[Friscorays]

Several threads here have discussed addition of a powered subwoofer to the Stelvio audio system including:

Adding powered sub to base system:)

Hey guys/gals,new here. I recently purchased a 2018 Stelvio Ti sport and was wanting to add a powered sub to enhance the base stereo system. I joined this forum hoping that I could find where someone has already gone through the process & as well had best place to tap/wire color details...

www.stelvioforum.com

Wiring Diagram for additional Sub with Harmon Kardon System?

Hey guys, ive done some searching but still a little confused.. I have the upgraded Harmon Kardon system but would like to add an additional subwoofer in my trunk.. Does anyone have a link or file of the correct wiring diagram to tap into the signals? Im assuming ill be using the factory Sub...

www.stelvioforum.com

Replacement Speakers? Anyone?

In one of the sub woofer discussions, I mentioned the possibility of replacing the rear woofer in the left quarter panel: has anyone had any success (better quality sound) just changing out existing speakers for something other-market, without changing the actual electronics? If so, got an...

www.stelvioforum.com

I thought this might be a fun and beneficial project. The Kicker HS8 hideaway is one popular option. In looking at that, I found that Kicker released a somewhat updated version, the HS10, earlier in 2020. Hideaway HS10 Powered Subwoofer | KICKER®

The main benefits of the HS10 seem to be 10 inch subwoofer, 180 watt amplifier and electronics negating potential need for LOC / line output converter while the HS8 has an 8 inch sub, 150 watts and may require LOC.

The main downside of the HS10 is slightly larger size: 14 1/2 x 9 7/8 x 3 3/8 inches compared to 14 1/4 x 9 3/8 x 3 1/4 inches for the HS8. Most people are electing to install these in the foam insert located underneath the removable cargo / trunk floor. Specifically, the cubby behind and to the left of the cutout for the battery is typically used. This cubby is plenty long and deep for both options so the main dimension that matter is the 9 7/8 width which will require trimming away more foam. However, the HS10 should still be quite workable so I've decided to give it a try in my wife's Stelvio; which has the Harman Kardon audio system.

The first task to tackle will be installing the powered sub in the insert, which will require carefully trimming out some foam.

 

[Friscorays]

The first task is to trim out excess foam from chosen location in order to fit the powered subwoofer. To make trimming out the foam substantially easier, it is best to remove the entire foam insert from the car. This is quite easy.

The large carpeted center section in the cargo area floor simply lifts out.

My wife's Stelvio has cargo rails installed. To remove those, simply undo the 5 torx bolts that holds each cargo rail in place and lift the rails out (picture pre insert removal).

The front of the foam section to be removed is secured to the back of the rear seats by velcro attached to a small carpeted section along the length of the insert. To undo this, lower the rear seats and separate the velcro from itself.

After that the foam insert can be lifted out The rear of the large foam piece slides under a lip in the area of the rear bumper so the foam piece is removed by lifting it up towards its front and then pulling / pushing it toward the front of the car until it is free.

The best place to mount the powered sub is probably the one that everyone else seems to have used: the cubby in front of and to the left of the oval opening that allows access to car battery.

In order to fit the HS10, I trimmed the foam along the back of the opening to the point that it was flush with the front of the foam insert that fits into and covers the battery opening as well as the portion in the rear left of the cubby that already has a cylindrical vertical opening and a tiny portion in the rear right of the cubby (photos attached post trimming with and without foam battery insert cover in place). The front of the cubby was not trimmed at all. I trimmed downward to within about two inches of the floor of the insert as this is deep enough to fit the sub and below that level the cubby walls starts to flare inwards which might make it difficult trim accurately. When trimming foam, make sure to account for extra space needed for wiring harness and fuse when attached to sub in the left rear area. After trimming, I was left with a few mm shelf along the length of the rear of the cubby and a larger shelf in rear left of cubby for sub to rest on. I'll attach photos looking down from the top as well as of the areas trimmed without and with battery cover foam in place. The photo with battery cover insert in place makes it look like the trimmed area is not flush with the cover but it actually is.

Once I was done, the sub fit although it is quite snug front to back. This is solely the result of how I decided to trim the opening. I probably should have trimmed out an additional two or three mm of foam along the rear of the cubby to widen the opening. This could easily be done and I might still decide to do this. However, right now I don't want to make some catastrophic mistake in an effort to make something I am happy with in an effort to arguably make things marginally better.

