DIY - 4 channel wiring + Speaker install + Amplifier LOTS OF PICS!

[Drewfuspx]

POST 1 Attaching Hot Wire + Removing Interior Trim Gen 3.5
Hey Everyone. So I've finished everything on my install except for the actual mounting of the Amp, but it's sounding Fantabulous! Just need a little sub to round everything out and it's going to be like sitting in 1st row second balcony! This is my first DIY write-up so hopefully it's clear enough.

Let's get started, this walkthrough will show you how to wire your car, as well as how to install aftermarket speakers in all 4 stock locations. Also, this is not the order that I did everything in as I had to do it in little sections. This entire install took me several nights chipping away at it a little bit at a time. Also for EVERYTHING that I did here I removed the - Ground on the battery to avoid potential damages.

First thing to do is to run the power cable to wherever you are planning on mounting the amplifier. I am putting my amp in the trunk.
1st you'll have to bypass the firewall, I did this by using an existing hole that was in my firewall b/c of a lazy ass installer put one there while putting in my car starter.

i cut his wire and drilled out the whole a little bit bigger so that my 4 gauge wire would go through, and then put in a rubber grommet.

Then I ran my wire, and my remote start wire through it.

The route that I ran my wire, I ran it behind the battery b/c I wanted to expose it to the elements as little as possible.

At the point where you want to put in your fuse you should follow the instructions of your install kit. Mine required me to cut the wire, install ends that would hold the fuse, and put this in a holder. PAIN IN THE ASS, but it'll work.





I tucked my fuse between the battery and the airbox.

Connect it to the POSITIVE side of your battery post.

and if your like me you want to hide it as much as possible so you can use wire covering and get the stock cover to fit over it.


Finally, I used a little bit of silicone to seal the hole that my wire went through.

WARNING. IF YOU LEAVE YOUR WIRE HOOKED UP TO THE POSITIVE TERMINAL AND THE OTHER END TOUCHES METAL WHILE YOU ARE RUNNING IT COULD GROUND AND CAUSE MANY SPARKS, BLOW YOUR FUSE, OR DO OTHER DAMAGE. I RECOMMEND DISCONNECTING BOTH TERMINALS ON YOUR BATTERY AND COVERING THE EXPOSED END OF YOUR + WIRE WHILE RUNNING IT!

NOW to the inside! You will have a wire coming out from the footwell somewhere and now you get to run it back, but you've got to remove a bunch of panels first.

TO REMOVE INTERIOR PANELS AND SILLS
We'll jump around briefly to look at this. The key to pulling off panels is always pulling off as straight away from the mount as possible, so using your fingers and curling them tends to work well, u can also use needle nose pliers if it's accessible.
First start by removing the doorsill trim. It's easy, just gently unhook it at the back end, and then pull up gently all the way along. Keeping your fingers as close to the point where it's coming away as possible. Oh and the clip holding it to the front can be pretty nasty, just work at it and it'll come off slowly.

Once you've pulled it up and off it'll look like this.

The kick panel is held on by that bolt at the back, it's plastic so don't be to hard on it.

There are also two pop-mounts towards the front of the panel, it's the same on both sides.

After this you can remove the piller panel as well, it's held on by three pop-clips, and so as long as you start at the bottom corners you should be fine.


Sometimes the pop clips will slide out of the bracket on the panel as you can see in the above photo one clip is missing, just slide them back in after finding them, or removing them from where they stuck in the metal


Now we will remove the rear seat and side bolsters so that we can choose where to run the wires. There are two points on the front of the rear seat that you simply get a hand under and pull up on, you'll feel where the resistance is:


Lift up the front and the back will slide forward, put it aside for now. Now your back seat will look like this, except you might not have toilet paper or water...

At this point I'd flip down the rear seats and start taking off the side bolsters there is a bolt at the bottom of each that must be removed, then they simply slide UP and off:

The Rear sill piece is removed in t he same manner as the front. It runs all the way up the side and will probably have these clips in it up high.

with a small screwdriver or even a pen pop the middle IN:

Then Pry it out gently:

You can now remove the rear sill which will go all the way up. VIDEO


Around the interior of the pass through when your seats are down their is a rubber seal which you simply pull on to remove. The black pieces on either side will pop off from these 3 locations:

There are also 2 tiny philips head screw's in the middle behind the seat above where the rubber trim was those will have to be removed. This picture already has them out:

The C Pillar can be daunting b/c is has a bazillion pop clips, but these pictures will show you where they are so you can just get close to them and pop this entire piece off. It will not come completely off of course b/c the seatbelt runs through it. These pictures will give you an idea of where the clips are, and it's basically just a matter of popping them all out.


