Does anyone on this forum have pics of thier amp/sub install? I am particularly interested in finding out where the power cable for the amp was passed through the firewall between the engine compartment and the cabin from the battery to the rear of the car. I have spoken and visited several audio installers in the area and none of them have worked on an 04 TL and am quite skeptical about my car being the guinea pig. Any help or advice will be much appreciated. I love this forum and I love my TL even more!

 

Yea I had my car be the guniea pig. And I didn't get satisfactory results for the $800-900 I paid them to do nothing but install all the wiring, and preamp splicing, and build a custom box. I already had my AMP and 2 12" Woofers that were top quality. Since they had to splice off all my bass wiring from my 5.1 Amp/NAV system with some $50 preamp splice output, I think that is the main problem.. they claim it's not but because the 5.1 factory amp in there is a poor source for bass. I also have a voltage volume control for my amp which i think is a waste now since I leave full blast cause I want as much juice as possible and it sux really bad if you turn it down any.. I guess it's good if someone in the car hates subwoofers... my amp also shuts off for 30 seconds if I have volume higher than 37 for too long with huge amounts of bass playing.. I noticed this with ONLY XM radio though.. I think it happened once with DVD-A.. Sometimes simply changing the XM station causes my amp to shut off cause it got a huge volt of frequency sent to it or whatever..

Check out this thread for pictures of mine and another guy that has a killer system that I would love to hear and see how much better his is compared to mine. I tried aiming my woofers away and towards me.. Not really much difference.. I like them aiming towards me cause you get no outside loud trunk rattles that is nothing but embarrassing.

http://www.acura-tl.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89609 POST #10 and POST #8- Sorry I took no pictures of my 4 guage wiring from the battery through the firewall. It just goes through the same hole a bunch of other wiring go through.. I remember it being easy to see.

 

chazzy777 - ur system looks sweet, u got 2 Type R's in there? Daaayum son! I have pretty much done everything myself. Figure if I screw anything up I can blame myself and no one else. I have wired the sub amp to the factory sub output wires in the truck using a line level converter, wired the gound cables, remote bass knob for the amp and all am waiting for is a ray of light to show me where to pass the amp wire through. Do you know if the power cable was wired through the driver's side or passenger side of the car? Thanks for the feedback btw.

 

Thanks.. however when you hear it, you would probably expect it to sound outrageous, that is, punch your stomach hard.. but it doesn't..The quality of low bass is great, but it's not stomach pounding like I thought it would be.. I had this same system (different custom box) in my previous car and transferred it to this.. However I had to sacrifice my aftermarket deck. But it punched your stomach in my previous car.. It doesn't do it in here and they blame the 5.1 amp (the source).. My roommate thinks they built a shitty box.. Another local custom audio installer says all the wiring done was shitty, and used a cheap shitty preamp splice.. They saw nothing wrong with box..I have to boost my amp FULL blast on everything and the voltage full blast for it to sound good.. I leave the subwoofer and bass volume all the way down (just one notch up).. If I put them up any hight the bass gets too over dominating and sounds too bassy..

But I'm stuck with it, unless I come up with another $1000 bucks for someone else to redo this right and build a better box for $300. I went to CarTunes and told them to install this amp and both my 12" woofers and cap..and to do it for under $1000 ... The did a $300-500 job in my mind when it was done.. too bad for no refunds.. I also had them install the Viper V791XV alarm that I later discovered I got ripped off on. Paid $900 for all that and should've only been $400.. Jeez.. they raped my wallet! I basically felt like I was robbed by them.. nothing I can do about it now..

but I have in there:

Phoenix Gold Titanium 800.1 Amp (800 Watts RMS Mono @ 2OHMS)
Dual 12" Alpine R Series 2OHM Woofers in Custom Box
Rockford Phosgate 1 Ferret Cap with 4-guage Wiring

Oh and another thing, they had to disconnect my factory woofer.. That thing was crap anyways.. so I didn't mind.. it conflicted with the preamp output they put on or something..

I only looked quickly how it went through and it was on my drivers side I think.. I'll update you tommorow after I give it another look where I see it going through..

 

Chazzy,

My install is supposed to be done Wednesday and I'll post some pictures. I took my car to an electronics guru because I knew that there was no data on the signal form the head unit and I wanted to keep the head unit and repalce the fronts and sub and related amps. He dug out the preamp signals from within the head unit. That took some doing. I'll try to get the final word from him, but the first time he found the sub out, he measured a signal centered at 150Hz and then sloped off on both sides. If that is the case, you would be getting some boom, but not "feel" the bass like usual with your set-up. You may not be getting your fair share of the 40-90 range.

 

hey 9999999, cant wait for your pics to see. Watt amps did u go with? i am planning on getting soon if its possible, and if maybe i hear something good from you. I want to get the Alpine V12, its 5 channel amp. one channel being subwoofer. I got this becuuse i dont really WANT watt chazzy wants. a BOOM in your stomach. i just really want for me to have my volume at 15 and have my windows down going 70 on the road and hearing it fine. you know right now stock its like u have it at 35 and its low with high winds. or even just windows down.. This is whatt i am planning on getting..

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW


Let me know if u think it might work. or if maybe you can ask them if u remember when you do your istallation..

