Ratchey

The stereo sounds OK stock, but is pretty lame for a $45K car. Highs are weak and bass is nearly non-existent. I have always had decent systems in my cars and decided to upgrade the system.
I normally swap out the head unit first to make things easier but in this case it's not happening. Way too expensive to swap it out.
So I picked up an Audio Control DM-810 DSP to handle the EQ and processing of the system. I think the 30 band eq will work a little better than the 3 band in the head unit.
I will be running power from an Alpine PDX-V9 and an Alpine PDX4.100. This will allow me to send more power to all speakers including the center channel.
I have a couple of sets of 6.5" Boston Pros and a set of infinity edge driven tweeters that will be handling the sound. For bass, I will start with a JL Micro sub and if that isn't enough, I have an Alpine 10" Type R DVC sub I can use.

I only got through the wiring of the DSP today. I have damaged tendons in my thumbs and it is difficult to hold tools and thread small things. So this is a pictorial of the beginning of the install. I will update each day that I am able to work on it.

I started by taking out the back seat. Or at least part of it. There are air bags connected to the back section and I haven't disconnected the battery yet, so will get that part pulled out tomorrow. Still haven't quite figured out how to remove the rear deck to pull out the stock sub.
To remove the lower section, reach under the seat until you find the part that is attached. There is one in the middle of the left side and the right side. Yank straight up. You have to pull really hard. Really hard, Then lift the front of the seat, push the rear down and pull forward.
To remove the back section, there are 4 bolts along the bottom. Remove these, then lift hard. There are 3 loops on the back that need to go up.



Then you need to press the little clip in the back of the seat belt holders to allow them to unhook so you can slide the seat belts out.



Make sure you disconnect the battery, then you can unhook the air bag connectors and pull the seat out.

Next I pulled the door sills and seat belt panel from the drivers side to run the cables. You can just reach under the sills and pull up or use a panel tool to pop them up.







Then you can remove the seat. Use a panel tool to pry up the bolt covers at the 4 corners of the seat. Then remove the 4 bolts.





You can then tilt the seat back to reach the power harness if you need to completely remove the seat.



Make sure you disconnect the battery before disconnecting the yellow connectors. These are the air bag connectors. You risk setting them off if they are still energized.



I was able to do my work with the seats still in the car so I didn't need to disconnect them.

Once the drivers seat is tilted back, you can see the cover for the amp.



To remove the cover, insert a small screwdriver or panel tool at the edge of the inner round section of the clip and pop it up.



You can then insert the same tool under the clip and pop it up. These are reusable if you don't break them.

This is the amp. Not very impressive looking.



On the inner side of the amp are two connectors. The smaller one is the input signal and the large one is the power and speaker wires.



To remove the big connector, you lift the black clip away from the amp. There is a tab in the center of the black clip that you need to press to release it.



Then you pull it further to release the white connector.



To remove the small connector, press the release tab and pull away from the amp.

Here is a wiring diagram for a 2016 ES350



This is how you view the plug to match the diagram





I then labeled each pair of wires that I would be cutting. I labeled both sides so they can be matched up when I remove the system when I sell the car.



There are many ways to splice in the new wires. The best way is to solder and heat shrink, but I want to easily be able to take this apart at a later date so I used Twist-lock connectors. You unscrew the cap on each side, insert the wire through it and screw it back together. They work very well but are a bit bulky.

Ratchey

For cabling I am using Stinger 9 conductor speed wire. There are 9 individual wires in each sleeve. It makes it a little easier to run a lot of wire this way. It is about the same thickness as 4 ga wire.






I ran into an issue as 4 lengths of wire is way to much to hide under the door sill. I ended up splitting open the wiring loom under the sill to place one length inside and ran the second on top. The third and forth had to be run under the carpet along the left edge and under the seat. There seems to be enough room under the carpet to hide it well.

I clipped each pair of wires and connected it to the speed wire. I made sure to write out a diagram of what wires I was connecting to which run of speed wire and which wire colors so I know what goes where on the DSP and amps.



With a little work, I was able to tuck half of the wires under the carpet and the other half next to the amp.



It looks a little messy but once the cover is placed back on, it covers almost everything.



This is all you can see once the cover is in place.



Now that this part was complete I started on the trunk area.

I pulled the signal and speaker wire to the trunk area.



I wired up the input signal for the DSP.



