mr.actionjackson

So, Saturday I drove down to Stamford to do my TSX's stereo upgrade, which included adding:

- 1 Elemental Designs (eD) 16ov.2
- 1 eD NINe.1 Amp
- 30 sq. ft. eD v1se2 sound dampening
- Big 3 upgrade

The install lasted from about 9AM to 9PM, with alcohol and food consumption being the culprits for why it lasted so long. Unfortunately, the install is not yet finished because I had to rush home to a g/f becoming more upset with me by the minute because my "little install" was taking all day while I left her home alone to watch my dog...I don't know why she was so upset

(Sorry in advance for some of the obnoxiously large pictures...I forgot to resize prior to uploading to photobucket and I don't want to do it again...)

I'm only deadening the trunk for now, so first step was to remove all the liner:



All of the pins were pains to remove, but this one especially. We just wound up letting it hang to the side...eh:



Here's the top of the trunk all deadened:



The rest of the trunk:



Here's the enclosure, sans sub:




Here's the sub being fastened into it's new home:



1200w eagerly waiting to join the party:



Front view of the enclosure & sub. You won't be able to see the speaker wire when the install is officially finished and the plexi covers that hole:



Here's Dave, the guy putting this whole system together, wiring in the Dave Navone LOC into the 6x9...sorry no pics of that actual wiring going on:



We mounted the amp's fuse alongside the car's fuse box using a fabbed piece of 1/8" aluminum:



Here's the battery wiring, which also includes extra wiring from the alternator as a part of the Big 3 Upgrade:



Speaking of the alternator wire upgrade, be sure that your new ring terminal is small enough to fit onto the alternator. Here's a picture of our terminal next to the stock one. We eventually had to re-wire that cable and fasten a fabbed terminal that actually fit:



Here's it is all wired up:



Here's where the power wire went through the firewall. This hole is smack dab in the middle of the firewall about 4-6 inches below the wipers. It may not look like a whole to you, but stick your finger through there and you'll see it's there. :



Here's where the power and remote wire go along the driver's side door trim, which by the way was pretty easy to remove. I just wrapped the tip of a flat head screwdriver with electrical tape, inserted the tip under the trim and lifted up the trim along the length of it, popping clips as I went along:




We attached the amp's ground wire to one of the cargo net hooks in the trunk. I figured since I don't use the cargo hooks and since there was a whole already drilled there, that was a good place to ground:



The enclosure tucked away in the back of the trunk. This is the rear end of the enclosure that you can see. Right now the front "window" is sealed with a carpeted piece of mdf with the amp attached to it. When part 2 of the install is completed, the window will face outwards and the amp will be hidden in the left corner:






So, that's how the install looks as of now. However, we did run into a couple of problems. We had plans to hook the remote wire up to the antenna power which is reportedly located both in the trunk next to the driver's side 6x9 or inside of the Driver's side C pillar. Well, we couldn't figure out the wire from next to the 6x9 and we couldn't get the C pillar off (I was afraid to awaken the airbag ). It was getting late so we temporarily hooked up to the center storage bin's accessory plug. It's not hard wired, so should we decide not to use the attenna power cord, we'll have to redo the wiring so that it's permanent.

The second problem we encountered was that the Bose EQ totally ruins the signal going to new Sub. I know this is because I tapped from the 6x9, but I didn't realize how much the Bose EQ was filtering out until there were bass notes being completed "muted" out (I could faintly hear the note, but not as I should have). This is definitely not an issue with the sub not being able to reproduce the note. We'll have to find a way to get a flat, non-EQ'd signal back to the sub.

The final problem that popped up is that I noticed my CEL came on sometime while we were testing the amp...I'm not sure if it was immediately after powering the amp for the first time or after it ran for a few minutes. I didn't notice until I was about to drive back home. I can't figure out what threw the code. My only guess is that the increased load on the alternator threw a code, however I'm not getting ANY noticeable dimming at the level that the amp is turned up. Today when driving to and from work, I noticed that I was getting a little hesistation in 2nd gear. The hesitation went away as soon as the engine warmed up. Could this have anything to do with the amp install or could it just be a coincidence that this problem arose while doing the install? I know the first suggestion will be to check the wiring and connections, but it the wiring job seemed just fine to me...I could be wrong though.

Any feedback to any of those 3 issues I raised are appreciated and if anyone has any questions about the install, feel free to ask and I'll answer to the best of my ability.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Install looks good, I don't own a tsx, so I can't offer much help about the wiring issues, but everything looks like it came out pretty well, can't wait to see part 2

KaMLuNg

iTrader: (5)

good job... looks great...

InstallerJohn

Read Elduderino's thread about the TSX audio system he is definately the resident TSX expert- It will answer all your questions about getting the best signal. Read it and understand it before you PM him with questions though. Otherwise pay somebody to do the install for you. And I'm 99.99% sure that the CEL is a result of something you did durring the install- did you plug everything back in securely that you unplugged- In the correct place? I would throughly go through the entire install and make sure before you go to the dealer to have the car scanned- otherwise you'll be paying much more than the $60 for them to just turn off the light- they will have to go through the car at $90/ hr and figure it out + the scan fee. good luck.

dizzy1

I had the same problem when I tapped into the 6x9's at first. I thought my sub was defective at first or something. Seems like the 6x9's play a very narrow range like a bandpass with a huge boost at about 50HZ. I ended up running RCA's from the deck and bypassing the factory amp and the sub came to life and the bass sounded so much better. Only suggestion would be to run the RCA's from the deck, alot of work for just bass. Maybe someone has a work around like combining the signal from the rear doors and rear deck and summing them together to make a better signal for your amp.

mr.actionjackson

Well, I took the TSX in this morning for the seat track replacement and trunk control module recall (or whatever that recall is called) and I told them that my CEL popped on saturday night. They didn't ask what I was doing when it happened, they just said they'd check it out. Turns out the O2 sensor is the issue. They said that it needs to be replaced. New part is on the way and the repair is covered under warranty. No comments were made about the huge amp sitting in my trunk, which I suppose they may not have seen if they didn't need to remove my enclosure to do the trunk module recall. I'm no expert on how cars work (I'm barely a novice), but it doesn't seem to me that the sub & amp install could affect the O2 sensor. Or am I wrong? Was it just a coincidence?

So, hopefully that takes care of the CEL when they replace the O2 sensor.

The remote wire will probably be hardwired to the deck since I'll be going back there anyway to get an un-eq'd signal...I'll go read up on eldude's write-up(s).

Thanks for the responses

InstallerJohn

Glad to hear - I couldn't imagine how the two could be related- just a very big coincidence I guess. good luck with the install.