speaker space and size/amp placement

to my knowledge the fronts are 6x9 ... and you will want to confirm depth - as I do believe they are shallower than normal...but maybe not a true shallow? I have heard a lot of people puting the amp under passenger front seat ...
couldn't tell you on the controller -- no idea. I would be interested in an amp as well though - I have 2 10" subs left over from my s-10 pickup that I would like to find a home for - and those rear cubby's look like a nice place.

I haven't kept up on the new car stereo tech though since my highschool days - and I'd be curious if anyone makes an oem replacement that would interface with the car setup/display functions as the factory unit does.

and why on earth did they limit the rear output so much - it's horrible?!?

 

I have 6x8s in front and 6.5s in the back. You might be able to get 6x9s in the front. Dont remember if I had to go with shallow ones though. I think I remember the stocks being shallow but best to confirm yourself. I have the amp under the front passenger seat. Controls facing outward towards the door so you can adjust as necessary. Good luck.

 

I used the same 6x8s at Mac Prius but I think 6x9s would work. The stock speakers are built into plastic enclosures -- if you remove those the actual metal door panel has a much larger cutout that could fit even bigger speakers. I tore the stock speakers out of their plastic enclosures and reused the enclosures. The enclosure lifts the speaker away from the door panel so there is a ton of room for deeper woofers.

I placed my AudioControl LC6i, JL XD 400/4, and JL 500/1 all in the back storage bin. Makes it very easy to run the power wires since they're right next to the 12V battery. I'm using a couple of 120mm computer case fans to cool everything.

 

Just got my V on Friday last week and already want to replace the speakers. On my 2008, I replaced them with some Polk Audio db6501's in the front and db651's in the back. Took me a couple of hours since I had to make my own brackets to replace the plastic ones. Anyone know if it's a similar job for the V?

 

I ended up replacing the two fans I had with this one (Newegg.com - Scythe DFS123812-3000 "ULTRA KAZE" 120 x 38 mm Case Fan). It pushes a ton of air. I bought two but the remote wire wasn't supplying enough power to run both of them. These things push so much air that one seems fine. I have the fan towards one side of the bin that has an opening and it's blowing air over the amps.

I didn't take any pics but I'd be glad to help if you have any questions when you do it. Running the speaker wire to the doors isn't too bad. The plastic trim is in place with clips and you can just pull it up. It seems like it would be pretty hard to break anything there. There's a bolt you can remove that holds the umbrella storage bin right behind the back seats. You can run the wire from the door trim and then underneath that storage bin to the back of the car.

The hardest part with running the wires to the doors was getting the wire through the rubber grommet that the existing wires are going through. In the front doors I just had to push the wire and try to get my fingers in the other side to pull it through. It didn't help that I probably used bigger gauge wire than I needed.

The doors panels are easy to get off. You just start pulling up from the bottom and the plastic clips will pull out. Some of the clips end up staying in the door -- you need to remove them with needle nose pliers and put them in the door panel. It makes it very easy when you put the door panels back on. Also, when you start pulling off the door panel, there is a connector on the bottom that provides light when you open the door. You need to unclip this before pulling the panel too far.

The back doors have all the wires connecting using some kind of connector, which then goes through one of those rubber grommets. I couldn't find an easy way to get my own wires past this connector. I think it would have required drilling some holes next to the connector. What I did instead for the back doors was use the existing speaker wiring inside the door, and splice into the wiring inside the car where the wire comes out of the door, and run that wiring to the back of the car.

I ended up paying for a 2 day subscription to Toyota's tech site with repair manuals. I saved the wiring info for the headunit if anyone needs it. Without knowing what colors go to what speaker you will definitely have some trouble.

 

Good on you for doing it yourself. I am not so DIY inclined and just paid someone else to do it. I would be interested in seeing some pictures though.

 

I've always paid to have it done in the past. I would have paid someone to do it this time but I don't trust the local folks to do it right, at least not the shops that are cheap enough for me to afford. It was a lot of work in the 100 degree Georgia heat!

The amp wiring in the back ain't too pretty right now but I'll work on getting some pictures.

 

There is a trick I learned years ago. Attach two short lengths of wire (6 - 8 inches each) to each end of a small battery (AA, C, D all work well). One wire to the positive end, one to the negative. A length of speaker wire with all four ends stripped works well. Pick any pair of speaker wires. Touch the leads from the battery to the two speaker wires. One lead to one speaker wire, one to the other. As you touch the leads to the speaker wires, you'll hear a scratchy, staticy sound from the speaker. Now you know what speaker those wires go to. Move on to the next pair of wires. If you have your head under the dashboard when you do this, I might help to have a second person identify which speaker is making the noise.
Hope this helps.

 

Nice technique! But its important to identify the polarity as well. The identified speaker may or may not have the same wire coloring as the wires from the HU if there are intervening harnesses.