I don't mind taking out the seats, but I'm cautious about refitting the plugs to an alternate specification. That's why I think it would be easier to find the male/female alternative, wire it up and plug/play. Does anyone know where I can find them?

Thanks.

 

The mod is relatively easy to do but there was something that wasn't completely clear to me. I found with my 2012 R56 that it was necessary to completely separate the clear inner sleeve from the white connector. In doing so the pins pop out easily. When reassembling the connector, use the inner sleeve as a guide, seed the pins in the white connector, then slide the clear plastic guide into place until it snaps and locks to the white plastic connector. The inner sleeve serves as insulation for the wires (to keep them from touching eachother) and as a guide. The wires don't actually seed into the inner sleeve. If I had known this ahead of time it would have been much easier.
The cable that you can purchase I have seen on an English website. There's a YouTube video that features the connector cable and is pretty easy to find in a search.

 

Your trying to make this much harder that it really is... no need to remove the seats...

 

Post fixed


New Mini stuff in the UK sells these harnesses pre made or they have an option to wire it into their harness for their A Pillar tweeters which makes it more of a value.

check out their website.

I bought it and it worked like a charm.

 

+1 to this. I did this in my work parking lot in less than 30 minutes. Disconnect negative battery terminal, put the driver seat back all the way, pull the weather strip, pull the trim panels, find the connector, unplug the white one, separate the inner part of the female plug from the outer, 4 flip flops (total of 8 wires moved, two per flip flop), then put it all back together and test.

Once that inner part of the plug is loose, the pins just pop out with firm steady pressure.

 

I didnt actually remove the seats so I wasnt sure

 

Yay! It's almost like adding a free subwoofer. Nice improvement!

What I learned - I was being too gentle trying to get the two connectors lose from the side of the car - just give them a nice quick tug to pop them lose from the side of the car so that you can work with them.

 

That's very much what I was looking for. But, I wanted to make my own and having a hard time finding the 'molex' connectors. Not sure if anyone has the resource where to get them. By the way, I wasn't planning on taking out the seat, I wouldn't mind doing that though if it was needed...

Thanks

 

Thank you for this mod. It seems hard to do but it only took me 30 minutes. And it's FREE!!!

 

Don't forget that Mini don't do the 100Hz cut on the R55 Clubman so they do know about it. They must have made a decision that they feel is worth sticking to on the R56.

I removed the 100Hz cutoff on my R55 and could not hear any difference. When I investigated further, I found that the R55 has its own distinct audio settings and the 100Hz cut off that is enabled on the R56 is not enabled on the R55.

 

I looked into building wiring harnesses that you could just pop in to maintain the original wiring, but the cost of the materials (doing exact match of BMW spec parts - no corner cutting) is quite a bit higher than I expected. Before I look into making a batch, would anyone pay $50 for a prebuilt connector harness?

 

hoy logre de hacer esto el sonido es espectacular, pero me paso algo ahora los botones de la radio, los iconos luminosos no prenden y de noche no se donde esta cada boton

 

Seems reasonable to me

 

This weekend....

 

I also managed to do it on my driveway in around an hour and thirty (I wired it up wrong to start with and had to put all the pins back, as I got confused as to what goes where )

I was looking at a cable to do this and they were charging 50 quid, so I've saved myself some money!

Only had the car 2 days and the stereo is the one thing that lets the car down, but this is a start

 

Considering the cost (nil), this is a pretty dramatic improvement. I'm a big fan, got it done on my '07 MC earlier today. Thanks for the great guides, everyone!

Only issue was taking the two parts of the female connecter apart, ended up cutting a small part of the housing off to make it easier. It takes a lot more effort to pull off the access panels than originally anticipated, though I'm also pretty inexperienced when it comes to pulling apart interior pieces.

 

Yea it's always weird the first time you pull everything apart, always paranoid you're gonna break something! Haha

 

This is very interesting. '12 MCS w/HK. I just added an 8" and put a LOC by ting into the rear channels on way to speakers post amp. Can't wait to see what this does. Makes sense on all fronts. My only question is are we sure that the "original rear" channel is not capped at all n th high end. Wouldn't think so being it has tweeters

 

Don't swap channels if you have the HK system. It's only an issue with the stock 6 speaker system.

 

Don't swap your channels in the HK because the headunit is already sending the full, unadulterated signal to the amp/dsp. What you should do is remove your LOC from the post amp position to the rear speakers and tie it into the x9331. That way, you're getting the full signal to the LOC and letting your amp do the crossover work.

 

Do this if you have the stock system. There is a huge difference!
Just take the panels off the driver side
No need to take the seatbelt bolt off there is enough space to work with. I just used a t15 or a t20 to push out the pins
Just be sure to un clip the cover to move the pins, I used 2 small flatheads. Read the op directions and put the panels back
All done! It took me about 15 minutes. 2009 R55 with stock system

 

15 minutes! Wow, you were fast! It took me much longer (I went slowly to avoid mistakes) -- but it was well worth it!

 

Welp, Did it today.

DO IT! DO IT! HUGE improvement over the stock setup..

Note: I did not pull the battery cable. But clearly, don't have the key on, or the radio turned on while doing this.

I used the T-20 Torx driver (Sears).. and a few trim popper tools.. Razor blade to slit back 3" of wire wrap.

There is no need to remove the seats or the seat belt mount to remove the trim, simply raise the seat up and back.

I will add this:


FR = front right
FL = front left
RR - rear right
RL = rear left


BLU/BLK RL- SWAP WITH BLK/VIO FL-
YEL/BRO FR+ SWAP WITH BRO/ORG RR+
YEL/BLK FR- SWAP WITH YEL/RED RR-
BLK/RED FL+ SWAP WITH BLK/BRO RL+

Why? Because to me the original post looked like you had to swap 16 wires to do this.. Your only swapping 8 total.. plus, I'm not not German.. so Its "translated" to English speaking wire color codes.

The big-fat white and brown wires don't get touched. They are power (white) /ground (brown). DO NOT SWAP THESE PINS!

Here are some pics with notes I took while doing this.

Took all of 15 min in my driveway with a towel to lean on.

Click on images for larger pictures.



Oh yea, I guess I left off the note about popping the trim off. Just pull it outward towards the center of the vehicle. It may be helpful to also side it forward once you get the leading edge (near the hood release) off.















Hope this helps. Its very easy to do...

 

Awesome thanks for clarifying this up and the pictures are amazing this will work great I can't wait to do this mod!

 

I did this today on my 07 with the hifi system. There was a very nice improvement. There a few songs where a sub is still needed, but overall very good. Plugged in some Primus, RHCP, Dream Theater, Rush, and even some Better than Ezra. Things with lots of bass and crisp highs. Sounded good through most of it, but there were some places the bass was still lacking a little.

Anyways. Thanks for the awesome write up. Took me about 30 mins.
Also, I picked up a .093 pin removal tool from radio shack and it worked perfectly without modifying it.