taylor288

Hey guys, just got me an 07 Es350 about a month ago with the Non Nav Stock stereo. I've loved everything about the car so far except for the pathetic lack of bass in the car. After doing some digging, I had seen that other owners had luck tapping the amplifier line and running that to an external amp and sub woofer. Here's my adventures that can hopefully help some other owners out that are looking for a little more bass in their car also. I disclaim ahead of time, that I am by no means a professional, I've done this on a few of my older cars, and helped out some buddies doing it, but I'm not a pro!


I first started with the typical wiring of the power line from the battery back to the trunk. This time around, I started in the trunk by first removing the bottom cover that hides the spare tire. I then started pulling out the tabs that hold the siding in place. (From a suggestion on another thread, I used a zip tie to pull them out. Slide the tie under the middle section, grab both ends with a pair of pliers, and give a little tug and they should come out.)




I ran my wires (power, remote, rca [the last two were for the stereo I was going to put in down the raod]) down the drivers side of the car. As you will see from the pictures below, I was able to slide them under the back of the rear seat and reach from the side of the front and pull them through. There may have been an easier way to do this part, but this is what I was able to come up with.










I guess it's important to note, that I did pull the door trim off of both doors prior to this and also the middle column between the two drivers side doors. I then continued to pull the wires across just like you would with a standard installation.






I got to the point where all of my cords were run up under the steering wheel. At this point it was time to worry about pulling the power wire through the firewall of the car. After doing some searching in past threads, I found that the best place to go through, is by cutting a rubber grommet and pushing the wire through there. Below you will see some pictures I took of where I cut the whole in the grommet, used a hanger to get through to inside the car, and the wire pulled through.








Once I had gotten the wire hanger pushed through, I got under the steering wheel, grabbed the hanger, and taped the wire to it so I could pull it though. Here is a picture of where it will be coming through.




Once it was through, it was just your normal installation of the fuse and hooking it up to the battery.

At this point I had to find a place to steal the signal going to the stock sub and run it into my amp. My original goal, was to just unplug the stock sub and use that connection, but after zero luck getting the black casing on the outside to come off, I did some research and found it's best to steal the signal before it hits the stock amplifier. So after doing about an hour of searching, I found the stock amplifier, it had been right in front of me that whole time .




It's this little guy that is screwed on to the back of the passenger side wall of your trunk. It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but I unplugged the bottom harness and used that to steal the signal. I used what some call I think as vampire clips (got a pack at radio shack for $2 ) For those who don't know how to use them (me prior to this) You slide the line you are trying to tap in from the opening like so.




You then stick the speaker wire or whatever wire you are using into the inside part of it until the wire hits the stop on the inside. You then use some pliers to clamp the piece of metal on the inside of it into the two wires and close it shut. You can then use the new speaker wire going out for the signal. I used information originally provided by @mlacomb to know that Front Left + is Pink, Front Left - is Purple, Front Right + is Light Green, and Front Right - is Light Blue (Thanks again @mlacomb) So after I installed the vampire taps, I got the harass plugged back in and it looked like this.





Then at this point it should of just been a matter of hooking theses speaker lines into my line out converter that I got from Amazon, but of course it didn't want to work. I don't know if I just wasn't hooking it up right, or if I got a defective unit, or what. But after doing some research, I learned that the JBL amplifier I was using would work with just a speaker to RCA conversion. So I picked this item up off of Amazon and boom it worked after that.


I was worried that the amp wouldn't know when to turn off or on due to the lack of a remote, but it had a setting to turn on and off with a signal coming to it and it worked great. As for the sound itself, It wasn't super loud or anything, but a very big improvement off of what the stock sub has to offer. For someone who is just looking for a little bit of an increase in bass I would recommend this. In my case, I was still underwhelmed so I invested into the Pioneer 4100NEX stereo and the appropriate installation gear that was recommended by Crutchfield and installed that yesterday, and now I've got good bass. I was going to take pictures of that installation, but got caught up by my excitement for the Android Auto that I was soon going to have that I forgot to. I just followed the instructions included in the Metra dash kit on how to remove the existing one, and they were plenty good for me to get it done.


I hope that my adventures can help someone out as they try and do this to their ES350. If you guys have any questions let me know and I'd be happy to try and help seeing as I probably left some details out on accident.

12jimmyjam

Would anyone be able to tell me what type of amp I would need to run a 12 inch sub stealing the audio feed from the stock sub?

12jimmyjam

Bump.

Thought I added a new post but accidentally just edited my old one.

taylor288

Hmm good question. I guess it depends on how much bass you are looking for. I know that when I was using the line tap for my signal before, my sub was very quiet. Once I switched over to my Pioneer stereo the difference was substantial. I don't know the exact numbers, but I don't think that the stock sub gets a lot pushed it's way. Maybe someone with a little more knowledge on the stock system would know more though.

AmoLocs

I just had an amp/sub hooked up in my 07 es350 last week. My friend did pretty much all of it so I'll try to remember but we a Hi-Lo Converter. I wanted to get the speaker level input directly from the stock sub's speaker wire in the trunk, but I want to say he tapped in before the amp, although I'm not certain. The stock sub was disconnected and I put in a single enclosed 12" JL W7 with a SoundStorm 3600d amp which is probably around 1000rms now the car sounds great with the stock non-ML speakers. I think the stock amp is 40w on each of 5 channels but I could be wrong.

iceblast

Nice install. Could you post a pic of how your deck looks installed? Am thinking of throwing a new deck in there, because I've read you will be able to push the OEM speakers a little better in addition to the nice added features.

Metra should have came out with a dash kit 5 years ago ... lol, we've been scrounging ever since with what we've found from China .

12jimmyjam

Would this work? <br >

meyst

That would definitely work. Don't get lured into the power output game -- a doubling of power only results in a 3dB gain. (Remember, 1 dB is the smallest difference is volume that the human ear can detect.)

Great, information is available at this site: http://www.bcae1.com/

One consideration is the amount of current draw. Make sure that you run heavy enough gauge wire or else the amp will be starved for power and sound awful. The aforementioned website has some really good tools for doing those calculations under Section 16, Wire.

Good luck!

12jimmyjam

Thanks for the tip! I just pulled the trigger on this an a pioneer 12 inch sub. Total cost was about $170 from Walmart. I also picked up a wiring kit and will order the ported box tonight.

taylor288

Sorry it took so long!

meyst

Nice! I'm getting there myself. I've successfully downgraded my nav console to a non-nav console (the nav console is for sale on eBay ).

I've been creating a wire-mapping guide for when my headunit arrives (also Pioneer).

One question... the Pioneer "light switch terminal" (orange/white) wire.... what did you connect it to? I've been unable to figure out the appropriate dimmer or illumination wire that I should use. I don't have the luxury of using a harness - I've never seen one for a navigation console, only for the non-nav consoles. I have the really good Lexus ES350 wiring diagram, but the abbreviations are downright cryptic! (B, +B, SLD, ATX-, ATX+, IO1+, IO1-, ....)

Thanks!

Chris03218

Any idea why you tapped off the door speakers as opposed to rear sub?

tawm

What an awesome thread with photos and detailed explanations.