HOW TO: Install Amp using Stock HU

Detailed descriptions of how to do things to your Liberty.

HOW TO: Install Amp using Stock HU

Postby mihai » Mon Apr 05, 2010 11:12 pm

After driving my car for 8 months with the stock sound system i thought it was time to upgrade. Thought about the option of going for the fascia kit with a good headunit and all that but after talkin to Michael (NoOzL47), I opted to amp the stock headunit. Reasons being were mainly the price of the fascia kit. ($400-450 for the fascia plus $200 for an entry level headunit = $600-650) For this price I could get a brand new amp and wiring and have aftermarket headunit sound.

This guide is mainly for the post facelift 2.0R and 2.5i with the six stacker CD headunit. The wiring should be the same for the pre-facelift, however taking the centre console apart may be a bit different due to the gear shifter and cup holders being different.

Wiring up an amp isnt difficult, just take your time and don't rush. If you do not feel confident with taking your car apart and wiring things properly, then do not continue, take it to a professional installer. Finally, I take no responsibility for any problems you may encounter after you install. This is the method that i followed and it worked for me. Once again, if you do not feel up to it, do not continue!

Amp Wiring

There are two options that can be taken:

1. Use a Line Out Converter to convert the speaker wires leaving the headunit to RCA outputs and run these to the RCA inputs on an amp of your choosing
2. Buy an amp with speaker level inputs and then run speaker wires directly to the amp.

The amp i chose had speaker level inputs, so I chose option 2.

I ended up buying a wiring kit, as it had everything needed. My amp only needed 8 gauge to run, however I chose 4 gauge just incase i needed anything in the future, i could split it in the car using a power distribution without having to run the cable all the way from the engine bay again.

Amp Mounting

When mounting the amp, you have to identify where you would like it.

There are three main options to choose:

1. Under the drivers seat
2. Under the passenger seat
3. In the boot

I chose to put mine under the drivers seat as this is where the amp would be most protected from back seat passengers (my seat will always be covering the amp 100% unless my Mum is driving).

BEFORE YOU START ANYTHING, MAKE SURE THAT ANY BATTERY BACKUP ALARM SYSTEMS ARE TURNED OFF AND THAT YOU DISCONNECT THE BATTERY, NEGATIVE FIRST, POSITIVE SECOND

Preparation

1. Position your fuse where you would like it in the engine bay and measure the length of cable required from the positive terminal to the fuse. (I put my fuse on the side of the fuse box, cable tied it down)
2. Go to a good working area and cut the cable where you marked it. Then wire it into the fuse holder, crimp a terminal on the other end of the short cable.
3. Wire the remaining cable to the other side of the fuse holder.
4. Get your 1m/1.5m ground cable and crimp the grounding terminal to one end and the fork terminal to the other end.

Trim Removal

Now we are going to go into the front passenger footwell and start moving things out of the way to make room for the power cable.

1. Remove the cover under the glove box. This has 3 pop-in clips on the front face, just under the glove box. Remove these 3 clips and then slide the cover out. From here you should be able to see the A/C fan (big white thing) behind the glove box. This will stay in place, as the wire will come through the firewall behind this.
2. Remove the inside scuff plate. Start at the very front, unclip it from the front left kick panel. Then go to the center piller and unclip it there. From there, it will require some force, however this thing is quite flexible. There are about 3 clips evenly spaced holding it down.
3. Remove the front left kick panel. This has 1 screw-in clip thing. It has a flat face, however just by using your fingers, you can apply counter-clockwise torque and it will just come off.
4. Remove the screw clip that is holding the carpet down. This is located next to the screw-pop clip that holds the front left kick panel. Just unscrew it counter-clockwise. From here the carpet can be lifted up slightly. This should be plenty for you to run the cable under the silver metal plate.

5. The following 8 steps are optional if you are going to mount the amp under the drivers seat or passenger seat. Otherwise move on to step 6.
Remove the front seat.
a. Start by removing your headrests and slide the seat all the way back.
b. Remove the two front bolts and slide the seat all the way forward
c. Remove the two bolt covers at the back of the seat rails
d. Remove the back two bolts
e. Lean the seat forward and disconnect the connectors underneath. (The white one has a clip, just push it in and pull the connector out. The yellow one is a double lock type thing. Push the yellow
clip in and while holding it in, slide the green slider down. This should release the yellow connector)
f. Remove the seat from the car.
g. Repeat steps 5.a to 5.f for drivers seat (only if mounting under drivers seat).
h. Remove Centre Console (The power will come from under the passenger seat, through the center console and then under the drivers seat, also the RCA's or Speaker Level Input cables will be run
through here

