adding a sub with stock head unit... - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

Frugle · 03-19-2006, 04:48 PM

Well hello! I just got myself a new used 03 Camry recently.. I converted from my Ford Taurus which keeping it working per month is twice a car payment.. so I figured I needed a toyota or honda, and toyota it was....

Did a search, found a couple of threads that sort of helped me, but they didn't answer my question completely.

anyways, I am not a fan of atermarket head units.. I know this sounds weird.. but I don't like using them, I like the way the stock units work, and look.

In my taurus, It came with a stock JBL sound system, with a 6x9 sub... so all I had to do, is buy a reverse adapter for the sub, run that into a line level converter, then run RCAs to the amp.

easy to do... I ran a 4 gauge power wire into my trunk to power it all, and then I spliced into my auto antenna to get the on/off line. (a constant 12 volts is what keeps the antena up.. so as long as the antenna was up, there was the 12 volts to turn the amp on as well)

so now I would like to do the same in my Camry. I have an 03 SE with the 24 valve V6.

it has the "JBL" sound system, but no sub in the trunk... so I have a few questions.

1) turn on lead.. how should I do that? is there a fuse or something i can run a line from to the trunk to get it to turn on?

2) where do I pull the signal? can I just splice into one of the speaker wires, and attach that to a line level converter?

3) will that make that speaker less loud?

4) this is kind of a stupid question, those are 25 watt speakers, can I run a 3rd wire from the splice and run that into the amp for the turn on lead?

5) I will be buying a whole new wireing kit to use, what system do you recomend to do this? I hear a lot about "the big three" or something like that.. what is that?

6) are the tweeters in the front already highpass filtered?

7) I will have some more questions later!

Thanks! the Taurus Car Club of America ( www.taurusclub.com ) has been a huge help to me for my taurus, and I really hope this place can be one too!

touringcamry · 03-19-2006, 05:18 PM

For the signal, you can just splice into the speakers like you mentioned with a line level converter. If it's not loud enough, you probably can adjust the gains.

For the remote turn on,you can probably splice into the cig lighter so the amps turn on only when the car is in ACC or ON. There are some type of adapters that let you use the signal from the speaker as a turn on like this one: http://www.cardomain.com/item/PIE1VT

For wiring check out http://www.knukonceptz.com . Good prices on wiring.
Big three are 3 wiring upgrades made under the hood I think to stabilize voltage. You run 3 wires: battery-chasis, engine-chasis, and alternator + to batter +

The tweets up front most likely have a capacitor in place to pass only the high frequencies, but the woofer probably doesn't have anything to block the high frequencies.

Frugle · 03-19-2006, 05:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by touringcamry

For the signal, you can just splice into the speakers like you mentioned with a line level converter. If it's not loud enough, you probably can adjust the gains.

For the remote turn on,you can probably splice into the cig lighter so the amps turn on only when the car is in ACC or ON. There are some type of adapters that let you use the signal from the speaker as a turn on like this one: http://www.cardomain.com/item/PIE1VT

For wiring check out http://www.knukonceptz.com . Good prices on wiring.
Big three are 3 wiring upgrades made under the hood I think to stabilize voltage. You run 3 wires: battery-chasis, engine-chasis, and alternator + to batter +

The tweets up front most likely have a capacitor in place to pass only the high frequencies, but the woofer probably doesn't have anything to block the high frequencies.

Thanks! I was actually worried about the rear speaker, (the actual speaker, not the sub)

oh so the lighter plug is only on when the car is on? I didn't know that.. my taurus' was always on.

now is there a way to do that with an inline switch so that I can turn it off if needed?

my amp has a lo-pass mode, so that is not a problem.

I really like the PIE1VT thing... does that really work? do I just add that to the splice and put it in one of those twist things?

touringcamry · 03-19-2006, 07:07 PM

All Toyotas that I've ever driven cut power to the cig lighter when the car is off.
If you want to have a switch to turn off the amp and sub, you can just wire that into the remote wire.

As for the PIE1VT, I've never used one so I don't know how well they work. I just know that they exist.

If you are going to be adding a sub and the amp will only power the subs, you won't have to worry whether the fronts are high-pass or not since the amp and sub will not affect it.

Frugle · 03-19-2006, 11:57 PM

Oh I've been meaning to ask....

where do you guys run the power wire through? have you found an open grommet? (floor shift)

Frugle · 03-20-2006, 10:15 PM

It seems the speakers in the door have a low pass filter on them, and the speakers on the dash have a high pass filter.. are the speakers in the back wide open?

touringcamry · 03-21-2006, 12:17 AM

If you have the JBL system, the rear speaker is a coaxial speaker.

There should be a hole in the driver side wheel well. You need to take off the wheel and remove the plastic liner and you should see the wires going through the firewall.

madmax_cam · 03-23-2006, 01:07 AM

behind the deck look for a gray wire. this wire is your switched power wire... it will only come on when the ignition switch is in the ACC or ON position.

Tap the line-out converter on a speaker wire going to the speaker ... NOT leaving the deck. A good one would be in the trunk. But, make sure you don't get feed back through the speaker to the line-out converter.

Frugle · 03-23-2006, 07:49 PM

my amp has a tendancy to overheat, so I like to be able to turn the radio off and cut the power to the amp and let it cool down...so I was hoping for away around the "on when in ACC"

I bought the wireing kit mentioned above (4 gauge) and the RCA says it has a built in turn on lead.. we will see if that is anything... if not I will buy the Pie 1vt thing.

thanks for the replies! I'd like to hear some more thoughts...

touringcamry · 03-23-2006, 08:31 PM

What type of amp do you have? They should not have a problem with over heating. You may have it in an area where it cannot convection cool or you have the gains set improperly.

Frugle · 03-23-2006, 09:20 PM

possible.. its an MTX 502 pushing 2 MTX road thunder 10s..

Frugle · 03-24-2006, 02:24 PM

any tips on how to set the gain properly?

well I feel stupid... that built in turn on lead? yeah it wasn't what I thought it was... (now it seems stupid to think it was)

all it is, is a wire melted onto the RCA cables... which I wouldn't use anyways because of the bleeding possiblity.

oh well.. lol... I'll order the 1vt thing.

Quote:

Tap the line-out converter on a speaker wire going to the speaker ... NOT leaving the deck. A good one would be in the trunk. But, make sure you don't get feed back through the speaker to the line-out converter.

could you elaborate on that a little more? I don't think I've heard of getting feedback through a line level converter..