checkout this link....pages 5&6
http://www.roadstersound.com/other_f...0MCS%20R56.pdf

 

Thanks for that info - What amp do you have? For some reason I thought you had the soundstorm uss8 - If you do have the soundstorm uss8, how come you chose low level inputs (RCA) instead of just connecting from the X10266 directly to the soundstorm uss8?

 

Very Nice write up. toolazyforalogin, this is the bible you have been looking for. Always better to have the advice from those who have gone before you! I would have never attempted any of this without advice like this - between this and the stuff posted by Robin, aaflyer, k6rtm, wbarnhill, basil49, motormouth, outmotoring, and countless others - I've been printing out snippets and compiling a detailed set of instructions. Everyone seems to add a little something that others did not. And the pictures are great! Thanks again to everyone who takes the time to post the do's and don't's.

 

Yes I had read that already but didn't think the rear speakers supplied the proper signal needed. In retrospect, the HiFi system should be the same for the fronts/rears. Maybe I'll see if I can find the front right and left speakers on that X10266 connector if it doesn't work.

Seems using the X10266 rather than the X9331 would be easier if I already have to pop part of that back panel off to run the power wire to the auxiliary lighter socket. A few T-taps and we should be good to go.

 

I'm using an Alpine V12 amp to power a 12" pheonix gold tantrum. I made a similar box setup to Roadstersound but since i dont have a shallow mount sub I had to get creative. I took out the tool kit and used the bottom of the boot area as a mold for the fiberglass bottom to my box (the rest of the box is 3/4" MDF). This gave me enough airspace and mounting depth for my full sized sub and still have the same hieght "false-floor" of the roadstersound setup.

 

That was a good idea.

On another note I went out to look briefly in the boot. It's ~8 degrees outside so I didn't spend too much time but it looks it might be more of a hassle getting to the X10266 than the X9331 - for the X10266 I will have to see how much of the boot will have to be undone to get to the wiring harness. I know I've read and seen it somewhere on NAM - I'll have to take a look for those threads. And if anyone has some nice detailed pics to throw up that would be cool.

 

Very nice writeup. And a section with pinouts for the X10266 connector.

 

it's a piece of cake. takes 10 min max. You just have to pull the five pop-out pins in the carpet part under the pillar that houses the amp. Next, flip up the seat latch thing (the thing that latches the back seat in full upright position. Finally just manuver the piece out. simple simple.

on the amp there is a tiny push button(tiny square) that allows the lever to pull back toward you and the plug pops out.
I took out the amp using the three nuts, but I'm not sure that was needed, there is a bit of slack.

 

Xray - did you have to remove the two 13mm screws by the seat latch to remove the panel?

I think I'm going to do the 6x9's as well. Here's what I got going so far: It seems I have to go w/ the 42.7's instead of the 42.9's b/c of the connected crossover.

 

If you are speaking of just the carpeted panel, I didn't have to remove any screws at all. I didn't remove any other panels.

 

Ok that's good to know - also the standard system and the HiFi have two different panels - you have HiFi like me so that's good.

 

The Kappas are 2 ohm, I believe the Reference are 4 ohm. My understanding is that the HIFI is designed for 2 ohm. I hear that you can use 4 ohm speakers on a 2 ohm system, but not the other way around. No problem getting volume out of the Kappas with the HIFI amp.

You wont want to leave the stock tweeters in the A pillars. Doesn't sound good. I went with the Infinity Kappa 60.7cs 6-1/2" component speakers and put the Infinity tweeters in the A pillars.

 

Quote from Infinity Site about the Reference Line:

"True Four Ohms— All Reference speakers feature two ohm voice coils. Original factory-installed speaker wiring in many cars is 18-22 gauge. This wire, and heating in the voice coil when power is applied, increase the impedance “seen” by the amplifier or head unit. The impedance of Reference Speakers has been adjusted to compensate for this increase and can be safely driven by any head unit."

It's confusing - the tech specs list them as 2 ohms. But I can attest that they work just fine with the stock head unit.

 

Do you have any advice for swapping the tweeters? I took off the A-pillar and there is a clip holding the 1" OEM tweeter - were you able to use the OEM black bracket behind the A-pillar or did you take that off completely and then mount the new tweeter w/ glue? or with some hardware they came with.

Oh and Euells I will call them tomorrow to sort out the 2ohm vs. 4ohm b/c the site does list them as 2 ohm but I think Robin has me convinced on the Kappas.

Thanks again for all the help everyone.

 

It has been quite awhile since I did the A pillars. I can't recall exactly what I did. I don't recall it being very difficult. Sorry.

 

That's ok - I'll figure it out! Thanks to everyone for the help.

 

Ok tried doing this install myself today with the Boss Bass 600...question for those of you already using this. The main power you aren't getting right from the battery? What are you using for the remote on? I tapped into the amp connector in the boot and got that all wired up...but not sure what to use as a ground for the connector supplied with the unit? Just go to any good ground there with that...then I have to ground the unit itself as well obviously i'm guessing.

 

Most people are tapping the rear power outlet, either by adding a 12v plug or tapping the wires of the outlet, then jumpering the remote on with the 12v lead (since it already is keyed with the ignition switch). This works like a charm, and I believe Robin did some bench testing and determined that the outlet feed is more than adequate.

 

Yeah I wasn't sure since in the manual for the unit it says to get power right from the car battery. So I can get full power and remote on from the tapping into the cigarette lighter power? If I wanted to go one further and route power with a heavy duty cable and fuse right from the battery, could I use the cigarette lighter power just for remote on?

