Excited to install a subwoofer

[Evict]

I just ordered a sub/amp/wires and I'm super hyped to get these installed.
I might make this into a guide, depends if this car gives me trouble or not!
But what I'm going for is just a basic bass boost, not too much, not too little if you catch my drift.
In the past I've ran with dual 12" JBLs that I took with me from car to car and decided that since I pretty much always ran with the bass turned down super low, why not go for something that gives off a bit less bass and is easily concealed.
At the very least I'll post some pictures when it's finished.
I'm planning (keyword being planning since I can get lazy) on a 100% clean install, no wires showing, totally concealed amp, and hidden subwoofer.
In my previous car (mazdaspeed3), I did a total overhaul on the audio system.
Amp to the freshly installed door and back speakers and I was messing around with the factory sub in it. But to cut a long story short, total pain in the you know what on that car!
But I've read some things saying this car is cake so I'm hoping for the best.
Time to wait patiently and not check the tracking status every 30 minutes to see if my new toys are here yet.
Edit: On a side note, after browsing the forums again I saw a thread where the guy did almost exactly what I was going to do.
Time to get more creative and if all else fails go back to plan A.

Edit: Jump to page 2 post 1 for pics.

 

[gijoefontaine]

Howd it go? I recently done the same. Love it. Harder than I thought cause I love this car and dont wanna pooch it

 

[Evict]

Waiting on the stuff to come in, I ordered Saturday and the estimated time was on Tuesday. Crutchfield is usually ships things pretty fast so if I get them on Tuesday I'll play around with looking for a good spot to stick everything then do the install on Wednesday which will be my off day

 

[Hulty]

I've got only 300w running to just one 10" JL Audio and it thumps well, but I had to Dynamat everything afterward which made it thump even harder. Love my Sonic!!

Good luck on yours, you'll love it too I'm sure.

 

[Evict]

Thanks!
I'll be posting updates once I get the ball rolling in here.
Still super stoked!

 

[Evict]

My order came in earlier today, unexpected work is coming up tomorrow so hopefully I'll have time to set it all up.

 

[Jcordo93]

Hope to see some pics soon. I plan on starting my install next week, going for extreme bass in my little sonic.

 

[Evict]

I have a few pics to upload.
Though I ran into a few issues so it's not even complete yet.
First issue was the rubber grommet to run the power wire.
A tip for anybody doing this, save yourself a lot of frustration by not using a razor knife and or screwdrivers.
Cut it with a serrated knife such as a steak knife.
I have a good picture of what I did to get the power wire through and I'll upload it soonish with the other pics.
Second issue, finding the right tools which were scattered all over the place.
Storage, garage, basement, shed, hiding on the side of the shed.
Let's just say all of that running around took up a lot of time trying to find everything I needed.
Third, bad preparation, I should have bought extra connectors so I could run with my capacitor without having to look all over the place for older wires that I used that had connectors already on them.
Fourth, laziness plus lack of extra connectors/parts. I decided to not pre-charge up the capacitor with a resistor and hooked everything up and popped the inline fuse.
Good news, I had extra fuses. Bad news, they were AFS fuses and the new inline fuse holder I got in the package was a AFL fuse.
By this time it was 11:00pm (had a couple breaks in between) and all the shops were closed.
I did the only thing I could think of and ran to the closest 24/hr wallmart looking for a new fuse holder or fuses that fit.
I get to wallmart and they sell this cheap@#$ fuse holder with no protection versus water and I was trying to buy it anyways with some back-up fuses. It was locked in a box so I asked somebody if they could open it. To end the long story I waited around in the store for over 30 minutes for somebody to open it and nobody came because all the key-holders were in a "meeting". At this late at night...

With all that being said, this car is pretty cake to do the actual install on. The only real trouble is making sure you have everything you need, and cutting through that grommet.

Will upload pics once its up and running.
What I have left to do is mount everything and troubleshoot my inline fuse issue.
I'm 90% sure its because of the capacitor.

 

[SonicSteve]

Getting 12 ga thru to the doors is a good time... dont try that.
I have 2 runs of 0 ga cable thru my car and had no issues. Battery relocated to the back. I ran the the drivers seat crossed into the center console and straight back.

 

[Evict]

I'm a bit power wire challenged then lol.

 

[Evict]

My box of goodies!

To get the power wire through the grommet since I fail epicly at this part, I sliced it a bit with a serrated steak knife.
Then I tied a piece of speaker wire and pulled it through the grommet.

On the driver side kick panel I spliced in my line inputs to the rear speaker wires.
Lucky for me these were already grouped together so it was easy to find them.

I didn't feel like taking off all of the trim so i flattened a metal hanger and pulled the wire to the other side.

After taking off the back bench seat I found a good spot to ground to.
With about 30 seconds of dremel drilling it to go down to the raw metal, good connection.

Installed the in-line fuse by the battery.
I'm working on a way of hiding it better.

Mounted everything, letting the wires look messy for now until I buy a working capacitor to hook up as well.

Completely hidden!

The fuse problem I had was a blown capacitor.
Maybe this will help anybody with ideas of how they are going to do their setup.

 

[RMinNJ]

That's a nice writeup of a sub-woofer install for those of us that have never done it.

Question; does one have to get power right at the battery? Is there not someplace on the interior fuse box where we can tap power with a fuse tap?

 

[Evict]

To my knowledge the interior fuse box doesn't get the same amount of power that you get from the battery.
Hooking it up at the battery is the best way to do the install.

 

[DaBlackapino]

I'll get the Kicker set-up they make for the Sonic & keep the OG radio. My dad knows how to install stuff such as this; so I'll just be watching lol but nice job.....NICE Job.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Evict]

Thanks! I'm still using the factory radio. Just get an amp with line level inputs and tap into the speaker wires to avoid replacing the my link radio. By the way I forgot to mention I didn't run a remote wire because my amps line level inputs act as the remote as well.

 

[Jcordo93]

Nice! Good job on keeping it hidden. How does it sound?

 

[Evict]

It's right where I'm at.
Not too much bass, not too little.
Better than the stock sub in my old speed3.
It accents my alternative and metal genres pretty well so that's all that matters to me.