i. Start at the handbrake and remove the leather handbrake boot. This is just clipped in. Just pull up with adequate force and it should come loose.
Image
ii. Remove the shifter boot/surround. For manual, twist the silver plastic ring to the right a little bit and then pull up. For auto, remove the silver ring. It pops straight up with clips located
at about 1:30, 4:30, 8:30 and 10:30 positions.
Image
iii. Pull up with some force on the front of the center console. Start where you removed the handbrake boot. There are two pop clips that comes straight up (yellow circles). Then just to the
left of the shifter, there is a plastic clip that you have to unclip and pull up(red circle).
Image
iv. Step into the back, there should be two covers on either side of the center console. Get a small flat head screw driver and pop these covers off. Under you will find a screw on each
side, remove the screw. From here the center console will come straight up. You can choose to remove it or just have it sitting upwards. I just had it sitting upwards against the back seat.
Image

6. Remove the door seal on the bottom of the door to access the cable management along the bottom of the door.
7. Pull up on the cable management to get more access to it and give you better access to the under carpet area.

8. The following 4 steps are for those choosing to mount the amp in the boot. Otherwise move on to step 9.
a. Pull up on the back seat bench. It is clipped in at two points.
b. Remove the back seat scuff plate. This is held down by 1 screw clip and then 2 clips like the scuff plate on the front door.
c. Unbolt the 4 bolts holding the back seat down. Two are located at either end of the back seat, and two are located directly under the ski hole.
d. Once the bolts are undone, open up the ski hole (if you don't open the ski hole the back seat wont pop upwards) and then with a little force push the back bench upwards. It should pop off.

9. Time to remove the headunit. For this i started by removing the little compartment where the cigarette lighter thing is. This just pops forward and then can be removed. Make sure to unplug the back of the cigarette lighter.
10. Remove the silver things on either side of the headunit. These are held in by 3 or 4 clips. Just pull straight out.
11. The headunit is held in by 3 screws on either side. If you have a look, there are 4 on the left and 4 on the right. The top one on both sides stays. Only the bottom 3 on either side get removed. Two are almost level with the dash, and 1 is deeper in the dash.
Image
12. Slowly pull out the headunit, unplug the Hazards button, then slowly pull the rest out and unplug the rest of the cables.

Wiring

Now that everything is removed we can begin the wiring.

1. Get all your pre-worked wires.
2. Go to the engine bay and position your fuse holder
3. Find the grommet on the passenger side going through the firewall
4. Slowly, remove this grommet. This can be done by providing force on the top of the grommet and slowly working your way around to half way down on either side. The bottom half of the grommet has a lip that makes it harder to get out. However once the top half is out, the bottom half can just be slid out.
Image
5. Get any cutting tool and carefully cut split in the rubber just under the triangle arrow pointing up (this is the softest point of the rubber). Make the cut just big enough for the cable to go through. This will ensure that the grommet will still serve its purpose.
6. Run your cable through the hole in the grommet and then through the firewall.
7. Once you have run your cable through the firewall, head into the cabin and start running it down along the metal foot plate to the bottom of the door. From there run it through the cable management either to the center pillar or to the back of the car (depending on where you choose to put your amp).
Image
8. a. If running the cable to the boot, then just follow the other cables going into the boot.
b. If running the cable to the drivers seat, then go under the carpet at the center pillar and go under the carpet, to the center console and then under the carpet to the drivers seat.
Image

9. Cut any excess power cable.
10. Crimp your fork terminal to the wire and wire it to the Positive terminal of the amp.
11. Get your ground cable and wire the end with the fork connector to the Negative terminal of the amp.
12. a. If wiring in the boot, find any bolt connected to the chassis and wire the ground to that.
b. If wiring under the drivers seat, then find a bolt thats connected to the chassis. This could be either the bolt holding the seat down, or any bolt inside the center console. I chose one of the bolts holding the handbrake lever to the chassis inside the center console.

Image

13. Get your blue remote turn on wire and connect it to the 'Remote on' terminal of your amp.
14. Run the wire back the way you came with your power cables, and connect it to a 12V Switched source. This can be found inside the center console where the cigarette lighter is. (12V is the yellow cable with silver markings)
15. If using a LOC, then solder the LOC to the respective speaker wires. And then run RCA's to the amp down the center console to your chosen position. Try and avoid using the same route as power as interference can be inducted into the speaker wires. Otherwise run the speaker level input cable from the headunit to the amp down the center console.