After that you can remove the high mount brake light, the plastic cover will come away separately and you remove it by pushing it slightly back towards the glass and then lifting. VIDEO

Once it pops up then pull up and away. Then two big bolts need to be removed, and take the electrical clip apart:

Now you can lift up your rear deck cover and slide it forward! You'll be left with this.

Now your ready to run wire!

[Drewfuspx]

POST 2 - Running Amp Wires GEN 3.5
Now we can get back to running wires now that your vehicle is completely stripped!
So on your driver side you can lift up the carpet and it exposes these plastic conduits. They are going to be your ticket for running wires super cleanly. I cut the tape off of mine and popped them open.




I found that my 4 gauge wire would fit nice and snug in the conduit alongside the existing wiring, it's a tight fit, but it's worth it in my opinion. My speaker wire would not fit in the conduit, but I ran it tight against it and have no lumps in my carpet:

I ran it through a small gap in the wires

Then into the conduit:


I found I had to run it under a few things to keep it cleanly running into the conduit:

This is by the b-pillar:

Once the four gauge was in the front it looked really clean.

In the back you'll find a blue plastic piece that's designed to protec the wires from people getting in and out of the car, I opted to run my wire through that, it comes apart, but it's a bit of a pain as it's got 6 clips that hold it together, but it's worth it! These are after pic's but the clip locations are highlighted in the first:



After that you can decide whether you want to run your wires just to the base of the seats or up high, it all depends on your installation. I opted to go high b/c I'm doing an amp rack from my rear deck.

Theres a plastic hole you can sneak through up at the top, though you'll have to experiment with ways to get around the seatbelt mechanism.

and then from the trunk side:

Well there we go that side is done, Your done this side!

On the other side you'll have a few more wires, in total you will have up to 5, 1 remote wire, between 1and 3 RCA's, and your speaker wire.

You'll have to start by removing some of the underparts from the passenger side
The panel that's visible in this image has a philips screw on either side, the panel that is behind it just has clips in the front, you can see in the pics where the clips are.


You'll be left with this:

then you get to run these wires up through the bottom into the area where you deck is. Start about here:

and come out here-ish, I used a clip to help pull them through:


The Rca's are straightforward to connect but MAKE SURE TO LABEL THEM SO YOU KNOW WHATS WHAT AT THE BACK OF THE VEHICLE!

B/c we have a power antenna you'll have to tap the remote wire into that:

After that you tuck the wires up into the dash, I personally am a fan of mass zip tie usage, but whatever works for you! So heres my under dash.

Then run down the side by the other electrical:

Running these wires is identical to running the other side except a bit more of a pain b/c there's more of them, but ends up behind very similar.





Messy Pre Zip Tie:

Post Zip Tie, and up into another plastic pass-through for trunk access:



And you'll wind up with something that looks like this:

Then we are done the wiring. Hopefully I've gone into enough detail.

[Drewfuspx]

Post 3 - REAR 6x9 replacement in a Gen 3.5
So now that you've got all your wiring done it's time to do the speakers. I opted to purchase the adapters off of bay for the gen3.5 campy b/c I wanted to do as little drilling as possible. I used Silicone and the provided screws to connect my 6x9's to the adapters:


Simply put a ring of silicone around the speaker edge where it will contact the adapter. Smush it together, and do up the screws, you'll end up looking like this:


Be Careful, b/c some of the adapters do have a specific 'side' that has to be up. Make sure you've got theme set up as opposites. On mine there was a slight difference between the back and the front, if you do it backwards then you would have to do more trimming.

Removing the existing speakers is only these 3 bolts on each and then disconnecting the electrical.

After that it's as easy as popping these out and then popping in your new ones. NOTE: My mount didn't fit very well originally, but was made of a soft material so it was not to hard to shave down the parts that were sticking out to much.

After Dynamat:


Running wire to these rear speakers is quite easy as they are exposed from the bottom, but you have to be careful that your going to clear the springs for the trunk, Mine actually touch, but thankfully my magnets of a rubber coating and so it's o.k. if theres a little rubbing:




One other warning, if you are using the adapters, they are made out of a very soft plastic, and so you can put a screw right through them, so stop when you get just a little dig.

Finally I decided to take the existing speaker wire and tape up the end, and zip tie them down.

So there yah go 6x9's in!

[Drewfuspx]

Post 4 - Front Speaker Replacement + Wiring Gen 3.5
Now onto the front speakers. These ones are substantially more difficult simply because you have to run the wire through the rubber grommet in the door.
To start you have to take off the interior door panel. Different models have different ways or removing the doors panels, but it's been covered in other parts of the forum.
Gen 3.0 Panel Removal: DIY Replace Window Regulator - Camry 92-96 & Equivalent Models
Gen 3.5 Panel Removal:DIY: Interior Door Handle Replacement (GEN 3)
Once the panel is off you'll be left with this, and you need to remove the black clip from the white mount (RED) and the 4 screws (GREEN) before being able to pull off the speaker.


