Toyota Nation Forum banner

'06 JBL Subwoofer Upgrade

27K views 9 replies 8 participants last post by  lilgerber 
#1 ·
this past weekend i finally got around to swapping out the stock jbl sub with a jl 8w0 and adding a rockford punch 250 to power it. it's a pretty straight-forward install and the majority of the info to do it can be found here by searching. but here's my 2 cents worth of insight...

to get to the jbl enclosure, you'll have to remove both sides of the plastic cubbys behind the back seat. there's 4 10mm bolts (3 on the right, 1 on the left) and a row of clips along the top edge, down the sides, and a couple on the bottom. its difficult to get to the bottom clips since the seat presses against the cubbys. once the top and sides are loose, pull up and out. i busted a couple of clips in the process, oh well.

i found it easier to work with the back seat removed. there's 6 12mm bolts securing it to the floor.

the jbl sub is secured with star-pattern screws (as opposed to standard or allen)

the new jl has a 4" mounting depth, which is too tall. there are these ribs along the back wall of the enclosure that can be cut down with a dremmel/rotary tool (thanks cabocoma ;) )

the new jl does not line up with any of the jbl screw holes, so make new ones and fill in the old ones with caulk or something.

the 4 wires from the jbl amp to the jbl sub are the ones i used for my high-level inputs to the rockford. the jbl wiring diagram in the service manual downloads proved invaluable. if you don't have high level inputs on your amp, connect these to your line-level converter.

i spent a lot of time figuring out where to splice my remote wire to an ACC source. the grey wire behind the HU and going to the amp are 20 gauge and very short (at least what's accessible). after deciding that i didn't want to take the chance of screwing something up royally, i searched for another location and went with what norcal and others did and plugged into the fuse box on the driver-side behind the small flip-down cubby. the ACC fuse is in the top row, third from the right.

and thats that...took much longer than i anticipated, but the end result is worth it. the new setup has much better punch and frequency response and won't cut out at higher volumes like the jbl system would. like i said, there's a lot of threads that address upgrading the jbl system, but most were somewhat vague. i would've saved a bunch of time had i known most of this going into the install, so hopefully this can help someone else out in the future...
 
See less See more
#3 ·
kanai said:
to get to the jbl enclosure, you'll have to remove both sides of the plastic cubbys behind the back seat. there's 4 10mm bolts (3 on the right, 1 on the left) and a row of clips along the top edge, down the sides, and a couple on the bottom. its difficult to get to the bottom clips since the seat presses against the cubbys. once the top and sides are loose, pull up and out. i busted a couple of clips in the process, oh well.
Do you remeber how many clips there were approx? I've taken mine out, and put it back in, but it seems that the top left of the sub box (nearest the passenger door) is very loose. I dont remember any clips there, but I think I've forgotten a couple. Were there clips towards the upper left corner of the sub panel?

Anyone know the part number for these clips?
 
#4 ·
What kind of luck have you been having that setup? I want to do something similar. I cannot stand the JBL subwoofer. It sounds terrible!

Also, where's the JBL amp located at? Did you take it out when you replaced it with the Rockford? Where did you place your Rockford amp?

My concern is the quality of the enclosure for the 8" woofer. If you had it to do again, would you stick with the original enclosure or would have taken it out and put a custom box in?
 
#5 ·
CMC07Tacoma said:
What kind of luck have you been having that setup? I want to do something similar. I cannot stand the JBL subwoofer. It sounds terrible!

Also, where's the JBL amp located at? Did you take it out when you replaced it with the Rockford? Where did you place your Rockford amp?

My concern is the quality of the enclosure for the 8" woofer. If you had it to do again, would you stick with the original enclosure or would have taken it out and put a custom box in?
i like it...the amp is to the left of the stock enclosure behind the plastic cover on the passenger side. i did not remove the stock amp...its my understanding that if you lose the amp, you'll lose the whole system. i patched in using high-level inputs on the rockford amp. the rockford is in the cubby on the drivers side, where the flashlight holder would be, just screwed into the plastic.

to me, the only drawback to using the stock enclosure is that its bolted to the framework at the back of the cab. at certain frequencies there's a slight resonation, i think that a little dynamatting would clear that up. but other than that it's been rock-solid. i also stuffed it with polyfill if that matters to you. my intention with this install was to keep things looking stock, going custom was not in my plans at all...good luck, post pics since i didn't :disappoin
 
#7 ·
Sorry, I know this is an old thread, but I'm interested in doing something similar. I want to remove the stock box and amp from my 07 DC and replace it with a 10" shallow and the 200W Rockford I've got in my garage. It looks like a custom box and amp board for that spot won't be too challenging. Does anyone know the best way to tap into the existing wiring to use with a new amp? I don't want to change out the stock head unit (I know, I know, save it). I already have a line level converter that I can use if necessary and I had just tapped into one of the rear speaker wires to run the sub in my 05 but I'd rather not do that due to the fade/balance issues. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top