Code: Select all
+-----------------+--------------------------+
|   Cable         |      Colour              |   
+=================+==========================+
|Front Left +     | Brown w/ White Stripe    |
+-----------------+--------------------------+
|Front Left -     | Green                    |
+-----------------+--------------------------+
|Front Right +    | Red w/ Yellow Stripe     |
+-----------------+--------------------------+
|Front Right -    | White w/ Black Stripe    |
+-----------------+--------------------------+
|Back Left +      | White w/ Red Stripe      |
+-----------------+--------------------------+
|Back Left -      | Red w/ Black Stripe      |
+-----------------+--------------------------+
|Back Right +     | Blue w/ Yellow Stripe    |
+-----------------+--------------------------+
|Back Right -     | Red w/ White Stripe      |
+-----------------+--------------------------+


16. Run wires to the speakers/subwoofers that you will be powering and wire them accordingly.

Re-assembly

1. Re-assemble everything following the reverse of the above steps. Making sure that all connectors that you unplugged are plugged back in.
2. Connect the amp power cable to the positive terminal wire.
3. Connect the positive power terminal to the battery
4. Connect the negative power terminal to the battery
5. Turn on any battery backup alarm sirens you may have.

Test

1. Go into the car and turn the key to "On".
2. Make sure you have power to everything inside the cabin.
3. If you have power to everything inside the cabin, then go to the amp and check to see if you have power to the amp.
4. If everything is working fine (which it should be) then you can go to the amp tune stage.

Amp Tune

To tune the amp, I followed a guide on Mobile Electronics Australia. The link is below.

http://www.mobileelectronics.com.au/forums/index.php?/topic/35875-tutorial-amplifier-gain-crossover-adjustment/

ENJOY!

If you followed the above steps correctly, you should now have a fully working amp!
Enjoy your music from the stock HU.

Thanks go to Mo_GT for his "How do I...? (offer to show /explain)." write up (http://forum.liberty.asn.au/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1459&p=81287&hilit=+offer#p81287)
And to Hobber for his "DIY: OEM style Illuminated Cupholders – Walkthrough" write up (http://forum.liberty.asn.au/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=4032)
Used some of the pics plus their info from their write-ups and some of my own pics.

Ric, please move to Reference material & Walkthroughs.
Last edited by mihai on Wed Nov 27, 2013 5:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: HOW TO: Install Amp using Stock HU

Postby garbo41610 » Mon Apr 05, 2010 11:50 pm

Hey mate. Just though I should point something out.

"1. Position your fuse where you would like it in the engine bay and measure the length of cable required from the positive terminal to the fuse. (I put my fuse on the side of the fuse box, cable tied it down)"

the fuse should be no more than about 30cm from the batt terminal.
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Re: HOW TO: Install Amp using Stock HU

Postby mihai » Mon Apr 05, 2010 11:55 pm

garbo41610 wrote:Hey mate. Just though I should point something out.

"1. Position your fuse where you would like it in the engine bay and measure the length of cable required from the positive terminal to the fuse. (I put my fuse on the side of the fuse box, cable tied it down)"

the fuse should be no more than about 30cm from the batt terminal.


Thanks for that, I was meant to add something along the lines of that in but i forgot. My fuse is bout 20cm from the terminal. :D
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Re: HOW TO: Install Amp using Stock HU

Postby DJC » Tue Apr 06, 2010 11:56 am

Wow great writeup Michael.
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Re: HOW TO: Install Amp using Stock HU

Postby nytrojen » Tue Apr 06, 2010 12:18 pm

For a moment there I thought your car had changed to an auto ;)
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Re: HOW TO: Install Amp using Stock HU

Postby polishka » Sun Nov 14, 2010 8:35 pm

Did this today with a sub aswell.

Great instructions, definately saved me some time and am very happy with the result considering stock HU and speakers.

Thanks a heap!

Greg
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Re: HOW TO: Install Amp using Stock HU

Postby mihai » Sun Nov 14, 2010 9:23 pm

polishka wrote:Did this today with a sub aswell.

Great instructions, definately saved me some time and am very happy with the result considering stock HU and speakers.

Thanks a heap!

Greg


Glad it was of help. :D
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Re: HOW TO: Install Amp using Stock HU

Postby Neuro » Fri Apr 29, 2011 5:20 pm

Heya,

Great writeup!