At this point my hands were too sore to continue, so I will work on it more tomorrow.

Power wise, I had already ran power to the trunk for my refrigerator.
Here are a couple of pics of the connections under the hood and the circuit breaker.
It is important to have a fuse or breaker within 18" of the batter to prevent a short.



The circuit breaker is bolted to the radiator support in front of the battery.

Power is ran down the passenger side. You always want to run signal and power on opposite sides of the vehicle.
Because the amps are digital, a single 4 ga wire provides enough power to run both amps.




Tomorrow I will work on the amp rack that will mount across the top of the trunk. I am stealing the layout of another member here as I really like the way they had theirs installed. I may even do a similar sub box as well eventually.
(stolen from http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...-champion.html)

Mike728

Nice write-up so far!

Makes me glad I purchased mine with the ML system. I would not want to go through all that, just to get good sound.

LS430inDE.

Holy cow! As is, this is an incredible write-up! Looks like you've done this once before? lol

I find it amazing to view all the typically covered wiring looms and harnesses and nuts and bolts and hardware once all the pretty & decorative covers are removed.

Amazing job so far Ratchey!...

LS430inDE.

Ratchey-----does your ES have navigation + Levinson audio?

Ratchey

I have Nav but not the ML system. Honestly, I would probably do the same thing if I had the ML system. Although it is better than the premium stereo, it doesn't come close to a good after market system. You still have a weak sub-woofer that is incapable of producing adequate bass for my taste. I have seen many threads about people having to replace the surrounds on their ML speakers at a relatively young age. The Boston Pros that I am installing were purchased in 2000. They spent 9 of those 17 years in my Jeep Rubicon. Most of it's life was off road with no top or windows and often no doors. They have been abused and I have sent serious amounts of power to them. In the Jeep I ran them off of a PPI PC2600. 300 watts per channel. You could never do that with the ML speakers. To give you an idea of the power difference, I believe the ML amp puts out a max of 33 watts to each voice coil on the ML Sub (66 watts total). I am putting a max of 250 watts to each voice coil on the Alpine Sub.(500 watts total)

Don't take this as me saying it is a crappy system. Far from it. It's a pretty decent system as far as stock stereos go, it just lacks bass. I like to experience my music. I am not a bass head, but I like tight clean bass that you can feel when it punches a note. And you really can't get that from a stock system.

Ratchey

So I didn't get a lot done today. Spent a long time thinking and deciding on how to accomplish the amp rack. The one in the picture from the last post is a fixed rack. It is mounted solid to the back of the car. This works because the amps they chose have the controls on the face of the amp. I am not so lucky in this department. The amps I already had, have the controls in the side of the amp. Works great if they are under the seat or stacked, but not so much on a vertical surface. So I had to figure out a way to be able to see the lights on the face of the DSP for programming as well as be able to access the amp controls without having to crawl into the trunk everytime.

By the way, there is enough room in the trunk for a large body or 2. It is not a fun space to crawl in and out of.

I pulled the rest of the rear seat out and started on trying to remove the stock sub. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to remove the rear deck. What I managed to do though was release it enough to pry it up and be able to get a ratchet and socket in there to remove the 4 retaining bolts on the sub and remove it. If you decide you ever want to remove the sub, lift up on the rear deck and you will see three large white brackets. These have large white pins that go down into the rear deck. You can see them from the trunk near the back seat. Place a panel tool under each one and pry up until you hear it pop. Once the three are released you can lift the center of the deck enough to access the sub-woofer. Do not undo any other clips from underneath. They have nothing to do with the rear deck. There are 3 black ones which may or may not be connected to the 3rd brake light and there are 4 small white ones which hold down some wiring harnesses. They are extremely difficult to put back in if you pop them loose. I found this out the hard way.

Here is a pic of the stock sub-woofer. If you have never seen a low profile woofer, they are designed differently that a standard woofer. Normally a driver has the magnet on the bottom at the base of the spider(basket), and a cone on the top or face. A low profile has the magnet on the top. By utilizing the space in the depth of the cone, it allows for a much more shallow driver. There are trade offs as most low profile drivers do not have the excursion ability of a standard woofer and therefore cannot move quite as much air. There are exceptions to this though.

This is the top of the speaker. Normally you wouldn't see the magnet on this side.



This is the bottom side.



This is what a naked trunk looks like.



