OEM Audio Plus Reference 500Q install with dual subs

I'm making this thread to pass along what I learned during my install process for those who may be interested in doing this themselves. I'm not very experienced when it comes to taking apart the interior of my truck so this install pushed my limits, but in hindsight I'm glad to have tackled it.

This is meant to augment the installation video provided by O+:


I'll also posted some initial thoughts about the sound quality at the end.

Unboxing of my new system:














Oddly, my shipment was missing the gain control knob. But I called O+ and a few days later I had one.

 

I found the video provided by O+ covered much of what I needed to know, but I will list any differences / deficiencies I found during my install.

I found it interesting that my '17 appears to have a different mechanism in the door handle than what's shown in the video, but it's still the same basic process for removing and replacing the cables.



When I pulled the door panel off this piece went flying. Ooops!



This is where it goes:



Door speakers looking good!



When removing the rear door panels I found that my upper and lower panels were connected by a tab, which isn't shown in the video. I just left them attached and removed and replaced them as a single connected piece.



Note: when the video says to check for the little white clips and return them to the panel, be sure to remember this step! I forgot this step on one of my rear doors and now there's a clip somewhere inside the door, impossible to recover.

 

When installing the under seat amp, I had difficulty with this little clip. There wasn't enough room to get it into the slot without over-stressing the cables, so I left it unclipped.



Wiring harness attached:

 

I had some trouble with getting enough slack in the subwoofer umbilical. With the seat leaned back I had the wires taut like so:



I routed both sets of wires down the drivers side channel, around the corner, and along the back of the cab:





However I ended up with zero slack to get the power into the sub enclosure. A couple extra inches would've helped (that's what SHE said!).



It's possible O+ may have intended another route (perhaps under the passenger seat), but there weren't any instructions for this part (at least none that were sent to me or that I could find) so this seemed like the most reasonable route. In order to get enough slack I put the drivers seat back into place, slid it into the farthest back position, and pulled the umbilical lines taut once more. This gave me just a few more precious inches, enough to just barely be able to connect the sub.

 

When you take the passenger side rear back panel out and you see this screw and wonder if you need to take it out, the answer is no - you don't. It's only attached to the panel itself.



This is where I ran into my first major frustration of the install. My passenger side sub enclosure didn't slide cleanly into the back panel socket. It sits mostly flush on one corner but sticks out significantly on the other corner:





I pulled the sub in and out several times looking for an obstruction behind it (I've pulled it forward in this photo) - nothing in the way that I can see to keep it from seating properly.

 

I thought perhaps the rear panel itself might be warped (perhaps I didn't seat all the tabs properly?) so I took it out and reinstalled it but got the same result. Then I pulled it out again and tried to seat the sub without installing it in the truck.

As you can see, it appears the enclosure itself is misshapen:

 

After talking to O+ about this, they said it might be due to the tab in the bottom of the rear panel socket:



I dremeled out this tab and it seems to have allowed the enclosure to sit just a little better:



However it still doesn't sit flush enough to allow the seat back to latch properly:



Moreover the enclosure was cracked near the connector, as if it was over-stressed during construction. So I'm not very pleased with the QC around this part.



I'm still waiting on a resolution from O+ on this. For several days I paused my install and walked to work until I had a (very late) epiphany: I could continue the install and just leave that sub out. Duh!
As soon as O+ gets back to me with a solution I will update this thread.

 

No fitment issues on the other sub. It slid into place like a hand into a glove.



Running the wiring to the radio was an interesting process. It turned out to not be as hard as I thought it would be though.

First I ran the power wires, making sure to go over the steering column.




If you hang a work light from this angle you can see the hole you need to work with. I sacrificed a coat hanger to assist in the job.

 

I pulled the power wires through first, followed by the sub gain control wire.



The hole you have to get everything through isn't very large and I found it helpful to arrange the radio connectors in a single file "train" so they come through one at a time.





At some point I decided that I wanted to mount my gain control knob on the left side of my dash, where an extra unused button insert exists. So I fished this one wire back down the hole (has to double back since it's all sheathed up to the radio).

 

I pulled the lower dash off in order to get to the switch panel. See this thread (step 5) to see where the bolts are in order to do this. I don't think it's necessary but it also might help during the fishing process.



Here's where I ran the cable out and attached my gain control knob for now. Eventually I plan to integrate the knob into a blank insert for a more (dare I say) OEM look. Mounting in the glove box would be great too, but again there are no instructions on how to do this. And I suspect it requires cutting of the glove box. While I'm okay with that in the rear panel, I'm not keen on it in the glove box.



Someday I hope to mount it on a blank insert as shown here.