It just seems strange since everywhere I read you need to power an amp with something heavier duty than 14 gauge and in most cases 8 gauge or thicker...the wiring for the cigarette lighter back there is maybe 16 gauge if that...

 

One of the beauties of the bass600 is that it doesn't need super heavy power cables (whether other units need them is another debate).

The fuse on the aux power circuit is 20 amps IIRC. The fuse on the bass600 is 20 amps. When I ran it on my bench supply (Astron RM-50, which can deliver 50 amps at 13.4 volts, and do it all day long -- a heavy duty linear supply made for amateur radio repeater use), I don't think I saw anything much over 11 amps, and that was driving the bass600 with a 40Hz sine wave to clipping. Way too loud for inside a Mini!

I'll put a peak reading meter on the thing tomorrow and see what it does as far as current drain.

The ground leg running to the aux outlet goes to a chassis ground close to the rear left speaker, I think. I wouldn't worry about it. If I thought I needed number 8 direct to the battery, that's what I'd run. I do run heavier direct power for some of my higher power ham radio gear.

Have fun!

--bob

 

Wow you run the ground that far? I was thinking of getting a self tapping ground screw and just picking a place in the boot to drill into...being careful not to hit the gas tank....

 

Ah ok, yeah I was worried because it says specifically in the instructions with the Bass600 that it needs an 8 gauge or heavier wire run directly to the battery...I might do that anyways down the road, but for now I just want to get this thing working and figure out a good way to mount it...

so do I run both power AND remote on to the power wire for the outlet in the boot?

 

For ColinMc -- run +12 to both power and the remote on the Bass600.

I have a plug-in DC ammeter I use for radio work. I put it in series with the Bass600 for the drive in to work today, and cranked up the bass much louder than I'd normally run it -- shaking the rear-view mirror!

Checked it when I got to work.

The peak current recorded was under 7 amps (6.93), at 14 volts.

You don't need number 8 wire for that!

Take a look at an AWG wire table.

That lists 16 gauge wire handling 22 amps (a conservative number for use in chassis wiring). The fuse in the Bass600 is 20 amps. 8 gauge is conservatively rated for 73 amps.

One reason to use very low resistance power (and ground) wiring is to reduce IR losses -- losses and heating caused by the current flowing through the resistance imposed by the wire. As an example, 16 gauge wire is rated at 4 ohms per thousand feet. A five foot run, at 20 amps, would produce a 0.1 volt drop, and dissipate 2 watts in the wire.

I'm willing to call those losses acceptable.

And if you're worried about "oh my g*d, that's a 0.1 volt offset on the ground -- that's going to produce a massive ground loop with my signal lines!" don't worry about it, because the high-level inputs are differential in nature, so any such common-mode error cancels out.

If running 8 gauge to the battery makes you happy, then by all means do it.

But based on the measurements I've made, I can't figure a sound engineering reason to justify it.

Have fun!

 

The use of ridiculously large wires is very common in car audio where a lot of products are purchased based on looks, appearance of power, and not a lot of knowledge of physics. If Boss specified a reasonable wire gauge like 16ga, customers might think it was weaker than other subs that required larger wire. Also dealers would not be able to sell profit-packed wiring kits and install labor.

 

I found this thread after purchasing my 2009 Cooper and having a strong desire to replace my speakers and add an after market amp and Boss Bass600 sub. This thread and the thread on switching your non hifi rear speaker leads for front speaker leads has proven invaluable however no one has yet posted on exactly how to create your own loom for the X9331 connector without cutting or soldiering the factory plug, what EXACTLY the FULL part numbers are and possible ways to get them in one post, so I thought I would share my experience for folks in the future to be able to easily create their own loom.

I absolutely refuse to cut factory wires beyond the propriatery wires that plug into the speakers themselves so trying to find a way to bypass the X9331 plug and insert my own speaker sends and amp returns was crucial to my succeess. Though I am still waiting on the parts to arrive my research through this thread, the speaker swapping thread and a few other internet sites has lead me to the following FULL BMW part numbers (previous posts here have been the last 7 digits which the part department I called had to further search for to get the right numbers):

X9331 Connector Male: 61-13-1-378-137
X9331 Connector Female: 61-13-1-378-139

2.5 mm Pins w/ Short Wires already attached for X9331 Connector are the following two part numbers (male set / female set):

Female: 61-13-0-007-450
Male: 61-13-0-007-453

The above pins fit inside their respective X9331 housings.

And finally the BMW Tool Sleeve: 83-30-0-495-386
Or the full tool: 83-30-0-495-385

With the above parts you should be able to easily make an adaptor harness to go in between the car's Male/Female X9331 plug but take note that a couple of the wires on the plug are higher gauge and should also be higher gauge in the adaptor plug you create or you could overheat those wires. I believe the pins w/ wires above are probably 14-16 gauge so you might need to pull the wire off of a couple of them and solder on heavier gauge for your adaptor.

No warranties on this post do this at your own risk! I just know that it would have been nice to see all the required parts that have been verified in existance (I called BMW and they found each one and were available for sale). Now if you don't want to pay BMW's crazy marked up prices you can get everything for about half, search for a site called ECS Tuning, they can get all of the parts (call them to order, don't use the online site because the shipping prices on the pin wires are messed up).

Out the door with shipping it was about $70 total for everything above, seems high for a simple loom adaptor but the piece of mind and not having to cut factory wires... priceless.

Hope this post helps.... if there is any interest I'll take pictures of the finished loom and post them.

P.S., you can also get just the pins with no wires:

Female: 61-13-0-007-453
Male: 61-13-1-376-193