How To Install A Sub And Amplifier In An R32

[Sean'O]

Awesome write up dude, I already have a amp + sub, but the cabling is only 12gauge :S So although all i really had to do was "follow the existing wires and replace them", sure was a good thing to know!

No problem mate, its great to have feedback

Regards,

Sean'O

[Entice]

i can't see the images is it just me or my work computer?

[Sean'O]

i can't see the images is it just me or my work computer?

Hey mate,

Sorry for the late reply, I wasn't getting the email notifications for some reason

Nahh the links to the pictures must have been broken, probably to do with site maintenance or something

I can't seem to edit the original post either , which pictures specifically did you want to see?

Cheers,

Sean

[aussietroy]

alittle off topic, but i thought it would be better then opening a new thread ... anyone got pics of there sub and amp mounted in there 32 ?? ive got a pioneer sub and a jvc 4 channel amp and not sure how/where to mount. just trying to get some design ideas

[KrazyKong]

Fixed pictures from the original post.

Hey,

Before this DIY I am going to assume that you guys know what a sub does for your music experience and what an amplifier basically needs to work. If not here’s a great video form Crutchfield that explains the basics.

Sub and Amp Guide

I had recently installed speakers to replace the stocko’s in my 32, so I did have a little experience with taking the car apart, especially the back seat etc. If you have not done this before, save yourself a headache and do a search on the forums, they are a great help. Similarly, if you have a friend with a bit of audio ‘know how’ they come in handy.

Tools you will need

- HU manual

- Screwdriver set

- Ring spanners (couple different sizes)

- Wire stripper

- Crowbar (easier on your back)

- Stanley knife/ scissors

Materials needed

- Amplifier wiring kit

- Sub

- Amplifier

- Duct tape (ohh yeah J)

- Black cloth (optional)

Step 1

Go down to you local shopping centre, pick up a sub, amp and wiring kit. The amp I would suggest getting second hand, unless you have lots of money to burn lol. You could also buy your wiring gear separately from any electrical specialist to save money, but I am a complete novice at this stuff so I just quoted the power I’m running at a JB hi-fi and they gave me the appropriate kit.

Step 2

Open up your hood and remove the negative wire from your battery terminal.

Step 3

Find out where you want to mount your fuse. Assemble fuse holder and wires to the positive battery terminal, (all connections included in wiring kit). Make sure you leave the fuse out.

Yes i know my wheels are crap lol, dw they are next to go lol

Step 4

Remove the kick panel one the drivers side by taking out a few screws.

Step 5

Find an existing hole in the firewall to pass through power cable, the closest one is on the drivers side, it will be plugged up with a piece of foam, just pop it out and follow the wired with your hands to a thick rubber seal.

Once you have found the seal, you will have to work a hole in it with a long screw driver. Its all trial and error process until you feel there is a large enough hole to pass the wire through. I found wrapping the end of the wire with thick duct tape made it easier to push through. Once you have pushed roughly 1 – 1.5 meters of wire behind the firewall, put your hand behind your pedals and search behind the carpet for your power cable.

This is by far the most laborious task of the whole install, I’m pretty sure some of the more experienced audio guys on SAU have a few tricks on how to make this easier.

Step 6

Time to take out the HU.

You will need to remove all the parts that cover the centre console. There are quite a few DIY specifically involving this, again I found searching a great help.

There are quite a few screws dotted along the centre console that need to be taken out. They start from about where the seatbelts are, don’t force anything, if it doesn’t come away freely you have probably just missed a screw.

Another thing to note is the black piece of plastic that surrounds your HU and the air conditioning etc, this also has to come off. Once you have removed your shift knob and gaiter there are two 2 - 4 screws and 2 clips that need to be popped up and it should come away quite easily. Don’t rush this, the plastic is flimsy and easy to crack.

Now you should be looking at a number of screws and brackets holding your HU in place.

Step 7

To remove your HU, there are 4 screws holding its bracket in place, simply pull these guys out and put them aside, it should look something like this.

Behind your HU you should see a number of wires all bound together and 2 holes for your RCA cable. This is where you need your HU manual, if you don’t have one do a search of your HU model on the net, that’s how I found mine. The manual will reveal what each wire does by color. You need to look for a ‘trigger cable’, in my case it was called a ‘AMP REM’ wire.

My trigger cable was already cut so I just stripped it and connected the new trigger cable provided in the kit. Next plug in your RCA cable into the appropriate slots in the HU. Take both these cables and pass them through the back of your center console on you passenger side, later you can wrap these guys under your glove compartment.

Helpful Tip: If you drop a screw behind your centre console, grab a strong magnet and use that to pull it out the back.

Step 8

Now you should have a length of red power cable sitting on your drivers side and a bundle of RCA and trigger cable on your passenger side.