The next steps will be to make a small foam insert for the cubby floor that the sub can sit on (probably really not necessary), route the wiring outside of the cubby and tidy things up.

 

[Spamthechan]

This is great! Can’t wait to see the final results and hear what your impressions are!

 

[Friscorays]

The fit of the sub after I finished trimming foam from the cubby is quite snug, but I decided to fashion a foam insert for the sub to sit on anyway (mostly for sport). I used trial size of Foam-it 4 black ( https://www.smooth-on.com/products/foam-it-4-black/ ) which includes more than enough material to produce the volume of foam needed. As i have not used the product before, I read product instructions and watched one minute "How does it work" tutorial video on the linked page as well as a short video tutorial on using back pressure (

) before getting started.

To prepare for pouring foam, I cut a heavy duty garbage bag open and used it to line the entirety of the cubby that the sub will be sitting in. I trimmed and folded the plastic to allow it to fit into the cubby with a relative minimum of creases but keep in mind that the lining must be water / foam tight and that the insert won't be visible once in place so a few crease lines, etc in the foam related to the plastic bag aren't a big deal. I cut a piece of cardboard to shape for back pressure lid, used a rectangular piece of plywood on top of that for some structural support and added three sizable vent holes to allow exit of excess foam through the lids and lined the lids with garbage bag plastic as well.

The website has a material calculator (https://www.smooth-on.com/support/calculators/ ). My insert needed to be about 16 x 10 x 2 inches. Casting calculator and by weight mix ratio calculators with addition of 10% or so fudge factor came up with need for 378 grams of material, 202 grams "a" and 176 grams "b". The process went smoothly but in retrospect I should have spent the time to fashion the lid completely out of wood or some other rigid material. Even with wood covering most of the cardboard lid, some deformation of the cardboard did occur when the foam expanded so the top of the insert is not quite level. This was easily fixed once the piece was cured by attaching some shims made of trimmed foam scraps to the top right of the insert with some velcro strips. The cured foam insert is quite rigid. I cut off a tongue of excess material from left side of the formed piece (where sub would not sit on it and excess wiring will go). The foam is meant to be black but mine turned out gray; I'm sure due to some error on my part. The insert really can't be seen but I did paint the exposed cut surface black just to satisfy my anal compulsive side. Few photos of the foam insert are attached.

Once the foam subwoofer floor was done, I turned my attention to the wiring harness. In order to be able to connect / disconnect the wiring harness and place the harness into / remove the harness from the cubby once wiring is connected in the vehicle, a hole measuring at least an inch in diameter is needed in the cubby to accommodate the wiring harness connector. I picked a location in the front left of cubby where the cables can be relatively easily routed to where they need to go and used a 1 inch spade bit to make the hole (picture). I suggest first practicing with a waste piece of foam before working on the actual piece as well as going slow as the bit can easily mangle the foam pretty badly when it breaks through the back end if one is not careful.

There is not really any need to tidy up the hole but I purchased a one inch desk cable grommet with a removable cap from Amazon to do so ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TQ9G5TC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ). The grommet is not quite large enough to allow passage of the harness and did not fit into the drilled hole particularly snugly so I made a relief cut in the grommet and wrapped the circumference of the grommet in the fuzzy side of a piece of velcro. This allows the cables to be passed into the grommet and for the grommet to fit snugly into the drilled hole while at same time allowing for the grommet, wires and wiring harness to be removed from the hole and cubby when needed. Of course, just drilling a slightly larger hole and using a larger grommet would also be options although room for doing so is a little tight in the area. Attached photo shows grommet with its removable cap and wiring in place.

A few photos of finished product with Kicker HS10 in place are attached.

The next part of the project will be routing and connecting the wiring inside the vehicle.

 

[Friscorays]

With everything completed as far as powered sub fitment, next step was to address wiring.

This is a good point for required legally binding disclaimer: I have absolutely no professional qualifications of any kind to work on any vehicles other than my own. As with every random thing of unknown provenance that you come across on the internet, take all that follows with a healthy sense of scepticism and proceed at your own risk.

