pieces. Put dash back together.

**you may have to set the polarity on your headunit for the backup cam , refer to headunit manual*

 

This project can be done probably in one saturday, id start early if you are not a pro as things always pop up or can go wrong. Its a lot of work, but afterward you will be soooo happy with your new system!!

Hope this can help some people out that are willing to take on the stereo in our cars!

 

http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/x335/nsrt4me/2011-09-24_18-13-01_334.jpg

 

http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/x335/nsrt4me/2011-09-24_17-10-11_126.jpg

[nsrt4me]

Sorry about the lack of pictures, i had trouble loading them up on here, they will be coming shortly.

[nsrt4me]

I realized I left a lot out. For the head unit itself, I referred to this thread! http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/official-dual-hvac-double-din-jdm-kit-thread-113589.html

 

Thanks to this awesome person i was able to get started, so use his thread for the head unit install...then hopefully mine will also help.

[Dbl_D718]

Why did you run 5.25" speakers? The factory locations accept 6.5".

[nsrt4me]

LOL no idea why i wrote 5.25s lol, i did actually use 6.5s, i had a brain fart.