 

Down in the floor insert I had some trouble getting the white clips to close around the wiring harness. My truck had a couple of extra wires running down the channel already. I'm not sure what accessories they run to. Perhaps my center console charging kit or the tailgate lock. Anyway, that combined with an extra power wire in the harness just made it impossible to close neatly into place. I ended up leaving them open and just using cable ties to secure everything together.



Even then when I tried to put the cover back over it wouldn't secure properly because of the white clips sticking up. I ended up having to remove them altogether.



Looks like I wasn't the only one to be frustrated by lack of wiring space however. This conduit was crushed already and not by me! Silly Toyota dealership. Or distributor!

 

Now fishing the power lines over to the passenger side kick panel was probably the single hardest part of the entire install. It would've helped perhaps if I had a decent tool for fishing, but alas I did not. And a coat hanger is too rigid for this section (unless you got the bends exactly right, but even then I'd be worried about the sharp end tearing something up. I ended up using two large (18-inch) cable ties taped back-to-back, giving me a 3-foot long piece of plastic that was rigid enough to push wires with but flexible enough to bend.



When fishing the wires back, you can look down this crack by your A/C vent to see the entry hole. You want the wires going back behind the green thing. That's where the other large bundle of wires crosses behind the dash.



Try as I might, I could not get the wires to appear at the kick panel area. I took the A-pillar and tweeter grill off as well, hoping to get a glimpse of the wires that way. I also took the tray and air filter cover out of my glove box to provide more visibility but that still didn't do it. Finally I decided I had to remove the trim piece just above the glove box. I removed the screw shown above. Then I pulled the trim back. The lower right corner didn't want to budge and I didn't force it. Better to leave it hanging like this than to break something.

 

The goal is to have your power wires follow the large bundle. See my yellow wires in the center, just behind the bundle:



Peekaboo!



It's very useful to have something to grab the wires and help them around the corner.



Guiding them down towards the kick panel area is tough, as it's a bit circuitous. I increased my visibility by putting my worklight down by the kick panel and viewing the wires through the holes in the glove box (from where the tray and air filter cover were removed).



Finally! Hallelujah!

 

When you put the trim back above the glove box, be careful of this little overlap. The trim actually goes behind the clock thing, so it's best to start with this corner.



This is not really hard to figure out, but it's these back two plugs which go into the harness.



Now for another difficult bit - getting the power wires through the firewall. After cutting off the nipple, I used the trusty coat hanger again as a fishing implement. I had to braid my power wires around it and use a shitload of electrical tape. Otherwise the friction of pulling it through the grommet will cause the wires to come off.



It's a very tight squeeze to get both wires through. In fact, my entire grommet separated from the firewall. It took me a while to figure out how to get it back on. You need to apply pressure all around the outside edges, without letting an edge you've pushed down to come back up. It's kind of like putting a plastic lid on a fountain drink, only harder.

 

My next issue was the power wires weren't quite long enough inside the engine bay. However there was plenty of slack in the loomed portion of the harness near the radio, so I simply cut part of that back to give a little more slack on the power wires.




Be sure to leave your zip ties very loose until you've got your conduit running exactly where you want.



I left a little extra slack near the battery to make sure I could remove the fuse cover without any trouble.

 

Finally - thoughts on the audio quality:

Let me preface this by saying I'm not an audiophile, and I'm not used to gauging how systems sound in any meaningful way. However my first thought was CLARITY. No muddy audio whatsoever. I'm very impressed with how clean and distinct everything sounds.

Unfortunately I wasn't getting much bass. I started playing with the gain knob to no avail. It doesn't seem to make any impact whatsoever on the bass levels. The LED lights up, so I don't think it's a bad cable (God, please don't let it be a bad cable!) but turning the knob to its extremes makes absolutely no difference. The bass sounds the same with it unhooked altogether. So I'm not sure what's going on there but I will take it up with O+ when I hear from them about the enclosure.



In the meantime I upped the bass levels via the head unit. I'm not sure what the downside to this approach is versus using the gain control, but nonetheless it gave me an idea of what the subs are capable of.



I must say that I'm quite pleased with the amount of punch I'm getting from the unit. I can't wait to hear it with the second sub in play and proper gain management. I will update the thread when this happens.

Altogether I'm pretty happy with the system. Knowing what I know now I'd pull the trigger again. Happy installations!!

 

Great write up! I’m torn between going with the OEM dual sub package like you did or putting my own system together. Now that you’ve had it for a little while, can you give me an honest opinion on the system and how happy you are with the speakers and output? Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

i have no idea why they have you route power wire through the passenger side. there’s the same grommet on the drives side below brake booster. i routed mine through there.

i had the same issues with the under seat harness. i just cut a slit on the carpet that allowed the harness to have a little more slack

 

Thanks for the write up

 

Great post!!! Very nice write up, sill have not done my second sub install...no time super busy. Will deff use this as install info!!!

Thanks!!!