The other four wires in the X9331 connector are necessary, at least on my 2007 MCS. One goes to the starter motor (car wont start without it) and the others go to the climate control system.

Where are you getting the signal to turn on your amp?

 

I just got into New York from Chicago. I've gone from cold to freezing here. First I want to thank everyone for their help. I have attached an image of the system schematic which explains the configuration and wiring of each component of the system. I still dont really know what the box is under the drivers seat. I will post a picture of it Friday when I get back home to Los Angeles with the part number so that we can resolve the mystery here. I just bought the car a two weeks ago new and the HiFi option was not listed on the sticker. I will scan the window sticker and post it as well. If it did have the hiFi option the six ukranian speakers I pulled out of the car don't look to "HiFi" to me and I thought the HiFi system had seperate tweeters in the Front Pillars. My car does not have those. I think the box under the seat is eaither the alarm or the bluetooth/Ipod module. Otherwise it may be possible that Mini made a mistake and installed something that was not part of the build order.

I think my next step will be to test the output of the x9331 wire taps and see what voltage and wattage is measured at 80% volume. I think that you guys are right and the problem stems from a lack of signal voltage to the Lc7.

 

I believe this is the sliver box the OP is referring to. I do not have satellite radio but I do have bluetooth installed. I was going to mount an Alpine PXE-H650 under the driver's seat of my Clubman w/ base stereo but there was no room. I ended up mounting the PXE-H650 and a PDX-5 in boot instead.

 

Blailey,

That is the box. What is it? The Bluetooth?

Shaheen

 

Attached are two pictures of the Silver box. The second picture is of the part number. It may be the Blue tooth option on the R57.

 

So, I spent a few hours on the stereo today....

With the RCA's unplugged from the Applifier, the speakers still have a hiss. It must be coming from the AMP or from the ground. There is no alternator whin at all. I really dont get it. I have used double twister pair JL Audio Interconnects. Power is run completely seperate from the interconnects and never get close to eachother other than right at the amp.

The system does sound good turned up, but the hiss is driving me insane at low listening volumes.

Anybody else have this happen to them?

Here are a few pictures of the install.

 

A few more

 

And a couple more

 

While I would have thought that "ULF" stood for Ultra Low Frequency, in BMW speak it seems to be Universal Bluetooth. According to ECS tuning, this part has been discontinued.

 

No hiss here. I have a 4 gauge ground going from the amp to the lower rear seat belt bolt on the right side. What have you done for ground?

Where are you getting the amp turn-on signal?

 

I drilled a new ground in the seat cross beam, grinded all of the paint off and secured it with a 3/8inch sheet metal bolt. The amp turn on comes from the Lc7. I have 4 guage run to the PDX-5. I will try the seatbelt and see what happens.

 

http://translate.google.com/translat...ial%26hs%3Dl6n

Its Blue tooth baby!!!

 

I just noticed you were using the Imprint. I remember when installing my cleanswep, i was told that it was possible (and normal) to have hiss at low volumes when using the JL volume control.....have you tried runnning the system without installing the imprint? i don't have any hiss...but i was told it was possible.

Also what is that box NEXT to the bluetooth?

One more...does the alpine amp have speaker elevel inputs? Coulf you bypass the Audio Control unit to try and eliminate that as the cause?

 

Is the ground 4 gauge? Or is that just the power line?
If you are going into part of the seat structure you are depending on the current getting through the sliding mechanism. I think it would be better to attach directly to the chassis. If you use the front seat seatbelt connector by the floor, make sure you have direct contact with the chassis. Don't depend on it going through the bolt.

 

MiniSQ, I am not sure what Imprint is. i didn't know I was using it. Can ou explain? The Box next to the blue tooth is the passive crossover for the left channel of the Boston SPZ60. The crossovers are huge and well bulilt. They offer many tuning options and make a relatively good sounding pair of seperates sound great. The other one is under the carpet on the passanger side.

The Alpine PDX-5 doesn;t has speaker level inputs. That is 505 of the reason I went with the Lc7. The other 50% was to get a remote out wire to turn on the amp.

 

Robin, The seat support structure does apear to be the most solid part of the chasis. That is why I connected it there. I did not attached it to any part of the seat itself, but rather drill a new hole and grinded the paint in the seat cross structure that the seat is bolted to. I did use 4 guage on both positive and ground. I am a beleiver in using more wire than necesary on any unregulated amps. On regulated amps with a relatively short run from the battery, i may have used 8 Guage but this alpine amp tested at 114 RMS a channel x 4 and 443 x 1 at 14.4 volts. This is the first system that I have built that did not us 00 gage to the amps. That would have been overkill in this system for sure, with only one amp drawing less than 60 AMPs with only a 4.5 foot run from the battery.

I swithed the ground today from the seat brace to the passanger seatbelt and have the same problem. I am going to experiement next weekend and run 4 Guage direclty to the battery ground and see if it helps. If not, I will try the engine block. If that doesn't work, I think I need to try a new amp.

 

Sorry...another poster here stated he had installed the PXE-H650 (imprint)..i thought that was you...so disregard.

 

I thought you were talking about part of the seat itself.

 

shaheen - i am trying to do much of the same work on my R57. can you list the steps you took to run the wires to the boot? did you remove the rear panels to swap the rear speakers? by the fuse panel, i found one fastener that just did not want to let go - to the left of the opening. any tips?

