My Custom Audio Install, 2017 Prius Prime Premium

Hey I'm back with another one of my installs. My 2005 Prius started to have engine problems and I decided it was time for a new car. This is a stock 2017 Prius Prime Premium I bought it new and all I did to it was tint all the windows; rear windows are limo, front driver/passenger are med and front windshield is ceramic light.

I couldn't stand the terrible audio so I finally caved and put a system in. I see many people are having trouble running the wires and honestly it was pretty tough so I decided to share my experience and products I used. I am in no way a professional nor am I saying my way is the right way.

I just wanted to share my DIY home project..... Lets begin....

The only thing I listen to in my car is Bluetooth from my phone. This makes my install a little easier and a little less wiring.

The plan is to have 2 radio systems.
First system is the factory head-unit that will run the 2x 3.5" dash speakers.
Second system will only play one of 2x Bluetooths through the 4x door speakers.

Reason why I chose this route.... I honestly only ever listen to Bluetooth from my phone whether its youtube, podcasts, or MP3s. Second it makes my install a little easier because now I don't have to wire into the factory head-unit to pickup the audio out signal to go into my 3.sixty ((DSP) Digital signal processor).

This also allows me to keep all the stock sounds/beeps and hands free separate from the other system. So just in case I do need to turn on FM to hear weather alerts or news flashes I can. It will just come out of the 2 dash speakers. (which have been upgraded to full range sound and new speakers, we will cover this later)

So this is my car and this is my basic wire layout.

 

System specs:

Rockford Fosgate 3sixty.3 Digital Signal Processor with OEM Integration

Rockford Fosgate - TM1000X5ad (amp) (100 Watts x 4 @ 4-Ohm) speakers + (600 Watts x 1 @ 1-Ohm) sub

Rockford Fosgate - P3D2-12 (sub) (x1 wired @1ohm) (its temp till I can build a box for my (P2D2-8 @1ohm) that I'm going to permanently run with.)

Rockford Fosgate - T1650 (x4 Power 6.5" T1 full-range speaker with a coaxially mounted tweeter 75 watts RMS/150 watts MAX)

Rockford Fosgate - P132 (2x Punch 3.50" 2-way full-range speaker rated at 20 watts RMS)

Metra 82-8148 6" to 6-3/4" Speaker Adapter for Select Toyota/Lexus/Scion 1998-Up Vehicles (works in both front and rear doors)

SMD 12V Volt Meter (SMD-VM-1)

SMD Temperature Meter w/ Programable Fan Output (SMD-TM1)

Fusion MS-BT100 Bluetooth Dongle

KnuKonceptz KAR16SS 16 gauge 112 strand Tinned Oxygen Free Copper Speaker Wire

Rockford Fosgate - RFCB100 100amp breaker 18"inches from battery

KnuKonceptz Kolossus Kandy 4 Gauge Green Power Wire features 2058 Tinned Strands of Pure Oxygen Free Copper

Kolossus Kandy 4 Gauge Black Ground Wire features 2058 Tinned Strands of Pure Oxygen Free Copper

60amp fused power block and solid ground block on amp rack

1'ft 8awg power wire (KnuKonceptz Kolossus Kandy 8 Gauge Green Power Wire features 805 Tinned Strands of Pure Oxygen Free Copper)

8"inch 8awg ground (KnuKonceptz Kolossus Kandy 8 Gauge Black Power Wire features 805 Tinned Strands of Pure Oxygen Free Copper)

 

So lets start with where in the world do you install all this stuff? I decided to put it all under the rear driver side passenger seat. There is a decent amount of empty space under it. Its going to be super tight but I want my car to look stock and have everything out of sight.


The next biggest hurdle that most people are having trouble with it seems like is the battery power cable. This is a lot easier than people are making it out to be. There is a giant rubber grommet under the driver side dash on the firewall right above the gas pedal. To make life easy I just removed my gas pedal which required me to unplug one electrical clip and remove like 3 screws.... super easy. Next I just poked a hole in the grommet with a coat-hanger and fished my 4AWG power cable though the second nipple it has. It almost seems like it was made for more wire to be installed at a later time.


For the interior I used Tesa tape and plastic corrugated wire loom to protect the wire from sharp sheet metal and zip-ties. In the engine compartment under the hood I used fiberglass heat shield insulation sleeving. Here are more pics.


