02-04 Fronteir / Xterra Rockford System Replacement

[studum]

Well I lied to myself, I told myself I could live with the OEM system. 3 weeks later and I'm sick of the inconsistant sound (compared to what I'm used to). I guess I expected more out of the premium OEM system. But I found that one of the rear speakers was blown (replaced with a cheapie) and something is telling me that something isn't right with the sub either.

End result - I'm installing a budget system just to get some half descent sound outta this thing.

The plan is to install a head unit, replace the front speakers and run either 2 amps or a single 4 channel to run the front speakers and either a 10" or 8" sub in the back.

My buddy has a set of 6.5" MTX speakers that I'm grabbing off of him, getting a 1yr old Pioneer deck off of my bro and not 100% sure what I'm going to do for amps yet.

I'm not a stranger to car audio, I haven't had a stock system in my vehicle ever (this one lasted the longest lol) and I know I will get the system properly sorted out, configured and setup. Not going for huge loud or anything here, I just want to hear all of the sound. My questions are more pertaining to the installation / integration with the stock Rockford system.

I have a few questions:

1 - Deck Mounting
I've seen some photos, and done some research. There's a couple of kits available, but in some photos the decks appear to be iso mounted with just a universal pocket underneath. I have one of those kicked around, so is this method ok? Take the brackets off the factory deck and screw into the new one, and screw in a pockey below?

2 - OEM Amp Bypass
Has anyone done it? Or have you just integrated into the OEM amp? Asking incase I choose to run the rear speakers, they will be head unit powered.

3 - Does anyone know where the OEM front tweeters and rear sub tap into the output lines from the OEM amp? Is it right at the amp output or along the line somewhere? Asking because it's easiest just to tap into the factory wires at the OEM amp output. I know I can disable the OEM sub connection by just disconnecting it, but with the new speakers going in I think I would like to disable the OEM tweeters. I'm not sure if I can do that at the amp, snip some wires somewhere, or if I have to remove the pillar and disconnect the tweeter.

I can figure everything out when I get in there, would just like to go in prepared if I can. I guess most important is that I would like to know if I need a specific dash kit or if the deck is iso mounted with a universal box below. I would like to completely remove the factory amp because it won't be doing anything.

I will be building a custom box in the back for the single sub to fit behind the rear seat. The box won't have to be pretty because it will be out of site, but will incorporate a spot for me to mount my amp(s). I have done a bunch of research, but there isn't much info for my gen of ROckford system. I found maybe 3 relavent posts in over an hour of searching. The rest was for the newer systems.

Thanks in advance for any tips, if there are any lol.

[weerd 1]

First change the speaker wire it makes a world of differences. I used a 5 Chan amp and deleted the whole factory amp. Changed all speakers check out the JL boxes they are small and fit perfect behind the rear seat. I mounted me amp on the rear driverside plastic. It works well sounds great

[Morpheus]

All the factory fosgate speakers are 2 ohm, standard mobile speakers are 4 ohm. If you install a "cheapie" speaker in the fosgate system, it will give you nothing but problems.

If you can, buy a double din deck, and it should bolt right in with no instalation kit, if it's a single din deck then you'll need a kit with a pocket.

When I installed my system including a speaker box, I completely remove the factory fosgate amp behind the deck.

I used the factory speaker wires for all the speakers, and they work fine for me.

I removed the factory sub box in the left rear of the truck and installed 6x9's in the back, and 6 1/2" in the front.

I kept the factory tweeters, and they're still working nicely.

[Nd4SpdSe]

http://www.nd4spdse.net/projects/xterra ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.cntc.ca/phpBB3/viewtopic.php ... neer#p8081" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.cntc.ca/phpBB3/viewtopic.php ... eer#p43427" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.cntc.ca/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1941" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

One thing you don't want to do is cheap out on the sytem, you're going to make things worse. It's actually a decent factory system, the problem is 1) the headunit with very limited tuning and 2) the wiring, specifically how the rear speakers are running in parallel with the sub.

All the factory fosgate speakers are 2 ohm, standard mobile speakers are 4 ohm. If you install a "cheapie" speaker in the fosgate system, it will give you nothing but problems.

Exactly!