 

Let me know what parts they used so taht maybe I can ask around about installinig the same parts to splice off the 5.1 surround amp with. Every installer I go to wants to charge me another $1000 or around just to have this done right...I don't think i shoudl have to pay any more than a few hundred bucks to have it done right. I really want to find another TL that has same setup as mine and see how it sounds. Can't compare over the Internet

 

It's all on driver's side.. I wonder if they cut a hole through the firewall... These are the best pcitures I can get cause I can barely get my camera in there and get lighting.. I tried using night vision mode on my camera too.. Should give you an idea hopefully. I put red lines/circles around the cable going through.. My Viper alarm is there too that you may not have which was in the way and I had to move.

http://www.sonic.net/chaz/NewCarAlbum/hood/

 

Thanks for the pics chazzy777 - looks like they drilled a hole in the firewall and passed the cable through the passenger cabin as I could not see any space to get a finger much less a hand through the engine compartment where your cable seems to have been guided through. I'll try figure it out tomorrow evening if the weather is good up here. I just can;t wait to add some bass up in that trunk! Wish me luck.

 

Guys I had mine done too, They do pass the wire right threw the fire wall on the Drivers Side, They used a drill to get threw on mine. BE CAREFULL AS all the Sensor wires are right there in the same spot, You dont want to hit one. As for Bass, I think mine is to much I have all the settings set on the lowest possible levels and its stomach crunching, I might downgrade becasue its just to much If you want some real bass go with what I have 2 2004 Kicker L7 10" inch subs and a Rockford Fosgate Power 1000 Amp.

 

yea 2 or 3 guys worked on my car and spent a good 4-5 solid hours altogether and had my car all day and over night to finish up the next morning.. I have all my controls on my amp full blast and my voltage volume full blast and the subwoofer and bass volume all the way as low as they can go (not off).. This is the best quality I can get, and with that, the best boom I can get. I've tried configuring every other possible way and jsut can't get it to sound any better than these settings.. When the guys finished at CarTunes, they were shocked that it didn't sound anywhere near as good as they thought it would.. they were expecting it to punch bigtime.. this is when they blamed it on the source of the sound coming from the 5.1 amp and there was nothing I can do to upgrade that since it was all itnegrated in the NAV. As I am finding out from these forums, they are full of it and were obviously sick of working on my car so much. They had the settings on the amp turned all at optimum levels in their view.. I just put them all the way up to make it sound much better.. but it's still not satisfying. I have rattle problems in the back when the bass hits certain high-bass notes. Someday I'll probably go through it and try putting padding between the back window and dash.. It will be lame having to do this though.. For all I know, the 9" woofer may be what's rattling even though it's disconnected?? Some songs just sound like shit though and I end up just changing the song jsut cause the back rattles loud that it's annoying or you hear vibration sounds.. it's rare it does this though..but songs like Freek-A-Leek or reall bassy songs, people can hear me from way down the street, and no rattles anywhere outside my car or inside..

However if I turn down the voltage control (placed nicely in my glove box) it's like downgrading right there.. I just wish I can get more out of it then I currently get on demand.. Basically you think you'd get more punch for two 12".. and it sounds like one really good 12" goin. I've spent around $10k on all my car audio upgrading in my life..always getting new custom boxes and blowing out my previous JL W3 woofers.. I still have perfect hearing when I had a recent hearing test ..

 

So I had my stereo eventually done by an expert..... well kinda. Everything is hooked up but the subwooofer only produces a ton of feedback. No bass/music......... anyone have an idea what's up or had this problem before? I guess it would be better to ask if anyone did the install themselves to give some direction............ please help!

 

So I finally got the amp and sub successfully installed. Problem???? The Line output converter on the factory sub was not grounded....... you would think that someone who claims to have been installing stereos for 8 years would not skip this step. Anyhoo the sound is pretty darn good, my music now has depth and I want to drive the car even more now. It was also setup in such a way that I can use the factory sub if I want to but if I have both running it sounds kinda muddy (for lack of a better word) coz the factory sub doesn't go all the way to 40Hz like the 12' Visonik competition sub does. So am a happy TLer right now.

 

GunnmeTaLUCA04

Could you please paste how your system sounds after putting in the Alpine Amp? I want to do the same as you..basically, increase the loudness of the system and possible bring come "crispness" into it as well.

If the Alpine Amp will work with out cutting out some channels or having to do a complete replacement of speakers and stuff, the Alpine might be what I'm looking for as well.

 

I am adding my sub this week and would love a little clarification on where you picked up the signal. I am assuming you used a line level converveter taking signal from the speaker level (already factory amped) sub at the rear deck. Is this correct?

Also, is the sub wiring accessed from the top deck or the trunk or both? Thanks!

 

Sup p'ples. Didn't mean to revive an old thread but wanted to see pics of any amps installed in the space above the navi dvd drive or on the top of the trunk lid. My trunk is gutted right now waiting for the install of a new lid after which I'll dynamat it b4 reinstalling my sub and amp together with a cap as I'll be installing a UR underdrive pulley in the near future. Don't like the way it is now sitting behind the sub. I've seen posts when searching that someone did one above the trunk lid but couldn't find the link to the thread. Post away...... :thumbs up:

 

I guess no ones got pics of thier amp mounted on the top of their trunk lid huh?