Step 9

Take out back seat, basically pop out bottom section first with the crow bar and slide it out towards front of the car. Next take out two screws at the base of the top section, and slide the top section of the seat up (sounds nasty) and then pull towards the front of the car slowly.

Caution: Once you slide the top section of the seat up, before you pull towards the front of the car, look behind the seat to make sure that no wires are threaded into the cushion. I say this because the bloke in Japan who installed rear speakers in my car threaded a wire through one of the metal supports of the seat, I have no idea why, but this meant that I had to operate with half a seat in my face for the rest of the install.

Step 10 (Optional)

Once the top section of the seat has been taken out you will see a large metal plate held down by about 15 screws, take this sucker out, it’s

a) Creating a barrier between you and your boot and

b) It will impend valuable bass from coming into your cabin. Here is a pic

Step 11

Run your cables through either side of your car by removing the “skyline” door skirts and popping up the carpet (Just like in the Crutchfield vide). Don’t forget to pass your RCA and trigger cable underneath the glove box and then behind the kick panel on the passenger side.

Step 12

Duct tape the 3 cables underneath where your rear seat was so that they are out of the way where the clips go. Then simply pull the wires out into the boot.

Step 13 (getting there)

Grab your ground cable and attach it to one of the holes left vacant by the metal plate taken out. Your boot should now be looking something like this.

Step 14

Hook up your amp, there is heaps of documentation about this on the web and on SAU, again I am a novice and this was no problem at all.

Step 15

Get your speaker cable and connect it up to your sub, again heaps of info for this.

Step 16 (Testing Yeah!!)

Ensure everything on your amp is turned right down! Put your fuse in, reconnect your negative battery terminal wire, turn on your head unit and select your pre-sub output to ‘ON’. Even at low volumes with a tiny bit of gain you should be able to feel the sub vibrating just a little bit, if so WELL DONE!!, otherwise, something is not right L, look over all your connections, check your fuse, make sure your sub and amp are wired up correctly. If you can’t find the problem post in the Audio forums or call your local audio store, they will be able to sort your problems out.

Step 17

Cable tie/ duct tape any loose wires behind HU and in your engine bay then put your console back together in the reverse order. Don’t put your rear seat in just yet.

Step 18 (optional)

Remove the stock amplifier; it’s the silver grommet looking thing hanging at the top of your boot. To remove it you need to get back into the car and take out the parcel shelf wood cover thing. Pull it up where it is attached to the metal to pop it out of place in about 4 places. Take caution here, the wood (whatever it is) is quite flimsy and could snap, I found the easiest way to get it out is to put your finger in a hole in the centre of the cover, pull up slightly, let the wood bow in the middle and then pull slowly towards the front of the car.

Now you should be able to see a small metal plate held down by 4 screws, remove this as thus and move aside.

The stock amp is being held in by two screws, take them out and then slide the amp out from inside your boot. Put the metal plate back in the same place.

If you wanted to replace the rear speakers as well now would be the perfect time .

Like I said at the top of this post I had already installed aftermarket speakers 2-3 months before, but I found something very interesting. The wood cover thing, was actually sitting on the rubber surround of the speaker (since they did not quite fit in the existing holes in the wood cover thing). This would no doubt have done some serious damage if I left it.

SOLUTION

I fabricated some ‘rings’ made out of extra speaker cable so that the wood thing did not sit on any part of the speaker. It was a bit tricky to fit the wood thing back in……. I love duct tape.

Step 19 (optional)

If you put everything back together now, you will be able to see the back of your rear seat through the boot, and personally I think it’s a bit tacky.

I decided to cover this hole with some cloth I found lying around the house, I guess you could pick up some from Lyncraft or something, not really sure what cloth it is, just make sure it matches you chassis color. Use the metal plate at a template, cut a good 2 cm wider so that it covers the hole completely.

Next Duct tape the cloth over the hole from inside cabin, stretch it so that there are no kinks, you should now have a boot looking like this.

Much better

Step 20

Put car rear seat back in

Step 21

Tune your amplifier (again go to the audio forums, heaps of info here)

Step 22

Mount Sub and amp, then you’re Done! :sorcerer:

Thanks everyone,

Comments and improvements welcome,

Regards,

Sean’O

[Sean'O]

Cheers mate

[aussietroy]

thanks mate this helped heaps !!!

but ive got a question .... will sound deadening to roof of my boot stop the tinny rattle when the sub is turned up ?? or is there no way around this ???

cheers

[KrazyKong]

Troy, checkout this post here http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/in...t&p=5237667

It's helped my car out quite a bit, but the rattles also come from other places in the car. Now I only used some cheap utility blanket material. No doubt if you used Dynamat or something along those lines, you might get an ever better result. But I'm happy with how mine turned out, plus I now have a nice boot lining for my boot lid as well