Novice installation guide of ********* 10" sub and Rockford Fosgate Amp

This is my novice attempt at installing an aftermarket subwoofer and amplifier into the 2009 Tacoma standard stock stereo. I have very little experience doing these kind of stuffs so this is by no means a professional job. It's just to show if a novice like me can do it in a few hours, then anyone can do it also.

Note: all pictures were taken with an iPhone so they are not great.

I purchased a ********* Subwoofer enclosure 10" plus a Rockford Fosgate Prime R150-2 amplifier. I also bought an amp wiring kit and a Scosche line out converter (LOC).

First up is installing the ********* subwoofer. This is probably the hardest part. You have to remove the plastic panel behind the driver side rear seat. And also you have to remove driver side rear seat in order to fit the subwoofer box into it's spot. Then you have to pry out three brackets (pictured below) that was welded into the truck back panel. Once all that is done, you can place the subwoofer behind the rear seat.



It was a b*tch to pry these suckers out.



The subwoofer sits too close to the back seat when it is folded down, even with the plastic removed from the back seat.



Closer look at the tight spacing.



But when the seat is upright, there's plenty of space inbetween.



In my opinion, the TacoTune subwoofer is too thick and the speaker driver actually rubs against the rear seat if the seat is foldeded down. So you can't really fold the seat all the way down, you can fold it down about 45 degrees and is fine. For this reason, you have remove the plastic on the back of the rear seat also. When the seat is in normal position, it is fine and it doesn't touch the speaker driver at all.



Back panel of the rear seat that was removed. I might cut the part that is in the way of the sub and later put this panel back in the seat. For now I'm keeping it off.

Next is the amplifier installation. I decided to mount it on the other side of the rear seat. This is pretty straight forward installation. Run the subwoofer speaker wires over to the amp and connect it in bridge mode as it is labeled on the amp, which is to the outer screws of the right and left channels. You can see where I connected the ground wire to the bolt on the back panel of the truck.





Run the remote wire (Blue) and the RCA cables (Dark Spiral Grey) from the amp to the stereo unit. I decided to run the wires on the passenger side of the tacoma, but you can run it on the right side if you want. Once you reach the front of the truck, run the wires behind the glove box and up through an opening to behind the stereo unit.



Picture of the wire connections.



I ran the wires along the side rails on the passenger side. This is the rear door.



This is the front passenger door.



The wires going nbetween the corner plastic panel.



And then behind the gloce compartment.

Next is run the red power (B+) wire from the battery to the amp's. There's a hole you can run through to reach from the engine to the interior behind the glove box. Then continue running it to the Amp.



Screw to the positive terminal of the battery.



Tie it along the edge of the hood.



Then down through an existing hole where the rubber plug is located.



Then through the firewall behind the glove box on the other side. And then run it along the side rails of the doors to the amp's power (B+) input.

Now you need to remove the stereo unit. Pry open from bottom temperature control panel. And then remove the bolts. After that, the whole head unit dash should be able to be pulled out. You should see the left harness (driver side) connected to the stereo unit. Remove it and locate all the wire colors grey, purple, pink, light green, and blue. Those are wires you need to tap into to connect amp and LOC.









Using these pastic wire tapping thing (I don't know what they are actually called , but here's what they look like:



You need to cut four strips of speakers wires about 8 inches each, they are for connecting (tapping) from the stock harness to the Scosche LOC. Just insert the wires into the wire tapping thing and press with a plier. I'm tapping just the front left and right speakers. So thats four wires plus the remote wire, so a total of five wires to tap into.





Here is where the speaker wires from the harness is connected to the LOC.



Here's how I tapped into the harness wires.



Just press the metal teeth in with a plier.

Connect the other end of the speaker wires to the LOC, keep in mind to connect Front Left +/- and Front Right +/- to the corresponding inputs on the Scosche LOC. Then connect the remote wire to the harness's thin grey wire. And lastly, connect the RCA cables to the Scosche LOC's Front Left and Right output.



Lastly, mount the amp by screwing it to the plastic behind the rear seat. Tidy all wires with plastic ties. And put back the stock unit into the dash. I hid the LOC to the right of the stock unit.



Play with the gain and amp settings while doing sound test to make sure it sounds good to your ears. That's it.

