If anybody's interested, I'm planning on rewiring my 04 S w/ the H/K audio package to my liking, namely eliminating the H/K part of it.

For now, I am going to have an amp powering a 10" Alpine sub while the speakers are powered by the head unit, a Pioneer MVH-P8200BT. The deck has no CD player and will be reading an 8GB SD card. I used it in my Jeep for several months and actually can't get used to using CDs.

I'm not sure if I should bother with tweeters, but I like to keep a factory look whenever possible. Are speakers without integrated tweeters called "composite" speakers? I'm not sure what I should be looking for in that area.

I'll be starting tomorrow if all goes as planned and if anybody is interested, I'll be sure to report back with my progress, pictures too if there's a real interest.

If anybody has any advice, please do tell. This is definitely my largest project yet, so any help will be appreciated.

 

You are thinking of component speakers, speaker systems with seperate tweeter and mid-bass woofer. Here's a good example : https://www.woofersetc.com/p-6133-db...-speakers.aspx can run off your pioneer HU alone and still sound good but can also handle the power of an amp if you ever decide to go that route. But running these types of speakers is a must!!! especially if you plan on running a subwoofer. You need the highs that a tweeter produces.

Here are 2 good online car audio stores. https://www.woofersetc.com/ http://www.onlinecarstereo.com/
http://www.crutchfield.com is also good but pricey. I only shop there if im buying a new headunit because they give you the mounting kit and wiring harness for free.

 

I use Crutchfield quite a bit and they never seemed that pricey to me, but maybe it's just because shopping online from Canada sucks. Be that as it may, I ended up buying a wiring harness and fascia kit from them not knowing that replacing the head unit would render the H/K amp useless. I could have ordered the H/K Enabling harness from various websites or wire it the way I want it.

I'm done with the driver door. I suppose I'll reuse the factory tweeters so I don't have to mess with the fitment of a new one, just solder my wire to the factory one so I can leave the connector sitting in the little clip they've designed for it. I went through the door wiring harness in the area that is reserved for the heated mirrors using a 1/8" hole for each 18G wire. The fit was nearly perfect, but I used some di-electric grease to seal up the area... which I now realize doesn't really help the seal very much. Oh well. Two speakers down, four left.

I haven't started looking for parts yet, probably get around to that tonight. I'm going to be putting the crossovers under the dash somewhere. I left enough spare wire to place it anywhere between the door and the centre console.

 

What speakers are you using for the doors? I take it they might be a co-ax speaker. But if you use the factory tweeter like you mentioned it's going to sound like ****. There is no mounting issues with a aftermarket tweeter only the mid-bass. The factory tweeter has a cup that you can hot glue an aftermarket tweeter to.

 

I see that most, if not all, component speakers come with tweeters and crossovers so I might as well replace them also.

I'm going to be doing the passenger door tomorrow with a better understanding of how to go about it, so I'll document the process just in case anybody would like to do this in the future.

 

Click on the pictures to see larger ones.


This is what we start with. Passenger door, looking at the outside of the connector for all of the door electronics. We're going to run our new speaker wires through here.


Remove the single 8mm bolt and pull the whole assembly to the rear of the vehicle. It'll slide out of the clip on the other side. To remove the connector, pull on the side you can see the three indentations on. I used a pair of smaller needle nosed pliers.


The connector will actually be pushed out as you pull on the side.


After some finagling...

 

Use whatever method you prefer to fish the wires through the tube. I used a ziptie because it was stiff and could be pushed along the ribs of the tubing.


Electrical tape used to minimize the space required to pull the next wires through.


That's the space we're going to use, on the right. It is used for the heated mirrors as far as I can tell, so you'll have to look for another route if you have them.


It's dirty, but it works. Four 1/8" holes fit the 18 gauge wire nicely.

 

The next steps are just getting the wires into the vehicle.


Feed the wires through the new holes.


And then through the opening in the socket where the wires will end up being.


Next, feed the wires through the grommet and into the vehicle. I was able to wedge a deep socket under the end of the grommet and slide a wire through. Next I taped the second wire, pulled it through, then the third, etc.


And you're done. Working the connector back into place is a pain, but it can be done.

Rear speakers guide will be completed soon.

 

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Looks great so far.