Couple of questions, this is just for speakers yeh?

I have a 12" Alpine Type-R and Alpine Monoblock from previous cars ive had and wonder will this method work for the monoblock and subwoofer?

So far I know how to wire up the power, ground and remote (12v switched source thanks to you!) but whats leaving me for dead is the L and R cables that usually come from the deck. I'm not exactly sure where to get them from as the stock sub i'm imagining is just a positive and negative wire that's treated like a normal speaker?

Or am I missing something else here? I've tried looking for sub installs but I haven't had much luck :/ So I thought i'd ask someone who was fairly close to what I wanted to do :)

(PS yes i'll be dynamatting the door for better quality in sound, i just need that bit more of a kick hehe)


UPDATE:
Ok so I read through again and no doubt I'll have to go the LOC way.. Only problem is though... the sub will only be two wires yeh? All the ones i'm looking at are for speakers... Unless the sub has some special looking one?
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Re: HOW TO: Install Amp using Stock HU

Postby mihai » Mon May 16, 2011 12:37 am

Hey Neuro.

If your amp has 'Speaker level inputs' then you can just extend the wires from the factory sub to the speaker level inputs and it should work like that.

If your amp only has RCA inputs, then you will definately need a LOC. I used a Stinger SGN12 LOC. It has L+ L- GND R+ R- inputs. What you can do is take the Positive wire from the sub, and wire it into BOTH L+ and R+, then take the Negative wire from the sub and wire into BOTH L- and R-, don't worry about GND. Then from the LOC, just run your pair of RCA to your amp and wire it in as normal.

The only thing that you may have trouble with is that you may not be able to adjust the LPF how you like. Since the factory sub is run off the McIntosh amp, it may already be LPF'd at a certain frequency which is unknown to me.

Eitherway, play around with it and see how it sound.
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Re: HOW TO: Install Amp using Stock HU

Postby Kekotic » Thu Aug 04, 2011 4:45 pm

test (for mihai)
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Re: HOW TO: Install Amp using Stock HU

Postby broncos523 » Wed Jul 11, 2012 5:00 pm

Is there an easy way to get the grommet cover off? I'm struggling
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Re: HOW TO: Install Amp using Stock HU

Postby mihai » Wed Jul 11, 2012 5:23 pm

I didnt take the grommet cover off. That was someobe elses photo. I used a pair of sidecutters to slowly cut the rubber without cutting any wired to pass my amp cable through.
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Re: HOW TO: Install Amp using Stock HU

Postby broncos523 » Thu Jul 12, 2012 9:33 am

Ohhh okay good thats what I was planning to do because I found it impossible to get that thing off hahaha
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Re: HOW TO: Install Amp using Stock HU

Postby NDJ93 » Tue Nov 13, 2012 9:01 pm

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the awesome write-up it has made the process of removing trim and installing the amp a breeze, but I have one small issue with the speaker wiring. I was wiring up the speakers in my rear doors (both left and right) and came across the issue of having the same coloured speaker wires for both the negatives and positives on both doors and was wondering whether this would translate to the same problem when I need to wire my amp.

It just seems odd that they would use the same colours for rear left and right speakers as this would cause confusion when wiring up the amp.


Cheers!
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Re: HOW TO: Install Amp using Stock HU

Postby mihai » Tue Nov 13, 2012 9:17 pm

NDJ93 wrote:Hi Michael,

Thanks for the awesome write-up it has made the process of removing trim and installing the amp a breeze, but I have one small issue with the speaker wiring. I was wiring up the speakers in my rear doors (both left and right) and came across the issue of having the same coloured speaker wires for both the negatives and positives on both doors and was wondering whether this would translate to the same problem when I need to wire my amp.

It just seems odd that they would use the same colours for rear left and right speakers as this would cause confusion when wiring up the amp.


Cheers!


I'm assuming that you are talking about the speaker wires in the rear doors and not at the back of the headunit?
According to the wiring diagram, the speaker wires in the rear doors are the same, however they are as mentioned in the first post at the rear of the headunit.
If you are running new speaker wire to the doors, then you will want to connect the +ve for the rear right from the amp to Blue w/ Yellow stripe and the -ve for the rear right from the amp to Red w/ White stripe. Then on the rear left speaker wire, +ve from the amp to Blue w/ Yellow stripe and -ve from the amp to Red w/ White stripe.

Hope that all makes sense and helps.
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