Next is the speaker wire... This was a pain... I used KnuKonceptz KAR16SS 16 gauge 112 strand Tinned Oxygen Free Copper Speaker Wire. It is double insulated and is supposedly marine grade?? Mostly I like it because it's very well made and it's double insulated. This was important to me because I planned on running this under the car....yes I know people are probably are going to flip out and yada blahh blahh blaahh.

There's only like 6 inches of wire out in the elements.... The rest is covered by removable body panels. I also sleeved the wire to give it a little more abrasive resistance. IMO this is plenty of protection.... Its thick double insulated wire, I sleeved it with some plastic sleeving, plus most of it is covered by body panels anyways. If something happens to it I'm going to have a lot bigger problem than a cut speaker wire..... you could get crazy and protect it more with corrugated split loom or even metal loom but to me that is overkill, to each his own, moving on.

Front door speaker wires are impossible to fish though the pillar and through the doors. So I ran the wire from the back seat down the side trim and drilled a hole in the front floor pan. I gave it some paint, a rubber grommet and ran it under the car, behind the wheel well, through the black plastic behind the front doors and through the rubber door wire harness. Here are pics.


Rear doors were kinda a pain but not to bad. The pillars have a big plastic molex plug blocking access to the door grommet. So I drilled 2 holes in the plastic molex and made sure there was enough free space not to drill into the working wires that run my locks and windows. Once you drill through the plug its easy to fish your wire though the doors to make everything look stock.


Speaker instalation;
For the 2 front dash speakers I installed Rockford Fosgate - P132 Punch 3.50" 2-way full-range speaker. These speakers run off the stock wires from the original GPS head-unit. The only modification I did was removed the resistor and hooked the speakers directly to the speaker wires. By bypassing this resistor you will now have a full range signal to your speaker.

These Dash speakers play all the sounds of the original head-unit. The beeps/hands-free calling/GPS voice/AM/FM/Bluetooth EVERYTHING stock that originally came with the car.

unfortunately I don't have any pics of the install other than what the speakers look like.


The 4 Door speakers were installed by drilling out the old factory mounting plates and using Metra 82-8148 6" to 6-3/4" Speaker Adapter in their place. All I did was use stainless steel rivets and riveted the Metra 82-8148 to the doors super easy. I also used Tesa tape and some weather seal to fill gaps and reduce any rattles. The 4 door speakers are wired to the amp under the rear seat using KnuKonceptz KAR16SS 16 gauge wire. This means the 4 door speakers will only play what I feed the amp... which is 2x different Bluetooths atm, (3sixty.3 is the main Bluetooth and the Fusion is the second for passengers/ friends)

the Fusion MS-BT100 Bluetooth Dongle is connected via AUX input so that passengers can connect to my system and I never have to pair and unpaired the 3sixty.3 and deal with all that mess. The Fusion MS-BT100 is really nice because you don't need a password to connect to it and it is reset every time the car is shut off so that next time someone different can connect to it =)


I don't have any pics but later after the install I did pull those gross plastic and tar sheets off the rear doors and added second skin damplifier sound deaden-er to the rear and front doors. It made a huge improvement in sound deadening the doors from outside noises. Here are the pics of the door speaker install.


I guess next would be amp wiring... I don't have the best pics of my amp rack as I built it out of the car and then installed it in one piece. Its not very pretty because I used scrap wood and figured no one will ever see it anyways.... and now here I am showing it to the world lol. Some pics are test fits and some pics are the real deal. The amp rack is glued to the floor with a high rubber content window caulking because the GAS tank is under this seat and you DO NOT WANT TO USE SCREWS!!



Well the power cable is ran down the center of the car and the ground I used was a #10 bolt under the rear seat to the chassis of the car. You can see the ground bolt in one of the pics, its right below the seat-belt close to the rear center console.



Well after the install I found out that the Rockford Fosgate - TM1000X5ad (amp) Runs SUPER HOT 148F degrees under that seat! I Emailed Rockford Fosgate and they said that its normal for that amp as long as it doesn't go into thermal protect.... Well I didn't like that at ALL!! so I installed a cooling system and a volt meter. I used SMD 12V Volt Meter (SMD-VM-1) and SMD Temperature Meter w/ Programmable Fan Output (SMD-TM1). I used double sided 3M tape to mount them in the center console. I didn't want to drill or screw anything in because one day I will sell this car and I don't want holes in the dash or anywhere else.


The SMD Temperature Meter has a prob that attaches to the amp to read the temp. You can program it to whatever temp you want and it will ramp your fans up to 10% and then 3% every 1 degree over the temp you set, up to 100% fan speed.