On the plastic mount that you have now detached from the car There are 4 philips screws which you simply unscrew. Once your on the inside it will expose the stock wires which you can cut off.


You are now left with a plastic mount that may or may not fit your new speakers. With my new speakers I found that the little plastic nubs were getting in the way of a good solid mount:

and so I shaved them off:

I also decided to remove the little white adapter plate for the stock wiring:

and that left me with a prepped mount that I slathered with some silicone:

I then placed the new speaker in as best as possible lining up with the holes. My speaker did not line up very well and so I ended up drilling some pilot holes before putting the original screws back in. At this point I also slipped up with my screwdriver and punctured one of my speakers. I suggest avoiding this:

However if the worst should happen then a little bit of silicone can fix the problem. Light light layers is the key.



But after you've drilled some pilot holes and mounted your new speakers you'll have this:

And just for fun heres some comparison shots of the old vs new speakers that I used:


Now that you have those mounted you need to run your wires into them. Begin by removing the kick panels like we did earlier and you'll expose the wires, the grey and blue clip are all wires that run into the door, detach those clips

then you can pop out the rubber on the car side:

and push in the rubber on the door side:

Finally sliding everything so that you have exposed the point that you can run in your new wire:

Your wire will not slide through very easily, so I used a classic coat hanger approach and ran it up from the inside of the door:

Until it was exposed on the other end:

I then hooked my speaker wire into this and pulled it through. It sounds easy but it can be a pain in the ass, and make sure that you've pinched the hook end as much as possible once you get the wire into it or else it may catch on the rubber, and you DO NOT want to puncture it. In the end your wire will look like this:

Repeat on the other side, and make sure to put your rubbers back in place and re-attach the door wires as well.
In the end you'll have your new wire coming through the stock hole and nothing unsightly in the seam of your door. I used a little bit of dynamat on my doors to ensure a good seal, I had to cut back the plastic a little bit, but before mounting the speaker you will be left with this:

My speakers included some connectors that I attached to the end of my speaker wire;

At that point it was as simple as attaching the wires to the speakers (Check your + and -) and then putting the 4 screws back into the door!
Left Door:

Right Door:

Now you've just got to put the door panels back on and your set! Something to consider as well is that your new speakers may have more depth than your old ones. Make sure to check that they will not be rubbing on the door!
Now you've got some solid front speakers!

[Drewfuspx]

POST 5 - Amp Attachment, Mounting, and new Lighting
This is just a little bonus post with my plans and what I'm working on, sharing ideas and all that.

Remember this mess of wires?

Now you get to do some testing so attach them to your amplifier:

Do your test as everything should work awesome at this point. Now I am planning on hanging my amplifier from the rear deck and I am using this panel which I've prepped with a little dynamat:

it is going to sit here:

I am hanging it from the child seat anchor as I do not want to drill any new holes. I'm then going to weld a few hangers on it and it will look something like this, only with an amplifier in it:


Now the problem on a GEN 3.5 Camry is that your trunk light is going to be covered up by any amp that you hang, so I had to install some new lights. I did this by tapping into the existing clip which is exposed when you take the rear deck apart, I was putting two lights in so I hooked them up in parallel and then slid the wires in and taped it up. This means that if I want to go back to stock I can:

And then for now, I've simply zip-tied the lights, as I'm not sure I'm a big fan of these ones but I've had them since I was 18 and never actually installed them in anything.



So there is my DIY on Wiring/Speaker/Amp installation. This is the first install like this that I have EVER tried, so if there is anything that you think I could have done differently I'd love o hear about it. If theres anything that appears possibly damaging please let me know so I can change that as well, would hate to lead someone off a cliff. Aside from that, hopefully this can help some people out, particularily the gen3.5 crowd!


Final notes and or things I wish I'd done differently:
1. I wish that I had not put a hole in my speaker!
2. I should have test fit the 6x9 adapters first and done the trimming before I had big heavy speakers in them
3. I am convinced that if your running wires for a sub or 4 channel it's worth running the extra RCA or two so that if you decide to upgrade later you do not have to rewire everything!
4. My original intent with top deck mounting my amplifier was to conserve cargo space, but now I'm not so sure it's going to work out that way. I will have floor space yes, but lose depth of trunk. Also the gap between the cutout and the back of the seats is quite deep on the gen 3.5 and so I possibly should have simply mounted it to the back of the seat as it would be quite out of the way. Will update you on how the hanger goes, and if I switch it up.
5. Being this was my first time doing this and I was quite disorganized I'll bet the entire install was 20 hours, not all in one go. Now that I know what I'm doing I could probably cut that in half!
6. The sound quality of all this is fantastic and I'm so happy to have done this upgrade! I'm definitely hearing better high's and richer low's and with the eventual addition of a 10 or 12 and proper balancing I'll be very happy to drive this campy for another 400,000 km's!