Critical first step: Disconnect negative battery terminal. It takes less than two seconds and requires no tools: depress grey button with arrow depiction on it located on the negative terminal (picture attached) and lift the terminal up free from the battery. Job done. Note that on startup following reconnecting battery, you will likely have a large number of catastrophic sounding error / service warnings come up on your dash, I always seem to. Do not panic. These clear themselves with a few start stop cycles / short drives around the block.

I'll begin with a photo of foam insert in the car showing where wiring exits into trunk space. I marked the area of this point with blue tape on the left side of trunk as point of reference to work from once foam insert was removed from trunk to allow for easy access while working.

The power and ground connections are pretty straight forward.

Power wire: There is a plastic tunnel for a vehicle wire loom in the front left of the trunk. I ran the red power wire up to that bundle, through the plastic tunnel and then along wire bundle across the front of the trunk floor over to the right side of the trunk and then toward the rear of the trunk along another big wiring bundle and through another plastic tunnel piece for wiring bundle before feeding the power wire into the battery compartment. I'll attach three photos of the power wire course. The power wire supplied on the wiring harness is plenty long. Even keeping a decent length of wire in reserve, I ended up trimming about six feet from the end of the power wire. The supplied fuse which is to be attached within 18 inches of positive terminal of the battery, arrives with wire in a closed loop (picture attached). I cut the fuse wire at point where yielded two equal length wires with free ends. I attached one end to a ring connector and attached the ring connector to the positive battery terminal (photo attached). I "borrowed" a second 10mm nut from battery connection point immediately to right of fuse connection point pictured and secured the power wire above first bolt already at that point in order to get the spade connector to sit nicely in an elevated position that would allow the positive battery terminal cover to be repositioned without difficulty The remaining free end of the fuse wire was then joined to the free end of the power wire coming from the wiring harness and that part was done.

Ground wire: I began by running the ground wire to the front left of the trunk similar to the power wire. Just beyond and to the left of the plastic wiring bundle tunnel, there is a ground positioned behind outer portion of left rear passenger seat. I undid the 10 mm ground nut and attached amp ground there, again with ring connector. The supplied ground wire, to be connected within 24 inches of amp, may be borderline short so you may have to add a short segment of additional wire. Photo of ground wire attached is dark but my finger is pointing to blue ring connector on ground wire.

After that, I tidied everything up with some tesa wire loom tape and zip ties. I used zip tie colors other than black so I could readily tell stock zip ties from the ones I placed.

Next step will be disassembly of portions of left cargo space for connection of blue turn on wire and speaker wires.

 

[Friscorays]

In order to gain ready access to Harman Kardon amp for speaker attachments, 12 v switched wire for sub remote turn-on attachment and to run bass volume control knob wire to front of carsome disassembly of the left trunk trim is necessary.

Word of warning: The trim panels are attached with white plastic clips which come in small and large varieties. The small ones are most commonly used and hook into a slot on the trim panel and then push into a slot on the part that they attach to. It may be that I am heavy handed, but in my experience the small white clips may occasionally stay behind in the slot of the panel you are not removing instead of coming along with the panel that you are removing. When this occurs, the clips have a habit of falling into an area where they may be difficult or impossible to retrieve. During installation process, two of mine went missing. As is often the case Amazon has you covered. These are what you may find yourself in need of: Amazon.com: Mopar CHRYSLER JEEP DODGE Pack OF 7 Instrument Panel Center Bezel Small Clips: Automotive . Additionally, the attachment point of the white clips on the trim pieces is a relatively thin bridge of plastic which may pull apart as the white clip escapes its grasp so having some superglue around may be handy. Picture of small white clip and how it fits into trim panel attached.

The first step is to detach the rectangular trim panel which contains the driver's side rear seat release handle, trunk light and 12v outlet. When you pull back the seat release handle, you will see a round cover. Using a small flathead screwdriver in the vicinity of 3 o'clock position will pop the cover out. Behind the cover is a T30 torx screw which must be removed. Once the torx screw is out, a trim removal tool or your hands will release the white clips which hold the panel in place. The cable running from the release handle to the seat release mechanism runs along the rear of the panel. To free up the panel a little more, pop the cable out of u shaped cutout that holds the cable just in front of ridged portion of the cable and pop the cable out of a second u shaped attachment point just behind cylindrical metal portion toward cable front. There is no need to disconnect 12v outlet, I just let the trim panel hang once it is pulled free. I posted several pictures of this step in the forum here: Smoke Tail Lights . Scottlarson737 also showed this in video form here: Wiring Diagram for additional Sub with Harmon Kardon System? .

