Tpp4's No Nonsense Guide to Kicker Key T-Harness (16-19)

Yes, your layout is correct

Your wiring should be long enough to put behind/below head unit.
When doing your power and ground wires, make sure they are long enough that you can pull the amp out and access the dip switches without needing to disconnect everything

 

I tuck mine behind/under the headunit with no problem. Like Destin said, give yourself some slack on the power and ground wires inside the headunit cavity so you have wiggle room to access the kicker key to adjust gains and dip switches. When you run your auto config, turn stereo tremble, base, mid eqs to flat and adjust gains to where you can just barely hear the white noise coming through the speakers. You will need to download a pink noise audio file from kickers site, turn volume up pretty high and place mic on top of driver seat headrest. Press button to start the test and close door. Should hear happy beeping noises when it's done. If not, you may need to run the test in a quieter place. I drove to an abandon park with no traffic to get the silence I needed to run the config

 

@destin_meeks and @Integerdy, thank you both for replying so quickly. Before I start soldering, I gotta run to Harbor Freight to get some heat shrink as I don’t any of the size(s) I need for this job.

 

I didn't solder, I just use butt connectors, electrical tape, and Tessa tape. But mainly because I had no idea what I was doing and just kind of winged it based on posts and videos I consumed leading up to my install.

Remember, 8 individual color connections per side of the key/harness. That's the stupid mistake I made that wasn't obvious to me. Gray to gray, gray/black to gray/black, white to white, white/black to white/black, green to green, green black to green black, purple to purple, purple black to purple black. 16 total connections

 

Earlier in the week, I bought and installed the plug and play Kicker speaker bundle from Trail Grid Pro. No issues with that.
I soldered and heat shrunk all 16 speaker connections soldered today. If I get time, I’m going to run power and ground tomorrow.
@Integerdy, which firewall grommet did you use to run the power wire through? Also, I read where you grounded the amp behind the right side kick panel. Do you know if there is a grounding point behind the radio?

 

I'm sure there is one behind the radio, but I didn't take alot of time looking around. I already have my remote start grounded at the driver side foot panel, so I opted for the passenger side for the kicker key. It's completely hidden/covered.

I used the firewall grommet right behind the battery, next to driver side left foot. Cut a little slit inside the cab and pushed the power and ground wires through from the battery to the inside of the cab. I have a 10A maxi fuse between battery and firewall in the engine compartment. Tucked everything high and tight, completely hidden

The biggest bitch was routing the microphone from the key (under head unit) into the glove box. You don't have to keep it plugged in, but I opted to incase I ever want to retune it or turn off the auto eq settings

 

I didn’t get a chance to work on it today.

I’ll most likely run the ground to the driver’s kick panel if there isn’t a suitable ground behind the headunit.

 

What am I missing here....
matched all the colored wires up. Soldered and shrink wrapped.
Blue wire capped separately and wrapped outside the other wires in a second layer of loom type wrap.
Scoshe amp kit fused power from battery to key double +.
scoshe amp kit ground to key double ground, grounded to chasis behind radio sandwhiched between 2 washers and threaded into frame.
All dips up except first. Gains all the way down.
Radio comes on but no sound. Power light on the amp does not come on.

Going to move the ground.
Did I get a dead key??

help...

 

Removed ground pic from last post. Moved ground as pictured. Still nothing.


Unplugged key and put back to factory and everything works as before.

Dead amp?

 

Did you put the fuse in? I used to forget the fuse ALL the time

 

It's in. Seated properly and not burned. I checked 3 times!

 

Do you have a multi meter?
Also, perhaps a spare small piece of wire or a paper clip?

 

Both.
Open source voltage at clip is correct haven't back probed while connected.
What pins to check key resistance to see if it's fried?

 

If you’ve got power on your hot, set the first dip switch to 12v and put a piece of wire down in your hot connection and then into your blue remote wire. This will manually turn the amp on. I might do this with the truck OFF and the input side disconnected. If the amp still doesn’t come on, you’ve probably got a bad amp

 

Thanks. Will dig the blue wire out and try

 

Finally ran it down.

But now I can't get happy tones. Tried it 5 times with eq at mid and gains all the way down with different volume levels. No joy.

Also the rear speakers sound exactly the same. Effectively zero volume. Shouldn't the key be sending 50 watts to each speaker effectively making them sound normal volume?

This is why I've never done car audio before. Self fulfilling prophecy. This is going to suck, lo and behold.

 

What was the problem that you weren’t getting sound?

Try turning the volume to 43 and turn the treble, mid, and bass on the headunit the whole way down. Sound levelizer off. Fader and balance both centered.

 

You don’t want to turn any of the eq down. Leave them all in the middle. Turning them all down is the equivalent of just turning down the volume.

@SIK99Tacoma most people say they had to turn the volume louder than they expected for the tuning, and your truck has to be in a QUIET spot. Engine off.

 

@destin_meeks, thank you for correcting me! I set up my key with all 3 eqs turned the whole way down. I’m going to have to set it up again using the middle settings.

 

You’re definitely not the only person to have that train of thought!

turning bass and mid and treble all to -5 is basically the same as turning the volume down by 5 (with some nuance)