I debated on leaving the sub in and allowing it to act as a passive woofer, but the trunk is fairly well sealed from the front, so removing it will allow more of the lower sound waves to travel to the cabin area.

I didn't get any pictures of the building of the amp rack, because there really isn't much to show. Because of the issue of the amp controls being on the side of the amp, I decided to put the rack on a hinge system. This will allow me to raise the rack to make adjustments to the level controls on the amp. On the back side of the main board, I attached 2 hinges. (you can see my amp screws were just a tiny bit too long but they won't hurt anything)



I attached the hinges to a pair of small boards using 2 screws on the outside, then drilled the center hole a little larger. I will bolt that to the back of the trunk.





Then crawling into the trunk I held up the board and marked the holes for drilling. I couldn't drill directly through the hinges using them as a template as the hole is too close to the deck for the drill to fit. After drilling I used touch-up paint on the hole to prevent rust.
(in this pic you can see one of the pins that holds the upper deck down) The notches in the small boards are to allow them to fit around those pins.



This is the amp rack without the cover. I had to order a new power distribution block as the one I had didn't fit correctly. I still need to wire up everything before mounting it in the trunk.
I would have liked to have mounted the DSP upside down so all of the wiring ran across the top, but then all of the writing would be upside down. So that is why it is not flush at the bottom as I need room to run all of the wires.



This is what it looks like with the unfinished cover. I used chalk board so it was already black. I need to find some OEM style carpet to cover it with. The carpet will cover up the less than perfect cuts around the components.
The wiring will be hidden below the cover so this is basically what you will see when looking into the trunk.



This was all done with basic hand tools. I am not a craftsman by any means and this is strictly for my personal use so it's OK. I am not going to any SQ or SPL competitions so I am OK with the imperfections.
It's about the satisfaction of doing it myself.

I had to stop at this point as I need the power distribution block and 2 more pairs of RCA cables. Amazon will be delivering those in a few days, so I will pick up on Monday, my next day off.
In the meantime I need to figure out how to attach the lower part of the rack to the back of the trunk so it isn't just swinging as I drive. I also need to make some stand offs for the cover that will attach with velcro.

Rozay604

iTrader: (1)

Boston pros are wonderful speakers and it will eat the stock ml system.

Maljunulo

Just out of vulgar curiosity, what type(s) of music do you listen to?

Ratchey

Mostly 80's and classic rock stuff. Some smooth jazz. And on occasion some more current pop/top 40.

Ratchey

So the chaos continues. I am starting to wish I had paid someone to install this for me.

Wanted to grab a quick pick of the power wire running down the door sill before I covered it back up.



I spent a good part of the day trying to figure out how I was going to wire things up. I am still short 2 RCA cables. Ordered them on Thursday. They are coming from Bakersfield which is 4 hours from Vegas. They won't arrive until this Thursday. What the hell???
So I had to sub in a couple of my old monster cables which are way too long but will allow me to begin testing. I will have to tear apart some of today's work to put the new ones in.

Once I got most of the wiring figured out, it was time to begin installation. This was a lot harder than I thought it would be. That board is pretty heavy trying to balance it on your knee while trying to find a hole you can't see and place a bolt through it. Then reach through the pass through and try to place a large fender washer and nut. Dropped the board on my head once.




Once it was mounted I could start wiring up the connections to the DSP. You have to wait to hook up the amps until you get the initial settings on the DSP in place so you don't damage any speakers.



Now I can begin the adjustments.



I decided to mount the bass/source control in the little change drawer on the left of the steering wheel. While this sounds like a good place for it, it was a complete nightmare. The mount for the control is too big so I need to trim it down by an inch so I can close the drawer. And there is no way to remove the drawer, so I decided to drill a hole to feed the control wire through. Drilled a medium hold in the lower right bottom of the drawer. Guess what, there is a metal panel behind it. I spent nearly an hour trying to feed the wire though the back of the dash over the lip and down behind the drawer. (It has a rounded compartment that it sits in so no direct access behind). My arms are really torn up from reaching up and around.



So for the most part, this section is complete. Just need to replace the 2 RCAs when the come in, secure the bottom of the rack so it doesn't swing and finish the cover plate. That will have to wait until next month. (Headed to Seattle next week so no time to work on it)

Ratchey

Time to improve the tunes. Working on a complete speaker replacement.