The next step is to remove the large trim panel that contains the subwoofer grill in its rear bottom corner. This panel is secured by three Christmas tree clips: two along its top edge on the side of the trunk and the third on a front projection near outside of the left rear passenger seat (picture attached). Once you have removed the first panel as described above, you will have access to two of the three Christmas tree clips that need to be removed and can pull them out with a trim removal tool (pictures of location of first two clips included in link above as well as being shown in linked Scottlarson737 video). Removal of the third Christmas tree clip which will completely free this panel requires removing the left rear passenger seat side bolster.

The left rear passenger seat bolster simply pulls out. I’ll attach a picture of the rear of the bolster showing one metal clip and several plastic clips holding it in place. I started at the top and worked my way down to remove the bolster. Seatbelt runs through the bolster piece but there is no need to mess with the seatbelt.

Once the bolster is free, you will see a black plastic support bracket that the bolster clips into (picture). The plastic support bracket is secured to the frame of the car by four black 10 mm bolts and a few white plastic clips on its top and bottom. Once the bolts are removed, the support bracket can be pulled free. I’ll attach pictures of the locations of the four bolts and of the rear of the support bracket to show the location of plastic clips. The seatbelt also runs through the support bracket but again no need to mess with seatbelt.

The seat bolster and support bracket have some pointy bits and since removing them entirely from car requires messing with seatbelt (which I didn’t want to do), I suggest nesting the two pieces together and placing them safely in the rear passenger footwell in order to protect the leather of your seats (picture). Covering them with a towel might not be a bad idea either.

Once the seat bolster and its support bracket are free, you will be able to see the third christmas tree clip which holds the big trim panel we are removing in place. It is located between the seat release latch mechanism and seatbelt and has a small dimple in its center unlike the other two that were previously removed (picture attached). Once the third clip is removed, the large panel can be carefully removed from the cargo area and placed in a safe place. There is also a small black trim piece that the third clip passes through which is now free and can be removed and put away (picture).

Next step will be attachment of sub speaker wires to Harman Kardon amplifier and attachment of turn-on wire to 12v socket.

 

[Friscorays]

Correction:

I realize I misremembered / got confused with the disassembly process. I apologize.

In the post above, third christmas tree clip (the one with the dimple in the center) actually just holds the small black trim cap piece in place. I don't think there is any need to mess with either of these although it is simple enough to remove and replace.

The actual third point of attachment for the large subwoofer cover trim panel is lower down. Attachment point is held in place by a round plastic piece with a central hole (a "UFO") that pulls / unscrews off and pushes / screws onto the bolt next to black release cable in the area of the door opening. I'll attach a few pictures.

This means I also mislabelled one of the bolt connection points for the plastic seat bolster support in post above. I'll attach picture with blue tape on correct bolt connection points.

I am sorry for the confusion.

 

[Alfatrooper]

Bravo!

 

[ALFAOFFROAD]

Awesome!

 

[Friscorays]

With above disassembly completed, the speaker wires and remote turn-on wire can be run and connected.

Reminder: Disconnect negative battery terminal.

The powered sub speaker wires are attached to output from Harman Kardon amp. The Harman Kardon amp is the metal box above and to the front of the OEM subwoofer (picture attached).

The Harman Kardon amplifier has three connectors plugged into its front. The speaker wires of the powered sub are attached to wires associated with connector "a" which is the grey connector at the top front of the amp (picture).

In order to make work easier, connector "a" can be disconnected from the amplifier by depressing a tab on the back of the connector (the side of the connector closest to the car body) and pulling the connector out (picture attached).

The wire schematic for connector "a" is in attached picture.

Attached picture of connector "a" 1-12 side shows 1 is black wire (with "1" label above it), 2 (with "2" label above it) and 3 are empty, 4 is yellow, 5 through 7 are purple, 8 is blue with red stripe, 9 is brown with yellow stripe, 10 and 11 are yellow and 12 (with "12" label above it) is red with black stripe.