Oh who knows what is this next to the glove box?:

 

that thing is a shock absorber of some sort (not sure of the exact name). That top hole should connect up in the glove box. This keeps the box from just dropping really fast when you open it.

 

Great write up. Really good info.

 

With the shock absorber, you actually use the bottom hole. The tab it connects to is poorly designed and it's probably going to fail me in the future. I wish they took a look at an Accord's glove box and copied that idea... oh well.


One thing on the writeup... where's your fuse? You need one close up near the battery!

 

Thanks. I hope it helps people who want to add a little bass to their stock sound system and to do it themselves.

Definitely not great design. It must've fell out because I don't remember ever disconnecting that when I removed the glove box.

The fuse is that little black rectangle fuse holder thing on the battery picture. It came with the Amp Kit seen here:

 

Oh good, I didn't see the fuse the first time around and thought you forgot it - I just wanted to make sure you were safe!

 

My understanding is that you don't want to run the rca's a power cable along the same side of the truck. Doing so can introduce some unwanted noise into your system.

-e

 

myth....


Newer cabling is very good at keeping things isolated. Getting a solid ground for all your electronic equipment is critical for noise reductions.


Only other input I have for the OP is to use better connectors for all your wiring connections (it's just a reliability thing). Other than that, you did a nice job even though it was your first time.

 

I don't think it's total myth. I think in certain setups, it could be a factor. During the wiring process, I thought about running power and speaker wires on separate sides, but considering it's only delivering a low pass to the sub, there should'nt be any audible interference noises.

What connectors do you recommend? And it wasn't my first time installing aftermarket components, I've done installations on a few cars before. But I still consider myself a novice since I'm no expert at doing these things. For example, the first time before I knew what common ground was, I thought it was magic that sound was traveling through one wire from the head unit to the speakers.

 

Too late! Mine failed already! I took it back to the dealer to get re-installed then when I installed my deck this weekend, that's right, it popped off again, it will require a new section of a permenant type of mount to fix it. Very poor design...

As for this thread! AWESOME job with the photos and description. This helps not only folks who are doing this exact install but also those who will just tear into their truck for other installs. These pics are worth a thousand words when it comes to the question of "where should I run this cable?" or "where can I hide this small box?"

Thanks for taking the time to post this, it will serve as a great reference point for newbie installers (like myself)!

Rob

 

.

 

you can also use bullet terminals, these guys, or butt connectors

 

Well if you run it on the same side of the vehicles, chances are they are the cables are right next to each other.

Good point. I actually do have those types of terminal connectors. I'll use them to connect all the wires to the AMP. As for the splices, I think that is my only option for now. I don't think I want to mess around with a soldering iron. Besides, I plan to replace the stock unit with an after market later on, so the aftermarket one will likely have subwoofer outputs so no need to splice anything then. I might extend this guide when I get to that point.

 

tag

 

Great write up for everyone!

Once you get some involved listening done with familiar music and since your using a LOC with the stock radio, can you provide comment on whether or not the bass levels actively adjust to reduce bass at high volume levels? If it does, how severe would you say the reduction in bass?

 

Great write-up, good job on the install though I would make a few suggestions....

1. SOLDER your connections. Seriously, to me, it's like the worst thing you can do to your car stereo. Those blue quick splices you used are the biggest pet-peeve to me.

2. I can't tell from the photo, but I don't like the looks of your ground - it looks like you used a bolt that holds the plastic in place.... not good. Run it down to a bolt that goes straight to metal, and sand any paint off that area.

3. As for running RCA's and power next to each other, in my past experiences as an installer, any induced noise was typically from one of 2 things - either really shitty quality RCAs, or a differential in ground between the HU and the amp. I can't tell you how many times I could get rid of noise by either replacing the RCAs (and doing my best to NOT run the RCAs near some sort of a ECU or other computer module) or running a "source ground", a wire bolted to the chassis of the HU tied to the ground wire of the HU, and then ran back and connected to the ground terminal of the amp.

 

Sub

 

I am about to try this in my 06 and I really needed this! Have any tips not included in the thread?

 

Did you have any problems with the amp overheating in that back storage compartment?
and on the LOC, i want to tap into the rear speaker wires. Does anyone know what color the lead are? I have a 2015 double cab.

Thanks Guys!