Marc Meyers
Well-Known Member
I finally started upgrading my stereo. It was put on hold until my bathroom remodel was done. That project took me a year and a half. I gutted my bath down to studs and did everything myself.
I want to thank Hillstones for all the information he contributed to the forum. I took his advise and purchased a JL audio XD700/5 amplifier. I was not crazy about mounting the amp under my seat. I wanted everything to look as factory as possible. So I made a bracket and installed the amp in the same location as the factory. I do plan on painting the bracket black. One of the feet for the bracket uses one of the bolts for the factory amp. The other is under one of the nuts for the accelerator pedal. It fits pretty good I removed the vent blower duct to make room. I think I can just turn it 90 degrees and it will still serve it purpose.
Here is a pic of the plate and amp:
Here's a pic with the feet installed:
with lots of trial and error and rebending the feet, I got it to fit:
I took the seat out and was on my back for a long time.
I ran the power wire through the fender, like other DIY show.
I also,like so many others, did not want to cut into any of the wiring. I plan on putting the original system back into the car when I resell it. I looked and looked and waited and waited, hoping that someone would come out with a plug and play cable for this system, but as everyone knows it does not exist. So I took out my calipers and started taking a lot of measurements of the 24 pin connector at the amp. I drew it up in a program called Sketchup. If anyone is interested it can be found at sketchup.com, it is free and there are many tutorials on how to use it. I basicly taught myself how to use the program as I was drawing up the connector. I found a friend of a friend that had access to a 3D printer, he printed it for me and here is the final product. It turned out pretty good.
with a little modification I got the pins to fit;
I did a lot of research and found the pins for the connector that match the factory connector at the amp from the radio. The pins can be purchased from Newark Electronics.
Here is the link;
http://www.newark.com/molex/16-02-0117/contact-male-24-22awg-crimp/dp/92B7913?ost=70190984&selectedCategoryId=&categoryNameResp=All+Categories&searchView=table&iscrfnonsku=true
If you don't want to bother with the connector, you can probably get away with just plugging the pin into the amp connector and using heat shrink tubing to cover the bare parts. Then tape them together. That is all I did with the 18 pin speaker connector to connect the amp to the car speakers. That part is only temporary until I replace the speaker then I plan on running speaker wire.
Here are some pic of the amp wired;
I followed the pin out from the other post. Pin 13 (blue wire) is the 12V turn on signal for the amp.
I hope this post helps everyone.
I want to thank Hillstones for all the information he contributed to the forum. I took his advise and purchased a JL audio XD700/5 amplifier. I was not crazy about mounting the amp under my seat. I wanted everything to look as factory as possible. So I made a bracket and installed the amp in the same location as the factory. I do plan on painting the bracket black. One of the feet for the bracket uses one of the bolts for the factory amp. The other is under one of the nuts for the accelerator pedal. It fits pretty good I removed the vent blower duct to make room. I think I can just turn it 90 degrees and it will still serve it purpose.
Here is a pic of the plate and amp:
Here's a pic with the feet installed:
with lots of trial and error and rebending the feet, I got it to fit:
I took the seat out and was on my back for a long time.
I ran the power wire through the fender, like other DIY show.
I also,like so many others, did not want to cut into any of the wiring. I plan on putting the original system back into the car when I resell it. I looked and looked and waited and waited, hoping that someone would come out with a plug and play cable for this system, but as everyone knows it does not exist. So I took out my calipers and started taking a lot of measurements of the 24 pin connector at the amp. I drew it up in a program called Sketchup. If anyone is interested it can be found at sketchup.com, it is free and there are many tutorials on how to use it. I basicly taught myself how to use the program as I was drawing up the connector. I found a friend of a friend that had access to a 3D printer, he printed it for me and here is the final product. It turned out pretty good.
with a little modification I got the pins to fit;
I did a lot of research and found the pins for the connector that match the factory connector at the amp from the radio. The pins can be purchased from Newark Electronics.
Here is the link;
http://www.newark.com/molex/16-02-0117/contact-male-24-22awg-crimp/dp/92B7913?ost=70190984&selectedCategoryId=&categoryNameResp=All+Categories&searchView=table&iscrfnonsku=true
If you don't want to bother with the connector, you can probably get away with just plugging the pin into the amp connector and using heat shrink tubing to cover the bare parts. Then tape them together. That is all I did with the 18 pin speaker connector to connect the amp to the car speakers. That part is only temporary until I replace the speaker then I plan on running speaker wire.
Here are some pic of the amp wired;
I followed the pin out from the other post. Pin 13 (blue wire) is the 12V turn on signal for the amp.
I hope this post helps everyone.
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