Attached picture of connector "a" 13-22 side shows 13 (with "13" label below it) and 14 are empty, 15 is yellow with black stripe, 16 through 18 are purple with orange stripe, 19 is blue with ? stripe, 20 is brown with black stripe, and 21 and 22 (with "22" label below it) are yellow with black stripe.

The connections to be made are:
Kicker left positive white wire to connector "a" wire 11 (yellow wire immediately adjacent to red with black stripe wire) Stelvio left anterior woofer positive.
Kicker left negative white / black wire to connector "a" wire 22 (last yellow / black wire with "22" below it) Stelvio left anterior woofer negative.

Kicker right positive grey wire to connector "a" wire 7 (last purple wire immediately adjacent to blue with red stripe wire) Stelvio right anterior woofer positive.
Kicker right negative grey / black wire to connector "a" wire 18 (last purple / orange wire immediately adjacent to blue / ? ) Stelvio right anterior woofer negative.

Pictures of isolated purple 7 and yellow 11 of connector "a" attached.

The speaker wires supplied with the Kicker amp are long enough to run them to the front left of the trunk (similar to the course of previously run power and ground wires) and from there up the nearby wiring looms that lead directly to the Harman Kardon amp.

I removed some of tape from connector "a" wire loom to gain more access to the Stelvio wires. When this is done, it can be seen that the wires are run as spiraled pairs which makes it easier to confirm that one has the correct wire pairs before making connections.

To make the connections, I used T tap connectors similar to those that Scottlarson737 showed in his video: Wire Connectors - Low Voltage T Tap Wire Connectors, 3 Way Wire Connector, T Type 2 Pin Solder-less No Wire Stripping Required for LED Strip, Automotive Connection Fits 24-20 AWG 12 Pack - - Amazon.com . These worked well for the application. The stock wires are run through the top of the T shaped connector and the plastic door is squeezed closed with a pair of pliers. Next, the nonstripped speaker wires from the powered sub are run through plastic eyelets in the bottom of the connector and the second plastic door is squeezed shut with a pair of pliers. Once done, this will connect the top stock wire with the Kicker wire on the left and the bottom stock wire with the kicker wire on the right.

Pictures of completed speaker connections are attached. Sharp eyed viewers will notice that I mistakenly inverted my left and right connections, I incorrectly connected Kicker left white to Stelvio right purple and Kicker right grey to Stelvio left yellow. In my defense, it was hot out. Since positive and negative are done correctly and both sides are fed into the powered sub which then generates one directionless output, I don't think my mistake will make any difference so I don't plan on switching the connections unless someone here has a good argument for why I should do so.

Next step is connection of blue remote turn-on wire.

 

[Friscorays]

I noticed my prior picture of connector "a" diagram omitted some of the wire assignments so I'll post another picture showing complete 1 through 22 assignments for connector "a." "Dx" is shorthand for destra (right in Italian) and "sx" is shorthand for sinistra (left in Italian).

The blue wire on the Kicker wiring harness for the remote turn-on connection is too short. This connection may not be necessary but the manual states "If remote turn-on is not an option, the next best setting is DC offset" so I decided to connect it as it is easy to do. I connected they grey and red wire of the 12v outlet on the first trim panel that was removed to a spare piece of yellow and black wire using a blue posi-tap: Amazon.com: Lockitt Posi-Tap 6pc pack #605/6 16-18 awg Blue: Home Improvement . The grey and red Stelvio wire is fed into a channel on the top cap of the posi-tap and the cap is screwed onto the body of the posi-tap. Next the stripped end of the wire to be connected to the blue remote turn-on wire of the Kicker sub wiring harness is fed through the bottom cap of the posi-tap and the bottom cap is screwed onto the body of the posi-tap. I then fed the wire segment along the same course as the Kicker speaker wires as they are right next to each other and then connected the piece of wire to the blue remote turn-on wire of the wiring harness. Pictures attached.

This completes the basic wiring of the powered sub which now makes it functional.

However, I think that connecting remote bass control which allows for control of sub output from driver's seat is a good idea. This requires running an additional wire included with the Kicker unit from front to back of the vehicle; which is easier than it might sound.

