Kenwood KSC SW11 Underseat Sub - Wiring in Car?

[Roadster150]

I've one of these arriving shortly and intend to fit it either in the under dash spot (if my back'll take it), in the passenger footwell or behind the passenger seat.

Need a bit of advice about routing the wire to the battery, which pathways are people taking? The same with the ground.

Help!

Thanks,
David

[Justin.D]

Ground can be any clean unpainted bit of bodywork. There's a few bolts behind the headunit which will work. Power, can come straight from battery through the grommet behind the battery behind the passenger side cubby. Next to the ecu if it helps

I'll look out a guide in the morning to give a few more details. I'll also find which ground point I used

[Roadster150]

Cheers, thanks Justin.

[Justin.D]

OK, more details on my wiring

I removed the glovebox to help with routing the wiring as mine is mounted under the steering wheel (InPhase USW10). Behind the glovebox there is a bar running from left to right with a couple of tabs in various places. I used one of these tabs to bolt the ground to. No pics, but will be really obvious when the glovebox is out

Main power I took straight from the battery. Remove the cubby lid (3 bolts) behind the passenger seat. Remove the cubby (Couple of clips and bolts, can't remember exactly) and you'll see the ECU. Also you should see the main cable grommet from the engine compartment. Small hole with a stanley knife (cut away from the main wiring) to pass the power cable through - seal this with silicon or similar after. Make sure you have a fuse as close to the battery as possible on this cable if connecting this way

The amped sub will be permanently powered if doing it this way. I'm assuming you will connect the blue wire from the headunit to the blue wire on the sub for remote switch on?

[shnazzle]

Not much for me to add

All I would advise is;
- put soft top up to remove the bins, the folded roof gets in the way, then take it down again for light and ease of access
- open the driver's side bin door to get the bin out of the passenger side
- don't over tighten the bin door bolts. They sheer really easily. Ask me how I know.
- if possible, crimp a more solid eyelet onto the battery end of the power wire. The one you get is a bit small and flimsy. Mine kept making a bad connection until @mulaz crimped a nice big one on for me
- set the gain on the sub before you mount it. So, wire it up, put on a good song with a good bass. Set the low pass filter on your radio (if possible) to about 80-100hz and volume to high. Then raise the gain on the sub dial until it distorts and bring it back down a notch. Then you can mount the sub without worrying about having to access that again (just realised you can ignore this if your gain dial is on the remote. Was thinking my usw10)

[Call the midlife!]

I didn't take the bins out to do mine, just the end panel, gives enough access to get to the grommet etc and feed the cable round and along the loom under the passenger sill cover.
When you take the driver's seat out so you can lay on the floor with your head up under the steering column make sure you put some padding down to lay on.


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[shnazzle]

I didn't take the bins out to do mine, just the end panel, gives enough access to get to the grommet etc and feed the cable round and along the loom under the passenger sill cover.
When you take the driver's seat out so you can lay on the floor with your head up under the steering column make sure you put some padding down to lay on.


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That's interesting. Never considered that would give enough access!
Take his advice Roadster. Saves a lot of effort and bolts.

[Call the midlife!]

To be fair it's fiddly so decide for yourself once you start, I have one of those long, flexible claw tools and used that to pull the cables.
Feed it through in reverse in the direction you want the cable fed and then grip and pull, if you get what I mean?


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[Topdownman]

An ikea poang seat cover makes a handy thing to lie on!

One thing I found very handy was one of those rubbery  covered luggage tie things (a bit like this)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nite-Ize-Gear-Ties-Reusable/dp/B00GV88NWC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1530439757&sr=8-4&keywords=twist+ties+luggage

It was very hard to position the heavy sub, hold it in place with one hand and fix with the other, tying this around the sub allowed me to hold it in the approximate place and use 2 hands.

Once I fired up the sub I had a small vibration rattle which I fixed by wrapping the tie around the sub and just leaving it there!

This remains one of my least favourite jobs so good luck!

[ManInDandism]

I recently installed a Pioneer TS-WX130DA sub which is similar to the Kenwood unit you are proposing (wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the internal electronics is identical as has been documented with Pioneer/Kenwood but that's another topic).  Had hoped that it would fit under the passenger seat but my Cornflake box-sized prototype  showed that it was not going to fit.   

Not keen of the under dash options from a safety perspective (is heavy and what happens in a collision), so I have installed mine in the rear bin behind the passenger seat with the bin lid still in situ.  Other car is an E-Class Mercedes Estate which has a factory sub beneath the luggage area shaped to fit around the spare wheel, i.e a fair distance from the listening position with covers and rows of seats, so figured sound quality won't be unduly compromised when in this case is no distance away behind a flimsy plastic door.

To get power from the battery I removed the luggage bin on that side and passed the power wire through the rubber grommet in the firewall on that side of the car.   For earth I have used the central screw on the rear of the same bin as you will find that screws in to what is part of the car's bodywork.  I've then got the third (blue) wire connected to 'System Remote' (in my head would be more aptly named 'Remote System' as a better description) so sub switches on with head unit.  I've run this through the central console, routing it under the carpet at the storage bin end, underneath the handbrake and then under the carpet below the ashtray - so easier if have that removed as well.  I've also got the RCA leads (1.5m long so not too much excess) from sub to head unit following this same path.

I've used two strips of heavy duty velcro to keep it in place and as it's only 7 cm deep (28cm x 20 cm are the other dimensions) , storage is not all that compromised and you can put stuff on top of it.  Comes with a wired remote with a gain and frequency cutoff adjustment - wire for this is flat, so again, fits through the gap between the two storage bin lids

Difference between sub and no sub is night and day, though do find that need to adjust levels by source, and as I still use an ipod. even by album.

Might also say that, had I looked to install the sub at the front of the car, I would maybe have looked at  a different option for power (and  earth) as seemed more appropriate to then use something like a piggyback fuse as opposed to running a longer wire back and through the car.  Also reams of wire. so you have to cut a bit off and has an inline fuse holder which is meant to be as near to the car battery as possible.  This is not going to fit through the firewall , so you need to cut the wire and re-join in any event.         

[Justin.D]

This remains one of my least favourite jobs so good luck!

Agreed, but once it's done it make a hellofa difference. Frees up the mids to do just the mids. Even with the roof down the sound difference is night and day. With the roof up it booms away, hardtop on it's pretty hard hitting bass for the size of the sub. I guess the space under the steering wheel acts as a kind of enclosure

[Roadster150]

Thanks for all the advice everyone.

After a few delays with the order, it's in set up and running!

Biggest problem was hiding / keeping the wiring runs  Now to play and tweak...

Pics to follow.

David