Jcorwin

Installed Kenwood Deck / Pioneer Amp and Free Air Kicker, sounds great! Kicker was about 75 I think, great sound!

Scoopy

Cool jcorwin thanks! I decided to do a box for this one, the specs for this sub at every modest (about a cubic foot) and I set up a ported box to tuck up into that back ledge. I was close to going free air but decided to box it this time, I'm standing outside at this very moment removing the rear deck cover and stock sub.

Update!! Amp came today two days early! I have all stuff I need, 4ga pure copper power line routed through firewall and installed fuse block, factory anp and factory cd changer pulled (anyone wants to buy ill sell em cheap and I have my ported box sealed and sub installed, amp sitti g loose in trunk and pulling up carpet now to run 9-conductor copper and 6-lead RCA run and 4g power wire. It's nice outside although getting dark. I'm taking pics along da way. Yeah! Thanks for everyone's awesome input. It's been years since I subscribed to a board of any kind and years since I did a full system. Both have been great so far!

Jcorwin

I'm envious....one day I'll post the story about the guy off Craigslist who was SUPPOSED to install my deck. Yeah Yeah...learned a valuable lesson. Long story short, have a great Kenwood double din deck, stock speakers still ( future upgrade) the Kicker comp free air and the pioneer amp. Thumps plenty for me...but I'm old :-). My son, BEGS for a box but he's 16. Hope the steup works out, I spent about 300 more than I wanted to ( with install), BUT sounds great to me!

Good Luck

Jeff

Scoopy

I hear that........ Craigslist brings out the edge of crazy....Which Kenwood head unit did you use JC? Have you noticed any buzz or rattle from your free air sub, and how did you fasten that critter?

OK some random pics so far from my install that has gone into the night time on day 1.

Melting fuzz to mount male velcro patches on bottom of box (I am not using that junk speaker wire connector, I holesawed and cut another one in to the side.)

Weighing a pile of stuff I pulled out of the car. The sub only added around 4lbs

Setting in the plate and the Kenwood DDX head unit to test fit, will get it all adjusted correctly for final.

Soldered 4 gauge connector.. a bunch of twisted pair RCA's... bla bla I will get better and more organized pics when I get some actual headway.

Scoopy

Just spent another 4 hours on it and got all of the RCA, power, speaker and signal routed to the trunk and over to the old factory amp location. Deck's in, the 81' & up toyota adapter was pretty wack... very few of the lines did what they were labeled to do, i moved a pinout on the 6 connector adapter plug and then was able to get my constant, igniton, and ground.

Amp and box are in the trunk and all of the seats, dash, and etc. are reassembled except for the glovebox and lower cover (going to put that in after i wire up the speakers at the old amp plugin).

I have a 3 farad cap so I'll need to sand & solder a couple more big ring terminals tomorrow. I forgot about those connections. Then I'll use the little resistor to charge the cap and hook 'er up, I plan on having boom and final pics tomorrow. (Not the exploding kind of boom with smoke.)

moral of the story for me today is - 9 conductor "speed wire" and 6 - lead RCA cable saves a heck of a lot of time over running stuff individually. Especially when Lexus carpet is super-tight it saves time fishin' lines.

One last thing... lots of guys run dynamat - when you take a lexus apart it already has that type of stuff in it, essentially. Great sound deadening- rubber panels behind the rear seats, tons of insulation under the carpet. So that saves me money on dynamat and I can have a nice tight & clean sound without it.

Scoopy

Done! except for some wire management in the trunk, vacuuming and car wash, and running the bass control pod line that I forgot... and oh yeah for some reason the SPDT relay I wired in for the parking brake lead did not work today, it said "parking off". So I gotta pull it and take a peek. I wired the SPDT relay w/2 grounds, the green and the amp turn on, but maybe i forgot to plug in a wire or something for it.

I replaced all 4 door speakers.... and I was happy to learn that the Pioneer door boxes were sealed, gummy-ring boxes with nice insulation in them - a real big step for door speakers. So my 4" kickers got a real nice home, and as a result, they have a very nice clean punch to them for 4" speakers.

The sub hits clean and hard....... and as it breaks in, it just gets cleaner and smoother. I got done about 1:00AM last night.. er.. this morning,, and spent the next 2 hours sitting in the driveway making the dog bark and having a few apple ciders, listening to MP3's and Pandora. I woke up kinda late this morning.

PICS!!!!!!!! (I'll get the trunk lines all pretty, soon.) the pic with everything reinstalled inside is the latest... the glove box and everything is back where it should be.. i had a chance to replace several bulbs in the process, even the little tiny rear ashtray bulbs!

Jcorwin

Hey Scoop - I purchased the Kenwood DPX500BT from Crutchfield, was 199 at the time. Still haven't replaced the door speakers, don't need to at this point but when I do it sound like yours are working out well? The stereo shop fastened the Kicker right in to the stock hole with metal screws. They insulated the opening first and sealed from the outside once it was in. The only rattle I have is from the Sub-Cover itself but I can take care of that. It really sounds great ( to me), obviously it's set up to go further IF my son ever gets my GS :-)!

chubz

iTrader: (1)

im running a kicker comp 10 on the deck and love it. im not a fun of stupid loud rattle your whole car bass. it hits alot harder than factory and i get to keep all of my trunk space so im happy with it.

Jcorwin

Chubz - I installed the comp 10 as well - even with the free air application it thumps. Did you replace your door speakers? If so, any recommendations on a budget? thx

NorthStyle

iTrader: (16)

What amps are you guys pushing the Comp 10s with?

rome58

Looking real nice!!!

Scoopy

Yep I am super happy with the upgraded door speakers they have tweets framed up on top of the mids and the car sounds like a theater playing a DVD. I highly recommend it.

Easy to install too, the door panels are pretty user friendly.

chubz

iTrader: (1)

i actually just put this new mini alpine amp that is literally the size of a tv remote. i amped out my factory speakers for now since they were causing my new radio to overheat and shut off. they sound alot better with the new amp.

im running a little alpine amp on mine. it pushes it very well.