Next step then is a little more disassembly.

 

[Friscorays]

The storage box below and to the left of the steering wheel seems like an ideal place for bass volume control knob: accessible but otherwise discreet.

To run the cable between the bass control knob and the Kicker sub, I started at the front of the car and worked my way back.

I first removed the storage box. To remove the storage box, first remove a T25 torx screw located in an indented area at the top front of box interior (photo). One the torx screw is removed, the box is held in place by two metal clips, one on each side, and is removed by pulling the box straight out (picture).

The only other part that I removed in the front area of the car in order to run the volume control wire was the plastic trim panel along the bottom of the driver's door opening which continues up along the bottom front of the left front door opening. To begin removing this piece, the hood release handle is pulled straight off (picture). Next, locate the seam where plastic trim panel above the piece to be removed overlaps the lower piece to be removed (picture). The trim piece above the one to be removed has a single white plastic clip securing it to a rectangular cutout in the piece to be removed so use trim tool to release that clip (picture). Next release a second white plastic clip located at the top front of the piece to be removed which secures it to a cutout in the car body (picture). After doing this, the only attachments for the piece are two elongated black clips with foam pieces near them which clip to white elongated clips on bottom of door frame and one yellow clip at rear which attaches to slot in door opening (picture). These attachments are released by pulling the piece up.

Once the storage box and front trim piece have been removed, one end of the volume control wire can be run along wiring bundles in left side of driver footwell (picture) up into the opening for the storage box and secured with a few zipties. I left an 8 inch or so long tail of cable hanging out of the box opening to make final reassembly easier. Then, the cable can be run in the seam between car body and flooring to the back of the front door opening (picture).

Next step is running wire from front driver area to rear passenger area which requires removal of one last trim piece.

 

[Friscorays]

I'm not sure why the picture of a hand showing the location of a torx screw in the post above is flagged as sensitive content, but I imagine most people here won't be offended by a picture of a bare hand. However if anyone is offended, I offer my sincere apologies.

 

[Friscorays]

I'll try to post picture of location of torx screw securing front storage cubby one more time.

To complete running the sub volume wire back into the trunk area, I removed the rear seat trim panel which contains the seat release handle. The first step is to pop off plastic cap behind the seat release handle with a small flathead screwdriver or similar. The cap has two tabs on its front end and a hinge piece on its back end (picture). Once the cap is removed, a torx screw behind the cap is removed (I don't remember size but believe either t25 or t30). After that, a somewhat hidden second torx bolt of same size is removed from area along outer edge of rear seat (pictures). The trim piece is now held on by three clips along its bottom which are released by pulling the piece up (pictures of three clips and attachment points on car attached). I did not remove the seat release cable from the piece. Rather, I placed the piece I the car with cable attached while I ran the volume wire. To protect your seat leather, remember to cover the rear seat and trim piece.

I did not remove the trim piece that covers the area between the front and rear door openings. I could not find my cable fish tape tool. Instead, I used a long zip tie to pass the volume wire underneath this trim piece. I'll attach some pictures of the course the zip tie took. It worked but took a few attempts so I probably should have just spent more time looking for my fish tape tool.

Once you have the volume wire passed under the trim piece between the front and rear door openings, the wire can be run in the space between the car body and carpeting up along the outside of the rear passenger seat to the point in the trunk left where all the other sub wires were run to. The volume wire is a few feet too long so I coiled the excess and secured it to one of the wiring looms behind the outside edge of rear passenger seat before bringing its free end to the point where it joined the wires of the powered sub wiring harness.

After the volume wire was run, I reattached the two trim pieces that were removed from the front and rear passenger door openings. For the front one, I started by seating the front upper attachment points and then pushed the bottom attachment points into place. The rear piece replacement was somewhat finicky as there is a need to be careful with seat leather but keeping in mind where attachment points are and taking time, it went back together fine.

Next step is to mount bass volume control knob in the storage cubby.

 

[Friscorays]

The next task is to install the volume control knob in the storage cubby.

The end of the sub volume control wire requires a 5/16 hole which I drilled in the center rear of the cubby toward the top; starting with smaller bits and working my way up (pictures).

