KSC-SW1 and Infinity 62.7s Installed - Impressions and a Question

OK, so as others have suggested, I upgraded with the Kenwood sub and Infinity 62.7s in the rear doors. For someone with no car audio experience, it was a lot more complicated than others might lead you to believe. I'd say the sub install took me four hours, the rear doors around five. While Sparky's Guide was invaluable, and the help of other users on this forum helped me stave off what would have been certain disaster (I've included detailed instructions on the sub install at the end of this post), there are some important points about this install that are missing from the posted guides, which I will detail below. I will also give my impressions of the upgrade. First, though, a couple of questions:

1. The various instructions for the 62.7 install do not mention the JBL rear door tweeter. Thus, I left them connected. Am I now getting full-range sound through the 62.7, and passively-filtered highs through the door tweeter, and if so, is this a good thing (to have, essentially, doubled tweeters in the rear, if that is in fact what I have). If not, do I now have to pull the door panels off again to disconnect the tweeters?

2. With this configuration, what is are the optimal sound settings for bass, treble, and mids, and for fade (front/rear)

IMPRESSIONS

The sub install is a HUGE improvement. Night and day. Adding the missing bass seems to open up the rest of the system, and make it a joy to listen to. I highly recommend this mod. I am not a head-banger, and I find this sub has more than enough bass for my needs -- I have the power control at half, in fact.

The 62.7s in the rear are a more subtle improvement -- somewhat tighter sound with better "presence" -- indeed I notice the inferiority of the fronts somewhat, although the sound blends well enough that it's not an issue.

In all, I'd say the sub is a definite, and swapping out the rears is a nice bonus.

SPARKY'S GUIDE:

1. If you have the JBL system, and you're following Sparky's Guide, you need to disconnect the door tweeter as well as the window controls before removing the door panel. You may also need to leave that tweeter disconnected when you're done -- I hope this thread will answer that question (and I hope the answer is to re-connect it when you're done -- otherwise I have to pull my door panels off again!)

2. Also regarding Sparky's guide, I found that it was necessary to drill, not only the third hole for the speaker mount, but one of the four holes for mounting the speaker itself (a 1/8 inch bit holds the threads from the provided screws nicely). This was true on both doors. I have no idea how others managed to mount these without this step. Fortunately, it is easy.

3. Use a needle-nose pliers from the front as well as force from the back to remove the pins that stay stuck in the door, or you'll spend a lot of time working on them.

KENWOOD INSTALL

Detailed instructions for Kenwood install (given to me by a PriusChat member who I will not name -- but if you want credit, just let me know!):

The positive and negative power wires go directly to the battery, which is beneath the right rear corner of the cargo comparment.

First, remove the front passenger seat to gain easy access to the JBL amplifier. Remove the four bolts holding the seat rails to the floor, tilt the seat on its side, and carefully lift through the front passenger door. Unsnap and lift the black plastic cover off the amplifier. (NOTE: I didn't take the seat out, and still found I had enough room to work on the amp. But it would be more comfortable to take it out)

The speaker wires and power control wire are routed down the right side of the car under the doorsills. Direction are as follows:

1. Remove the forward cargo compartment floor panel by removing the front tie down rings (10 mm bolts), tilt the rear seats forward, and lift up on the floor panel to unsnap. It will remain connected to the back of the seats by the carpet, so just move it out of the way.

2. Unsnap the right rear plastic doorsill by lifting up on the inner edge. If you can, try not to disconnect the clips from the weather strip - it will avoid extra work when you put it back in place.

3. Unsnap rear part of the right front doorsill. You only have to unsnap the rear part of the doorsill to do step 4.

4. Unsnap and remove the B Pillar interior plastic between the two doors.

Now run your speaker wires and the power control wire forward along the right side of the car:

1. Start by routing them next to the wheel well and threading them through the side plastic next to the rear seat.

2. Then follow the wiring harness that is exposed by the removed doorsills. Looseley tie wrap the speaker/control wires around the wiring harness as you go but don't tighten yet.

3. When you get to the B Pillar lift up the carpet between the pillar and the amplifier, thread the wires underneath and out through the square hole surrounding the rear amplifier mount.

Now connect the wires:

1. The Power Control wire must be soldered to a very small gray wire coming out of the top left corner of the rearmost connector. I stripped about 1/2" of insulation and soldered the Power Control wire without cutting the gray wire itself. Then I carefully wrapped it with electrical tape.

2. The rear speaker wires are on the middle connector. They are red/white and black/yellow pairs. Although soldering might be marginally better, I instead used bullet connectors on the speaker wires. (note: somewhere on Priuschat there is a wiring diagram that gives you + and - for these)

3. Connect the positive and negative power cables to the 12-volt + and - terminals

Now that power, power control and speaker wires are connected, plug in the subwoofer and turn the system on. (On the Kenwood you have to plug in the volume control for the subwoofer to work.) Listen to all speakers in the doors to make sure they are all still working.

If everything is working as advertised then start collecting the excess wiring, starting at the amplifier and moving toward the back. Tighten the previously placed tie wraps and add new ones as needed. Snap the plastic panels back in as you go. The excess wiring should be bundled with tie wraps and coiled in the spare tire compartment. This provides the necessary slack to lift the storage tray out to access to the spare tire.

 

Not sure about the 2001-3 models -- the rest of the speakers in my '03 are so crummy I never considered trying to upgrade -- but what the heck? Might as well go for it.

Anyone out there who can answer my questions?

 

It's in the instructions I posted above. Something about a little gray wire you need to solder it to. I had no trouble identifying it from the instructions in my post.

Once again -- I'd love to hear from somebody about those rear door tweeters!