This is super nice because if your amp gets warm your fans will ramp up vs just turning on at 100% speed and being super loud. 90% of the time my fans run at 10% speed and that's enough to keep may amp cool enough. And at 10% speed you never hear the fans.

I installed 2x 120mm DC PC fans. One on the rear passenger side where the inverter intake grill is and one that blows directly on my amp. here are pics.


This is my old custom made Rockford Fosgate - P3D2-12 sub box from my other post about my 2005 Prius... trying to sell it but still cant find anyone so at the moment I'm using it till I can make a custom box for my Rockford Fosgate 8" P2D2-8 @1ohm sub that I'm planning on running permanently in the car.

 

Well that covers most of my build, I hope it helps someone out there. If you guys have any questions or if I miss typed something let me know and I'll do my best to answer/fix it. Enjoy!

 

No the space is for the inverter if you had a solar roof... I think that option is only available in Japan.

And about the mid hump, to my knowledge there are no wires that I can recall.

 

At the moment I don't have anything to properly meter it because I wonder the same thing. One day when SMD gets their multimeter back in stock, I might have to take the plunge and get their combo pack and test it.

The KnuKonceptz Kolossus Kandy 4 Gauge Power Wire 2058 Tinned Strands of Pure Oxygen Free Copper is rated at max load at 20feet @ 150amps. The 8 Gauge is only rated at 60amps @20feet..... Fosgate recommends a 100amp fuse for this amp. So to be on the safe side I just installed 4awg. It's always better to go a size bigger than to have a subpar power wire that could possibly get hot or worse case melt and short out.

I run a 100A breaker at the battery and I run a 60A at the distribution block at the amp.

And from what I understand about the dc to dc inverter the power technically comes the trans battery. How much total power is step down and converted I dont know. But as long as you have trans battery your engine shouldn't turn on.

From what I have read Max amperage is 100 amps and that is shared between power steering climate control and all the computers in the car. I could be wrong but that's the window I plan on running between.

I'm sure this system will pull as much or more power than the dc/dc inverter can supply but this isn't a SPL system. I surely don't want to blow up my inverter as they cost around $3k or more. Supposedly the inverter is composed of three main parts and each part is replaceable. But I'm not willing to find out how much they are.

The point of this build was to upgrade the poor quality sound of the OEM system. So I'm not pushing the limits of the amp or my inverter. I'm just enjoying a property tuned system with 248 bands of equalization at moderate levels with solid bass and clean mid/ highs.

 

No problem that's why I posted it to help other people out.

The reason no one can run wires to the front doors are because of the (Molex type plugs). They are identical to the rear doors, check out my pics. But the problem with the front doors is there's no access to those (Molex type plugs) like the rear doors. The (Molex type plugs) are so high into the dash the only way to access them would be to remove the entire dash or to remove the doors off the car..... It's just not worth it.

Though if you get adventurous and do remove the doors or dash post it. I would love to see it done.

Btw the front speaker wire is connected in parallel/series with the front dash speakers. And those dash speakers have a built-in crossover/ resistor on them. Not much of a problem if you know what to expect. So just a helpful heads up so you can plan accordingly.

 

I'll try to answer your questions best I can.

1. It is a very tight seal if you poke a small enough hole and not cut the entire nipple off. I used a coat hanger to poke my hole and it was probably to small to be honest for 4AWG. I used a 12inch fiberglass wire fisher, string, and dry spray lube to pull the 4awg though.

2. I posted the 3 best pics I have of the engine bay. It's a really tight area and that's the best I can do with my giant phone.

3. For the grommet on the inside you don't have to remove anything but maybe some floor sound deadening carpet stuff. Definitely no electrical tape. The nipple is right below and on the left side of all the big wires that go through. You can feel it with your pinky finger it's way smaller on the inside than it looks from the outside in the engine compartment. Be sure not to run it with the big wires that are taped, it's the wrong hole.

4. With as tight as my 4awg fits I didn't use any electrical tape, it seals just fine for me. I also live in souther California so water isn't a problem for me. I just sleeved the engine bay side with thermal fiberglass sleeving and for the inside I use corrugated plastic split loom. I also left enough slack in the engine bay to have a drip loop so as not to funnel water into the grommet, that's an important step for any outside wire you run.

Hope that helps and answers all your questions.

 

In the trunk on the driver side. This should be the link for it.

My Custom Audio Install Looking and Functioning 98% with stock JL system | PriusChat