The volume knob assembly itself has two u shaped cutouts on either side of its top which are meant to be held by two small screws included with the sub. The included screws are somewhat skimpy and would be difficult to place in the interior of the storage cubby. Instead of using the supplied screws, I purchased a few 6-32 3/8 inch screws from Lowes with flat bottom screw head and matching bolts. In order to be able to reinstall and remove the torx screw that holds the cubby in place, the front of the knob must be behind the screw opening. I placed the knob on the center top of the cubby with the front of knob flush with the back of the rear indent for the torx screw and marked the u shaped mounting points of the knob assembly on the cubby (pictures). I then drilled 9/64 inch holes at the points marked. The screws were then inserted into the interior of the cubby and the bolts were placed on the screws at the top of the cubby (picture). The bolts can be tightened until point that there is still enough of the shafts of the screws exposed on the interior of the box to allow the u shaped cutouts of the knob assembly to slide onto them.

Taking the cubby to the car, I fed the 7 inch or so tail of wire that I left hanging outside the storage cubby cutout in the dash into the 5/16th hole in the back of the cubby. I installed a rubber grommet on the wire behind the cubby (picture) and pushed it into place in the 5/16th hole to give things a finished look. Exactly who will ever look at this is unclear but one can't be too careful.

I then plugged the wire into the back of the volume knob and positioned the volume knob cutouts on the screws inside the cubby. Finally, I hand-tightened the bolts on the exterior of the cubby to make the volume knob attachment secure and installed the cubby into the dashboard (pictures).

As a result of where the storage cubby is located, it is necessary to lean forward slightly to open the cubby door and reach the volume knob but the knob is otherwise quite easy to locate and use by feel alone.

Next steps are making sure everything works followed by cleaning up and reassembly.

 

[Friscorays]

Everything is now essentially done. Another reminder that upon startup after disconnecting the battery, a lot of scary sounding dash warnings will appear. These should all clear spontaneously after a few start stop sequences or drives up and down the driveway.

Before completing trunk reassembly. I attached the volume control wire and wiring harness to the sub and replaced the negative battery terminal. Following the sub setup instructions in the manual, I confirmed everything worked as expected and then reassembled the trunk, remembering the need to start with the large panel with the stock sub cover on it.

After tweaking the powered sub settings, .I think the stereo now sounds much improved and very good. Although the Kicker gain does indeed go to 11 like any good piece of electronic equipment should, I can't imagine anybody going anywhere near that level for long.

"Fire2k1" started a thread here a few years ago titled "I fixed the mediocre audio in the HK system" after installing a new sub and now that I am done with mine I can say that I entirely agree with the statement.

 

[TonyTSweaty]

I wanted to say thanks for the great write up on this. I just installed the same sub and your guide was spot on and gave me the confidence to do the job the right. Really appreciate it! I still need to adjust the settings a bit but so far I love the sub in the car, it really adds that little extra kick that was lacking before.

 

[ViscontiVerde 164L*]

Critical to note that this install will only work on vehicles with run flats and no spare. So are you a driver or a listener?????

 

[Alfatrooper]

Critical to note that this install will only work on vehicles with run flats and no spare. So are you a driver or a listener?????

I don't have run flats, or a spare...
I'm a driver, and a listener 🤙

 

[pyrrhusmj]

Question since I can't find the answer in the other threads yet. Are we sure the rear l/r woofer offer a dynamic range or at least below 100hz to 0 hz? I am asking because I am getting old and lazy and don't want to keep changing wires. I need more bass and now it is time to at least try an undersea.
So often in these DSP centric systems like the HK, each speaker can have limited dynamic range. I learned about this the hard way in one of my MINI's. When I purchased a daily driver and left that particular car to a weekend fun car I decided I need more bass, but I went the easy route and just added a 12" low throw and small amp tapped in to the l/r rear woofers. It sounded good, but something was missing from the low end. I had a sub capable of 25hz or so. That is when I learned that the DSP in the (also HK) amp wasn't sending the lowest frequencies to the rear woofers and created more of a mid with a low rolloff then a woofer. Funny enough it was sending them to the front woofers. Either way when I tapped in to the subwoofer output I had that feeling of the lower frequencies my sub wasn't receiving and the HK sub wasn't able to provide.