OK. I'm going to skip the head unit install because i didn't have to do any real customization to get it in and setup. It's a 1din so I needed a 1.5 to 1 din dash kit. I got the metra 99-4000. This sets the unit up a bit off the bottom so it's not centered. The head unit will not fit if it is centered, at least 1 din ones. You also need to get the antenna adaptor and your car wiring harness. If you are replacing all the speakers and wiring them all to an external amp or two, then you can skip wiring up all the live speaker leads.
Now that step one is over with. On to the speaker installations. I did not get pictures of everything because i am very tight for time and forgot. Below is a picture of the rear passenger wheel well from within the trunk. Spare tire removed and i also removed the monsoon amp. You can see my wires already run but this is where you should start if this is where your amp is going to be placed. There is plenty of room behind the spare tire for a large amp. I chose the SSL Evolution 4 channel 2000watt amp and 1.5 farad cap.
As i ran my wires i removed all the old speaker wires. You should keep 1 however so you can use it as your remote turn on wire. You wont be able to snake any wires through the conduit as GM taped everything together, so have some fun and take your time. It's going to be a while as you make your way forward.
Just as a note, the rear 2 4"ers are 4ohm. You can keep them if they still sound ok and blow them out over time if you want. They get fairly loud. Also, there are secondary install mounts next to each 4 incher. I plan on using the one on the passenger side as a fan mount. This will help circulate air around the amp and cap. My 4"ers will be 100+watt each rms two way speakers. I haven't pinned them down exactly yet because onlinecarstereo sucks and i'm waiting to cancel the backorder before buying the replacement in case they ship something beforehand.
Now below we pop off the passenger sail panel. The hardest part is getting the shirt hanger off without damaging it. You dont need to remove this panel to install the speakers but you will need to remove it to route wires and remove all the old ones.
I re-used the conduit to route the antenna and power cable. You see the RCA cables for the sub channel and rear channel from the head unit here too. At the left is one of my 300watt rms 6.5" subs Lanzar VW64. The other side is done by removing the grill and routing the speaker wires back through the trunk area.
I did not re-use the flat conduit along the bottom door rail. It's too much of a pain in the ass to deal with, so i routed my wires on top of it but under the seat belt connector.
This takes us to the dash. The power cable is then routed through the opening behind the PCM through the firewall. You will want to unscrew the pcm and move it slightly aside (accessed through the hood by the corner close to the windshield). This gives you enough room to get your hand down there to hold the gasket in place. You'll want to use a screw driver to poke a hole through it from within the car, as the center hole is far too small. Once you poke it through you can pull it while holding the gasket until you have enough to reach the battery and then reseat the gasket. If you have a front amp too, now is the easiest time to route it's power wire through as well. I did not due to time constraints, but the same method applies. Re-attach the pcm.
With the power cable taken care of, the RCA cables can be finished by routing them through the bottom of the dash and up into the head unit area. You should remove as much of the speaker wires as you can along the way (they're in that damn conduit again).
Attach the rear and sub channels and go ahead and attach the front channels and route that down the same way through the bottom of the dash but leave all the excess down by the floor. Somewhere up front the front amp will be installed. At this point you can re-install your head unit.
The hardest part is about to come . The front speakers. They consist of a woofer and a tweeter with the tweeter mounted on it. I chose some conservative speakers for the front, since i wasn't sure what kind of amp i'd be running up front at the time (I've since chosen the Lanzar MNX250). My front speakers are Soundstream SC-6T's which are component 6.5" 80watt rms separate woofer and tweeters with external crossovers. The door must be taken off to install the front speakers, so I suggest rolling the window down and having a buddy to help deal with the whole removing of the inner door. The driver door is easier than the passenger so i suggest to start with that.
Installing the speaker is easy. Cut the speaker wire's connector off so you can pull it all through the conduit and then cut it, but leave 1. Take your speaker wire for the new speaker and route it through the door's conduit by taping your new wire to the old one. After removing some damn sticky electrical tape it should come easy. Now once under the steering wheel you can decide how you want to wire up and attach any crossovers you have. Otherwise route your speaker wire across the underside of the dash and out the passenger side where the front RCA cable is waiting. If you have a tweeter, you will probably need to cut a hole somewhere to mount it. The correct hole saw will obviously be the easiest route. I plan on mounting mine either by the hood release or right on the bottom of the dash cover.
The passenger door is much more of a pain in the ass as it's much more taped up prior to getting out the door. You will want to remove the plastic frame mount the speaker attaches to in order to get at the wires. The speaker wires attach to a plug on the inside of the car that you had to come across when you removed all the speaker wires that came up from the rear. Cut this connector off and choose a wire to use to pull through, and take all the rest out. This one is tighter fitting so you may want to save 2 in case you pull too hard and lose the new speaker wire. Once through though, mirror what you did on the driver side as far as crossover mounting and tweeters.... leave the excess speaker wire down by the other front and rca cable..
Mounting the amp to the underside of the dash is not a bad idea if you trust your passengers not to kick the crap out of it. Under the seat is another place you could mount it, but you would have to go through the floor (gotta seal the screw holes from below). There are drawbacks to both, and pros. (wires easier to hide under the dash, less chance of being molested under the seat)...but you'll also be constrained by the size. Anyway, at this point, it should just be a matter of hooking up the rca cables and speaker wires to your amps and caps (if you have them) and turning the whole thing on and tuning it.
I wanted a stealthy setup with all the amps and such being completely hidden and the speakers taking up the stock positions (the tweeters will be mounted out of sight). Your setups will obviously differ and dedicated sub boxes will change things as well.
Wiring lengths:
Power wire to rear: About 17ft.
Power wire to front: Between 5 and 8 ft depending on where you mount the amp.
Always use the shortest possible power and ground cable. (you may want to beef up the battery's ground cable with a parallel one.
RCA cables to rear: About 20 ft. A bit more is better than a bit less. You'll need 2 sets if your head unit supports it.
RCA cables to front: about 8 is all that's needed.
Speaker wire: 50ft is more than enough to wire every speaker in the car.
I'm not going to get into wire thickness. Everyone has their opinion of what is needed vs what is preferred and what the drawbacks to those choices are. Whatever, get what you want. There are obviously minimum sizes and if you dont know what those are for current draws your system will see then get a kit. Fires suck. But just keep in mind, the same bs with Monster cables for AV equipment exists in the car audio world too.
new audio system
