Took a couple pics while I was installing an amp in the car and figured I'd share...

I wasn't planning on installing one when I swapped my factory nav to a pioneer 900BT but their was something funky with the wiring between the factory amp and the factory nav so when I replaced the nav with an aftermarket one I wasn't able to get sound. I think it had something to do with the security b/c if I plugged the lower connectors into the factory nav and the power, speakers, amp-on, etc into the new unit and then entered the security code into the factory nav, i would get sound from the new pioneer unit. But if I disconnected the factory nav all together it wouldn't work. So I decided the easiest solution would be to replace the factory amp with an aftermarket one.

I wanted to keep the factory speakers so I wanted to get another 6 channel. I couldn't really find a small enough one that could fit in the factory location like I wanted to so I ended up getting a MB Quart NAA 665 390w 6channel.

I mounted the amp on the front of the gas tank with an aluminum bracket:



I ran the RCAs and the amp on wire through the big factory grommet behind the battery:



I didn't want to run the RCAs near the power wire and the way the amp would be mounted the RCA wires needed to be on the left side of the amp so I decided to drill a hole in the wall between the battery compartment and the trunk...I installed a grommet on both sides of the new hole:



I didn't want to cut the factory amp connector off so I spliced into the speaker wires and soldered each of the new speaker wires to the factory wiring just behind the factory amp connector (kinda messy looking, but it did the trick):



I ran the power wire through the factory grommet on the passenger side of the trunk to keep it as far away from the RCAs as possible. I also mounted the fuse on the back of that wall next to the battery on the passenger side (didn't take pics of this yet...)

I put the carpet back down and tucked the excess RCA wiring behind the plastic cover on the driver side. This is what it looked like when i was just about finished:







I still need to adjust the carpet a bit so it fits better around the top of the gas tank. I also need to extend the bolts a bit so I can secure the top of the gas tank better.

All in all it was pretty straight forward.

(thanks to John D for his previous post on where to get through the firewall with the RCAs!)

 

Awesome install! Looks great.

 

Nicely done! Great idea to use the aluminum brackets! I think I am going to do the same

 

Getting to know that car pretty good Keirnan!!! I'll keep this in mind when I get ready to do mine...

 

Thanks! yea, I decided against drilling into my gas tank....

 

Thanks for sharing. Very good design and explicit pictures....

 

Good Job!

 

Is that the 555 Fabrication amp bracket? =)

Nice work on the install!