Prius C Aftermarket Stereo

Cheers, divided! Great points. I did consider that, so I ordered some lightweight material and I'm not going to do the whole car. Hopefully what I've got coming will be enough to tame the doors a reasonable amount, there won't be any subs either so I'm hoping for the best. Definitely don't want to add too much weight, but I think this will be alright!

 

Well I popped in the new Clarion head unit today, didn't do the steering wheel controls yet..

What an improvement. The factory head unit was definitely the weakest part of the chain.. The factory speakers are still cheap crap but they sound a million times better with the new head unit.

 

The factory stereo had 2 brackets on it which then attach to the car to keep it in place. Just removed those and put them on the Clarion unit. Perfect. It was easy to get the factory radio out, but FYI, the screws holding the brackets to the factory radio (NOT the 4 holding the brackets to the car) are easily damaged and they are in SUPER TIGHT! I actually had to drill one of them out. Just use a ratchet right from the start. Don't try using a screwdriver or pliers to remove them..

It will look great once I get a piece fabricated to fill in the sides, or a real dash kit.

 

I think it's likely. There's nothing really behind the speaker, except the outer door panel. There is quite a bit of space.

This would be helpful info for everyone to know the exact depth. When I have the door panels off on Thursday to complete my install I will take a measurement and post it.

 

Prius C Aftermarket Stereo - Rear Speakers

OK it is done! I'm no expert on car audio, this was my first install, but it's done and I learned a lot which can hopefully help anyone else looking to replace their factory stereo..

I put some Deflex pads behind the rear speakers and also put some damping on the outer door panels (The hard plastic) Not sure if it makes much of a difference there but I couldn't stick it to the plastic sheet on the actual metal door, and no way was I ripping it apart to replace with dynamat. Not necessary for this install.

There was a surprising amount of water in the doors. On the wires. On the speakers. I didn't like that.. Thankfully I had purchased these baffles to protect my speakers from water.. However, after installing the first one, I quickly learned that they had a serious negative impact on bass response. What I ended up doing was using the outer edge of the baffle (to seal the front) but I cut the back off so the speaker could benefit from the hollow car door. Sound is much better. Still concerned about water but I did leave some of the baffle there.. My suggestion would be to try cutting some smaller holes in the downward facing part before cutting the back off completely like I did.

Depth-wise, the rear door speaker holes are about 2.5" deep measuring from the metal bar to the outer edge. Shame the bar is there, otherwise the door is quite deep. See pic below.

Wiring was a little tricky because none of the wires use traditional positive/negative color coding. What I did was look at each factory speakers connector, and make sure I kept the same phase for each of my speakers (Just by holding the connectors together in the same position and looking at which color wire corresponded to the same wire in the other speakers -- ie in the pic below, both the black and pink would be Negative) and I did a listening test to ensure it was wired correctly.

The doors are easy to get off but a B***H to put back on. I got them all back after fiddling long enough but trying to get the 4 slots for the door handle to line up while getting the top edge in just doesn't make sense.

 

I don't have pics of the front door setup but some interesting tips.

The factory tweeters are glued to this cheap plastic mount, found it difficult to reuse in any way and I wasn't sure if it would line my new tweeter up properly with the opening.

I could have cut the factory tweeter "grille" out of the door panel and put a new one in but I didn't want to be to brave. What I ended up doing was actually supergluing/taping the tweeters to the backside of the door panel right over the opening.

Woofers were similar to the back BUT! The front windows, when in the down position, are right behind the speaker! You only have about 2" of depth in the front, any more and you're going to be in the way of the power window. The factory speaker actually took this into consideration because it came out about 1" on the front side of the door.. So you may be able to rig something up like that if you're considering deeper speakers, but the Alpine's with their mounting ring & the baffle fit just fine on their own.


Wiring is a little confusing on first glance but here's how it works.

There are two wires at the woofer, and four at the tweeter. So there are NO crossovers hidden in the car. It's simply a pass-thru from the tweeter to the woofer. To find the wires coming from the head unit, check the 4 that were on the tweeter. 2 of them (opposite colors) are carrying your full range signal. I connected that to the back of my woofer, and then the tweeter crossovers connect there as well. I zip tied the crossover to the wiring for the power window controls. It was not in the way of the door panel then, and I can actually see the crossovers if I pop off the power window control panels.

In both the back and front I had to drill holes for the new speakers to mount properly and fit (centering the bracket over the hole best I could.) Just be careful you don't hit anything behind while drilling (roll the windows UP!)

Not much room on the front doors for dampening material, and I didn't bother with the deflex pads either becuase of the window (though I think you could fit them in anyway.)

 

The end result sounds awesome. There's no rattling at this volume.

I wouldn't mind an amp to give the speakers some more juice. They can take a LOT more! The Clarion still gets them to night club levels. I guess I am being greedy! This is plenty of power, and I don't think I will add an amp or a sub even though I would like to hit the lower notes better!

Really glad I did the upgrade, and on my own. I didn't trust the local shop. They told me that I couldn't even put an aftermarket head unit in this car.

If you are looking for a quick, cost effective way to improve your Prius C sound system, go for a head unit upgrade first. When I did that it greatly improved the sound of my system even with the factory speakers. Of course you'll have the issue of no dash kit.

I think I've covered everything. I'm waiting on an antenna adapter to come in, then I will install it and also the SWI-JACK for steering wheel controls which should be fun. Then I will tackle the Viper SmartStart system.

Feel free to ask any questions, I'll help the best I can! And thanks to everyone who has already posted on the forum about this stuff, helped me a great amount when planning the install.