I had tried to use a kit I got from my car audio guy, but it didn't work, not sure, but the P/N said it was for the Xterra and it wasn't even close, however the Pioneer decks that I've used both have holes that line up perfectly to the factory bracket, you just need the proper screwed to go into it. Look on the side, I believe they don't want any that are more than 8mm deep.

All my speakers are amp bypassed and ran that way with only the factory sub off the factory amp fed off the sub-preout on the deck. Ran good and allowed for some nice tuning. This really woke up the factory system. I was also using a Pioneer 7800 deak at the time, not a cheap unit that I paid US$450 while I was working in Florida (long story) I will admit I did wonder what it would of been like to still have the fronts on the factory amp, but never did.

After I replaced the speakers with some Clarion mid-range speakers and upgraded the tweaters (took the caps off the factory ones and used them as filters on the new ones) to ones I was going to put in my mx-3 but never did. I didn't notice a big improvement. For the money, wouldn't be worth it, but it was speakers I had from my old Mx-3 that was taken off the road and parted out, so it didn't cost me anything but time. Oh, you'll laugh when you take the system out, and probably the reason why I didn't notice much of an improvement, the factory Rockford-system speakers are all Clarion...

After while, I decided to put my Pioneer Premier 980BT (I love that deck so much!) in the truck. This deck I paid for C$650 and it was discounted. Awesome deck and just putting that in made a huge improvement in the system. Botht he 7800 and 980 use Burr-Brown DACS, but the 980 still sounded that much better. Just to say that the head unit is the core of the system and the sound quality is reflected from that. You do get what you pay for.

The spider in my driver side speaker started to go, I spent the money and put in Clarions top set of 6.5" SRU series (running on factory wires) speakers and they just sound AWESOME! They're just running off the amp in the head unit too! I didn't use the tweaters (nor the crossovers) in the kit since the ones I have fit beautifully, but those speakers have the ability to have the tweaters that come with mounted to the center of the component speaker. The plan is to get an external amp (cause this would be too much for the amp in the deck), use the crossover and have the second set of tweaters run out of phase of the rest of the speakers for more audio depth, so ya, I'll have 2 sets of tweaters up front. Should sound awesome.

The factory amp and sub have been removed (note: when you remove the facotry amp, you can use the pocket out of a Frontier,it's so much deeper!). My buddy is going to modify the factory enclosure to fit a slim 10" aftermarket subwoofer. I haven't gotten that finished yet cause I haven't had the cash for the amp and sub yet, but I look forward to it

[studum]

Hey guys, thanks for the replys and tips.

Nd4Spd I had found your link late Saturday night while I was planning my attack for Sunday and it was a big help. It contained as much info on the OEM system as I had found elsewhere on the net. Armed with that and the FSM I woke up early Sunday and got to work.

It took me about an hr to get the whole truck apart: OEM sub removed, head unit out, OEM amp disconnected, door panels off and door speakers out. By that time it was late enough in the morning that I could start using power tools so I switched to box construction. I built the box to my measurements (minor screw up, more on that later) and made speakers adapters using the oem speakers as a template.

I personally didn't like the idea of the amp being under the seat, so I relocated the jack to under the passenger seat and cut the jack bracket out of the back. This gave me room to mount both my box and amp nicely behind the rear seat. I built the amp rack into the back of the box.

As for wiring, power went down the driver's side as it was easy to get through the firewall there, RCAs and speaker wires are under the carpet on the passenger side.

Connections: I bought a wiring harnes, but ended up using it for only 3 connections. I might as well have hardwired the whole thing: +12v, IGN and Ill all went through the harness. As other have mentioned there was no ground on the harness in the adapter's location so I tapped into the OEM amp's ground wire. I ran speaker wire from the 4 channel in the back to the amp output harness. I tapped the amp's speaker wiring in there, I didn't feel like fishing new lines way up into the dash and through the door grommets and the OEM amp output wiring was surprisingly thick compared to what I have seen in other vehicles.

The OEM front door speakers were replaced with 5 1/4" MTX speakers, because they were free from my buddy. The amp is an Arc Audio FD4100 and the sub is a Kaption Flat 10. I bought these used off of Kijiji from one person, we ended up getting along really well and he gave me a smoking deal on the combo considering that they are in mint condition ($130 for both). The deck is a Pioneer 5100UB, this is about the only piece that I'm not thrilled about because unfortunately I know what a good head unit sounds like.