I just finished the same project last week in my '05 MCS. I pulled out the entire H/K system and replaced with aftermarket stuff.

I'm definitely not an expert on any of this, but I successfully completed the project without breaking anything, so if you run into any trouble along the way I'd be happy to help wherever possible.

Keep up the good work!

 

Sorry, forgot to add this bit.

I replaced/added the following:

Door speakers : 6 1/2 components
Rear speakers : 6x9's
Head Unit
Added Bluetooth adapter
steering wheel controls
small 4 channel amp

 

How are the 6x9's handling your bass requests? The stock ones are actually quite good in my opinion.

I'm planning on using Polk Audio db6501 for the front and db691 in the rears. What did you end up going with?

Also, did you add steering wheel controls or purchase an adapter to keep your stock MFSW controls?

 

I put the same polk db's in my car, 6.5 components in the front 6x9 in the rear.

I've had a sub in my last two cars so I'm pretty used to a decent amount of bass, so maybe my opinion is a bit skewed, but I was hoping for more bass out of the 6x9's. I've had pioneer 6x9's in the past that I remember putting out way more bass, but to be honest, I had those in a small car before I ever had a subwoofer, so maybe I just remember them producing tremendous bass because I had nothing to compare it to. I've also had Infinity Kappas that put out a lot of bass.

Overall, I'm happy with the polks. They are extremely clear. I have the gain set at 0 on the front crossover, and the highs are a little overpowering. I'm going to set the gain to low and see if that sounds better to me.

Re: steering wheel controls,

I installed the PAC-SWI Jack and it works great. All of the installation instructions say you have to connect the jack at the steering column. As usual, I thought I knew best and connected the jack at the factory wiring harness. I figured "what's the difference between the signal carried out of the steering wheel or the same wire heading into the factory head unit?" Well, needless to say, there is a difference. A guy from PAC explained that you need to tap into the wire at the steering column and capture the signal before it is passed into any control modules in the dash. Apparently, after leaving the steering column, the wire goes through 3 or 4 control modules before being passed to the factory head unit. If you don't tap in before the first control module, the PAC-SWI won't work.

Getting at that wire was actually easier than I thought. I already had the lower dash panel removed, the one under the steering wheel, I took it off to run my speaker wire to the driver door. With that panel off I removed the lower half of the steering wheel housing. There are two screws in the front and then the sides and back just sort of clip into the top portion of the steering wheel housing. Once you have that off, look up at the steering wheel from the floor. You will see the white connector plugged into the underside of the wheel. From that connector, I found the white/red w/yellow dots, wire and followed it around to the left hand side of the wheel, opposite the ignition, and tapped into the wire there. I tapped into the wire on that side because I found a spot where I had enough room to work easily, realistically you can tap into that wire anywhere as long as it is between the white connector at the steering wheel and the first control module under the dash.

Hopefully that is helpful. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Good Luck.

 

Wow, that will be extremely helpful, thank you. As soon as I get my hands on the speakers I want at a decent price (I'm from Canada), I'll be in business.

 

Anytime. Honestly, my install would not have gone as smoothly as it did without this forum, especially the most excellent post by TomFarin.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...by-step-2.html

It doesn't cover the headunit install, but it covers in extreme detail the removal of all necessary panels and how he installed his speakers. I copied his method for mounting the polk 6x9's exactly and it worked like a charm.

I'm happy to help and contribute a little bit back.

Good luck.

 

I ended up caving and bought the db6501's from Crutchfield (for $249 CAD if you feel like laughing). After getting them installed and all of the wiring run how I like it, I have run into problems. At first, the speakers worked on their own, but upon wiring them up to the crossovers, all sound has stopped. At first, it was working on the driver side, but not at all on the passenger side, but when I put the deck into the dash it was knocked out too. I'm going to poke around a little more tomorrow. Maybe ditch crimping and buy a new soldering iron...

If it means anything, the speakers will let out a nice 'pop' when the deck prepares to play music. Not when it starts playing or boots up, but when it's actually reading the SD card and prepping the last song, time location, etc. If I leave the deck in its "off" status, they don't make a sound.

I also felt inclined to e-mail PAC and ask if their SWI-PS Jack will work with my MVH-P8200BT. I doubt it won't, but the unit isn't listed in their compatibility list.