I thought I would be able to handle this install, but I am not finding a lot detail for the R57.

(edit: figured out how to remove the rear cushion)

 

The diasembly of the R7 interior is fairly easy. It is much easier to start with the top down. It gives you more light and makes removing the rear pannels much easier. Here are the steps I took to begin the stereo install....

1. Put top down and rolled down all Windows.
2. Disconnected battery
3. Removed Drivers and passanger seat
4. Removed seatbelt
5. Removed rear seat ( The bottom cushion just pull off. Must use some force. The fold down seat have a clip in the center. push in with a screw driver and pull up. Then tilt the seats about 45 degrees and they will slip right out.
6. Remove the interior carpet trim. (Just pull hard. worst case you may break a few clips.) you can buy more at mini parts real cheap.
7. Remove the rear trim. NOTE...Two hidden screws must be remover. One in the door jam behind the rubber trim, and secon in the plastic indentationabove the rear speaker.
8. Pull each door skin off. No screws just clips again. Start in one corner and work your way around. There is a small light wire inside each. You just need to pull the molex before complete removal.
9. Decide where you are going to place your equipement and install it in place.
10. Run power from battery through factory boot, (will need to cut) to amp or distribution block. I put my alphine PDX-5 under the pssanger seat.
11. Run new 12 guage into the doors. (Very difficult but doable) The first door took me 45 minutes, the second 15 minutes. Open the door and remove the boot by unscrewing the 8mm bolt. Their will be a blue molex. Disconnect it. Then pop the boot out of the door. Push bailing wire through one end of the boot and attach it securl to your wire and pull through. It is extremely tight. Once through the boot, pull it into the door and then push it into the car through the original hole. It is much easiet to place your new wire under the modlex for reinstallation. This would have been much easier to explain had I taken pictures.
12. Install your new speakers and crossovers
13. Ground your amp and run all new speaker wire to it.
14. Building a sub box optional
a. Install seats and seat air bag clips.
b. Power on battery
c. put top up
d. disconnect battery
e. Remove factory tool kit.
f. Chose sub woofer with no more than 6.5" mounting depth and requiring .8cu/ft or less sealed airspace
g. cut (2) 24 x 5.25" of 3/4 MDF and (2) 13.5"x 5.25 of 3/4" MDF and assembe with counter sunk screws and liquid nails joints.
h. Test fit exterior box over tool box intentation.
I. Tap into place.
J. Use a jumbo sized tub of vasaline and coat the entire space inside your make shift box.
k. Lay fiberglass inside the area and resin the interior of the box. Repeate atleast three times adding fiberglass each time. Remember to lay the fiberglass up atleast 3 inches onto the wood. I added 6 layers of fiberglass and resin in my box.
l. Let cure for 24 hours. The gently pull fiberglas box from car. You may need to pry a litle but it will pop out. Remember, the more vasaline you used the easier this step is. Clean out vasiline and reinstall
m. Us a cardboard template to develo the pater for your false floor. Trace onto a sheet of MDF and cut.
n. Once cut do a tral fit. Then trace the interior box dimensions, predrill, countersink, and cut the sub hole using the supplied template. You can also counter sink your sub like I did by createing two rings. This protect the woofer from dmage when placing cargo in the trunk.
o. Install the false florr/ top of subbox, with liquire nails and screws.
p. Fill box with Pollyfill and install woofer.
q. Make sure you take your ime on the sealed box and make sure its sealed. No cracks of leaks otherwise it will sound like a whistle.

Okay a few steps are missing here like taping into the x9331 connector, etc. but there is a ton of information on that topic on this forum.

Reinstalling is a lot easier as you will already understand the jigwsaw puzzle.

I am happy with my stereo and I did not install rear fill. My componnets consist of...
1. Alpine PDX-5 Amp
2. Boston SPZ 60 Seperates
3. (1) L7 Solobaric 10" Sub in a perfectly sealed .8cf Fiberglass and MDF enclosure
4. Audio Control LC7

Good luck on your install and let me kow if you have questions.

 

shaheen - that was very helpful post.

I am going to add notes to the thread for anyone else interested in the particulars for R57.

Removing upper rear seat cushions: With the screwdriver noted, the tabs are between the two cushions, one tab per. Push the tab in the opposite direction from the cushion you want to remove.

Rear speakers are 6.5 - with a nice shroud riveted on. The shroud is about 1 inch thick, with damping foam on top and bottom. Need to explore fabrication and/or popping the rivets so my speaker can go in its place.

Lower most expansion rivets on the rear trim panels needed to be drilled out. Head popped off while leaving the pin in place. Oops. Probably more convenient to remove the seat belt, but I left it attached and was able to pop the trim panel.

Nice ground point on driver side rear sheet metal with quite a few grounds emerging from looms attached there.

My equipment:
polk audio db6501 front and db651 rear
bass600 sub
eclipse ea4200 4 channel 60w class d amp
4 channel LOC to tap off the x9331

anyone check to see if the 100 hz roll off is there in an r57 on the rear speakers?

happy new year everyone!

 

Looks similar to what have planned. Where are you going to mount the tweeters? In the upper 4" pods? I'm guessing adapter plates are required.