fitting Car HIFI to '02 TDCI Focus

I have upgraded the head unit and front speakers in my '02 Focus to some JBL direct replacements and am rather pleased with the results. The next job is to to run a 60Amp cable through the bulk head to the boot for my powered subwoofer. Has any one done this before on a Focus and if so where is the best place to pass the wire though? Will I need to make a new hole ?

Can any one recomend a decent head unit mounting adapter, since the one I have got has literally fallen to pieces.

Simon

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mr p
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I did a complete install on my 2000 focus zetec, when i owned the car! The factory speakers are reasonably mediocre. If you have the 4000 or 5000 HU this is where the real crap comes from. You would not believe how rubbish these are!! Even a £50 HU will improve matters. Details as follows:

Firstly, do NOT attempt to make a new hole through the bulkhead!!!! They are double skinned and very very hard to get at, not least you may drill through some cables.

If you open the passenger door and look in the shut, there is a large black grommet which passes into the car to the left of the glovebox - punture the grommet with a knife, drop the lid down and use some stiff wire to fish through, and vertically down behind the kick panel (which you will need to remove) and thence I ran the power cable under the sill carpet to the boot where I mounted my amp in the rear seat back. you could mount one under the seat if you like! If you do mount it in the boot- remove the carpet and no-nails a piece of 1/4" ply to the seat back. You can then screw through into the wood. Do not screw through the metal of the seat frame into the foam- its not very thick and you risk poking the back of any passenger.

To get the power cable to the battery, remove the pollen filter cover and run the power cable under the bonnet hinge, through into the pollen filter box, then out again with the factory loom, then down the inner wing to the battery box. I mounted the 60A fuse block inside the battery case and brought the cable up through the bottom into it. Completely stealth. Cable tie it all and check the bonnet hinge doesnt rub the cable- you will see where it needs to run better than me trying to explain.

I ran the signal cables down the drivers side under the trim covers. They pop off with careful levering - some will come off with the sharp metal barbs attached- these need to go back into the sills before you snap the covers back on.

The speaker wires I ran with the power cable and remote on the passenger side.

The earth needs to be local, and convieniently the seat belt buckle bolts are good for this.

I made up a speaker loom the right length to go front-back with a ISO connector spliced in either end of the loom so I didnt cut the car's wiring. I looped through the HU's rear channels, and passed the fronts through the amp. Remember to add a remote wire to turn the amp on!

You really need to amp the front speakers with somewhere in the region of

50-75w+ rms with a good amp. I used a blaupunkt 4x75w amp, as my install was blaupunkt right through. Silver autoleads facia adapter with the filler plate at the top. 'Borrow' the Ford HU's locating plastic thingy onto your new HU so the rear of it is supported firmly.

I found best results were gained with the x-over set at about 100hz high pass. I ran Infinity Kappa 5x7' components in the front doors. Factory rears. Run the rears at about 25% as set by the fader on the headunit.

I had a 10" sealed sub in the boot run off the same amp- remaining 2 rear channels bridged, low pass set at about 120hz. (if you plan to do this, buy the right spec of amp to allow you to do it)

Set up the system as follows: Set the EQ to flat, and fader 100% to front channels. If you employ a sub, leave this out til you have set up the front end. Set the HU to about 75% volume then bring up the amp gain til it just starts to clip. You will need the engine running for this so the amp sees the full 14.4V.

Then bring up the gain on the sub to balance out the front end. Then dial in your prefered EQ and loudness, and bring up the rears on the fader to create some fill.

Other thing is to carefully observe polarity right through. If the phase is out on one speaker it can make it sound really weird!

Hope this helps!!

Tim..

Reply to
Tim..

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Thanks for the tips ! I have an Apline head unit which I suspect will be powerful enough once the Powered sub is installed. With out the sub. the bass is acceptable but not great. The head unit has programmable crossover points for front and rear and a dedicated sub output. The should mean that I can send all the bass to the sub and tune the fronts to use the head units available power more towards the mid and high range The JBL speakers are very good.. A lovely punchy sound with great tweeters and they are a direct slot in. My head unit also lets me apply time delays to 6 individual channels so that in theory at least the bass in synchronized at the drivers seat.. Quite pleased so far, the last time I added new speakers to a car they sounded /worse/ than the originals ! I have a couple of pairs of the JBL`s for sale if any one is interested, I will be putting them on ebay at some point.

Si

Reply to
mr p

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