The deck is single din, and the cost of the kit was the same as a dash pocket (the one that I had didn't have the mounting points that I needed) so I ended up buying the kit. I'm glad I did, the end look is very clean and I can yank the deck out easily to change something if I need to without taking the whole dash off.

It sounds ok, but that's about it. I know the weak point is the head unit, but it works so it will give me a chance to find a good deal on something used, or for one to go on sale around xmas. It just sounds a bit flat no matter what I do with it. Basically nothing is stock anymore except for the tweeters in the pillars, which I will decide to leave in or not. For now they sound alright so I will leave them until I get bored and need something to do.

I am not running rear speakers at all - I'm in the middle of deciding whether to bridge the amps 2 channel output to have the rear speakers on or not. Of course, this wouldn't allow for any fade control and I'm not sure how that will sound, I guess the only way to tell is to try.

Review on the sub / box. I built it as big as I could while being able to keep the back seat and mount the amp back there. The sub manual suggests a volume of .5-.8 cubic feet and I got it to .59 cubic feet. How did I mess up? Well, I measured with the seat down (obviously) and had plenty of space. Did the whole routine, measure 3 times cut once. Built the box and got it in place, and everything was perfect until I tried to fold the seat up. Tom (lowridah313) was there for that moment, he had stopped by. I didn't account for the shape of the seat bracket and how the seat swings back when it folds.

The sub is definitely more full sounding than factory, but it is by no means loud. I'm fine with that, it's due to the small box and relatively low power of the amp (180watts rms to the sub). But the bass is present, and the sound isn't distorted which is most important.

I worked around it by buying some longer bolts for the backreast bracket and spacing the bracket out with washers until it cleared. I then did the same to the top latch bracket. It's ghetto, but worked perfectly. The seat looks no different really, and there's plenty of space for the sub to work, the seat to work, and the amp to breathe. I believe what I did was ok as all of the safety components (seatbelts, child seat anchors, etc.) all bolt directly to the chassis on their own, and I didn't have to even break loose any of those bolts.

Tom showed up at the right time: he left with my factory cd changer (lucky guy) but left me a little gift too, a recovery point insert for my hitch. I thought that was awesome.

Anyhow if people want to see some pictures I can take some, but it all looks stock other than the head unit and until you fold down the seat. The box and amp mounting is pretty clean, but seeing as it's all hidden I didn't even try to clean up the wiring, or finish the box. Again, maybe one day if I'm bored I'll take it out and paint it, and clean up the wiring - but realistically probably not lol.

Anyone have a really good deal on a descent used head unit? Lol

[studum]

I played around some more last night as yesterday whike driving I discovered I was getting some background noise and alternator whine from the amp. Knowing that this is what was affecting my sound quality I did 2 things.

1st, I ran the RCAs and speaker wires down the passenger side, through the kick panel and along the OEM wires under the carpet's edge. Figuring this is where some interference was coming in I pushed the wires as far under the carpeting and away from the kick panel / OEM wiring as I could. This had little effect, so I left it that was as it couldn't hurt.

Nervous about the used amp I bought, I went to it next.

2nd, I unplugged the RCAs and had the amp on. The hissing noise was still there despite the head unit being completely disconnected from the head unit. There, head unit and source wiring was eliminated as a cause.

3rd, checked the amp ground. It was tight, and as good as it could possible get, I had taken the paint away with my angle grinder. It was a good clean connection and the wire is maybe only 6" long.

Now really nervous about the amp, I looked it up online and this is where I got owned. The input ratings are only rated to 2.5V. The head unit has a 4v pre-out. I hadn't played with the gains much at all during initial setup and this proved to be my failure. I dropped them down all the way and there it was, nice clean and clear sound. I also went from using the head units crossovers and fine-tuned the front stage with the amp's crossover and the sub off. Then tuned the sub with the fronts set.

Overall a massive difference. No more hiss under the music or alternator whine in the amp. The head unit behaves a bit differently than I'm used to. It's really quiet until the volume is at 60% then it gets loud quickly after that. After last night I'm much happier with how it turned out.

Also I had planned to rip out the OEM tweeters last night, but after the tuning I think I'm going to leave them in for a bit and give them a good test before taking them out.

Now: To find and install a steering wheel control adapter. The Pioneer deck has an input for it. I'm pretty sure it will be the same as what Need4Spd did.