To begin, you need to remove a door panel. There are 4 screws that need to be removed. There is the rubber bumper on the outer edge of the door.



Under the felt piece in the door handle.



Behind the door latch, You need to pop the little panel off.





And one under the window switch, You need to pop that up, unclip the single harness on the drivers side, and two on the passenger.





Then remove the large screw.



Then reach to the bottom of the door panel on the corner nearest the front. You will feel a small area where you can stick your fingers to pull. Then carefully pull the panel away from the door. You can also use a panel tool to pop the clips. Once you pull the whole lower section loose, there are 2 ways to remove the panel completely. You can lift it up and unhook the top section from the door. This is a little easier but creates a headache later. Or you can do what I do. Grab one side and yank hard toward you. Really hard, There are some clips along the upper edge of the door.





These clips are attached to a small section that is hanging on the op of the door. If you lift the panel off, these clips and that piece come off with the door. They are extremely difficult to separate from the door panel. And it is almost impossible to put the door panel back on if you don't separate them.

There is one more harness to remove on the passenger side. It is for the courtesy lamp at the bottom of the door. Chances are at this point that you have yanked the whole light out of the socket. Just disconnect it from the harness and put back in place.(On the drives side you may also have one for the seat memory selector)




Once you have removed the panel, make sure you haven't lost any of the fabric washers on the clips. They will stick to the door sometimes. These help prevent them from rattling against the door.



There are also two cables to unhook. These are the door latch release and the door lock. Lift them away from the clips they are in, then lift the ball straight up. Pay attention to how you remove them and reverse to reinstall. The green one goes on the bottom. Don't mix them up, and don't forget to reattach them.



These are the two harnesses from the drivers side. The left one is for the window control and the right one is for the seat memory buttons.



This is the stock mid-bass driver for the non-ML system. I believe it's made by Pioneer. They aren't bad, but have really tiny magnets and a plastic basket. As you can see, there is enough room for a 6x9 speaker and probably an 8" woofer with a little bit of work. Unclip the harness at the top and remove the 4 bolts to remove the speaker.



Although few manufactures add any resonance reduction material, Lexus' attempt is pretty feeble. You really need a minimum of 25% coverage to be effective. These are the 2 very small patches that they slap on the door.






This is what I am installing. This particular company makes two thicknesses of CLD (Constrained Layer Dampener) 75mil and 100mil. I am using 75mil on this install. There is a lot of info out there on which is the best CLD. This one is rated very highly for it's price. While many people install this for sound reduction, that is not its purpose. While it may help with noise reduction a little its primary purpose to to prevent vibrations and rattles. Noise reduction is better achieved through CCF (Closed cell foam) and MLV (Mass loaded vinyl)

I will not be going to this level as the ES is already very quiet. If you want to see the process of an extensive sound reduction install, please visit my install thread for my 4Runner that I had.
http://www.toyota-4runner.org/5th-ge...ml#post2150571



It is easily cut with a utility knife.



The CLD is applied to any metal surface that you feel my be vibrated by the speakers. You really only need 25-30% coverage to be effective. I always get carried away and cover as much as I can of the outer door skin. I really like the thud it creates on the door.







I also add some to the inner skin as well.



I used the speaker adapters from the 4Runner. They aren't a perfect fit, but I was able to make them work.



Sometimes I will create an adapter to connect the speaker to the stock harness. For the doors, I found it easier to cut off the harness and wire directly to the speaker wire. I left some wire on the harness and labeled it so that I can reattach it when I remove the stereo. (seen in the foreground)



The unique thing about the Boston speakers that I am using is that they are a component speaker but can function as a co-axial as well. If you look at the top of the speaker you will see a small section that extends above the speaker. There are 2 connectors there and there is a small adapter that attaches there and houses the tweeter. I will show this at a later date when I install the rear door speakers.

Ratchey

Once the speakers were mounted I added some foam weather stripping around the edge of the adapter to seal it against the speaker grill on the door panel.





I need to download the images from my phone for the dash speakers. I will post more on that tomorrow night.

BB2001S4

I need to stop opening this thread...its creating an itch for me to do an upgrade myself...ugh.

Great Job thus far!

400to300H

Surprising, those pioneer drivers look to be fairly high quality. Not bad for a stock sound system, makes me wonder what the ML drivers look like and who makes them.