[iovaykind]

I did everything you mentioned in this thread and I still LOVED reading through it and going through the experience. It sure is great to have an upgrade over the OEM crappy stereo that comes with the Camry.

My vote for a sticky Good DIY!

Looking forward to hearing more about the amp being hung from the deck.. I want to do the same thing!

[Rall28]

...

I'll second that sticky!!!!

Great write-up Drewfuspx ! ...I've seen whole books dedicated to installations that did not have such depth and clarity !!!!

Great job, Thanks!


....

[Drewfuspx]

Oh! I totally forgot to include a cost value of everything.
Speakers, Deck, and Dynamat was $592.00 - but I used to work at visions. It was package so can't break it up.
Wiring Kit $59.00 - Princess Auto
Speaker Wire $20.00 for 20 meters - Princess Auto
RCA's $15.00 for all 3 - Princess Auto
Amplifier $240.00 - Kijiji used.
So a total cost of $926.00 for what I would call a mid to mid high grade audio system.

[iovaykind]

Whoa.. you dropped almost 1K on a sound system.. and that's without the subwoofer system set up yet? Crazy dedication dude, props!

[Drewfuspx]

Thanks man! I have basically one thought in mind with everything I am doing to this Camry. I'm going to be driving this car for the next ten years. With only 87,000 km's on it this car has a lot left, and I want to make those minimum 10 years and 2,3,400,000 km's and I want it as enjoyable and posh as possible! That is why my future modlist does contain dynamat (or equivalent) of the entire vehicle, the inevitable subwoofer, hopefully a leather swap (If I can find the donor car), and bullet proof glass... o.k. maybe not the last one, but either way I want this thing to be SMOOOTH!

[cruisn76]

Great DIY, must be stickied !!!! I actually ran the RCA and remote wire down the middle (where the rear hump is on the floor) and tucked it against the hump so you can't see it. Then continued down underneath the center console. But either way it works.

$1000 is about right. If you really bargin hunted you could have spend only $800 or so. I bought my 2x 10" Subs with Box and Amp for $200 approx and $25 for complete 4 AWG wiring kit. I also kept the stock speakers. No need to upgrade the speakers after I put in a new headunit. The original headunit was so crap. But was a world of difference a new headunit will do for old speakers.

[LittleWhiteBubble]

Great write up! This will definitely help someone. The only thing I would change is not connecting the positive wire to the battery until you have ran it through the rest of the car, so as not to arc it anywhere on the frame. I just make sure I have enough slack to connect it in the engine bay then run the wire to the trunk and connect to the battery once it's already back there.

Cruisn I agree with you about the stock speakers. They still sound great in my car and they're 18 years old now. I've been thinking about running an amp to just my rear deck speakers. Drewfus, or anyone else who might know, do you think running an amp to the stock rear speakers would kill them? I have a spare 250 watt amp I could run to them.

[cruisn76]

Originally Posted by LittleWhiteBubble

Great write up! This will definitely help someone. The only thing I would change is not connecting the positive wire to the battery until you have ran it through the rest of the car, so as not to arc it anywhere on the frame. I just make sure I have enough slack to connect it in the engine bay then run the wire to the trunk and connect to the battery once it's already back there.

Cruisn I agree with you about the stock speakers. They still sound great in my car and they're 18 years old now. I've been thinking about running an amp to just my rear deck speakers. Drewfus, or anyone else who might know, do you think running an amp to the stock rear speakers would kill them? I have a spare 250 watt amp I could run to them.

No don't amp your stock speakers. You will blow them up cuz GEN3 stock speakers are not designed to take extra power other than what is driving it from the aftermarket headunit which is usually 50W or 18 WRMS. If you want to amp the speakers get better ones and then do so.

[projektvertx]

Originally Posted by LittleWhiteBubble

Cruisn I agree with you about the stock speakers. They still sound great in my car and they're 18 years old now. I've been thinking about running an amp to just my rear deck speakers. Drewfus, or anyone else who might know, do you think running an amp to the stock rear speakers would kill them? I have a spare 250 watt amp I could run to them.

Stock speakers are 15W RMS on the premium sound version. I wouldn't do it.

Great write up! I've done all of this and still read thru it

[LittleWhiteBubble]

Roger Dodger, thanks for the info. I guess I'll just keep the stock ones till they stop doing the job.