Complete Stereo Overhaul

When I purchased my 2010 Prius, I know I would be spending quite a bit of time in it. I also knew - based on lurking here and also understanding that the Prius is built for millage and not necessarily "fun" to drive the I would need something to entertain me while driving the car. What better way to pass the time then to put in a good stereo. That way I won't mind spending time in the car driving slightly slower than I normally do to get that little bit better gas millage.

The first thing I needed to do is try and figure out where all the equipment would go. So I made cardboard cut-outs of the equipment I was planning on using. Then I laid them out in the back.

That got a little bit difficult so I made a rough estimate of the new floor out of cardboard and was better able to visualize the locations of the components.

I thought I would start by building a subwoofer enclosure. After seeing what others have done on here, I thought I would give it a try. I had never worked with fiberglass before so this would be a real challenge. I cut the base out of MDF and put down some plastic sheeting to protect the hatch.

Then it was on to taping up the sides.

And then adding the first layer of fiberglass.

After it dried, I pulled it out and took off all the tape, etc. I put it back in and it fit pretty well. So I started to build the front of the enclosure. I attached that and started to add additional layer of fiberglass to build up the thickness of the walls. I was adding layers, sanding them down to remove the rough edges, and adding additional layers. This was going pretty well and it was starting to look like something. That was until I started to fit it back into the car. It didn't fit perfectly - but I didn't expect it to. Just as long as it was good enough.

Things went downhill fast. When I added the speaker into the enclosure as a trial run, it was so top heavy that any movement of the car caused it to roll out of the cubby hole. This would ruin my expensive subwoofer quickly. Not to mention being a hazard in an accident. By this time it was late in the build process and I just decided to get out the wallet and hand over some money to get it done right. More on that later...

 

I also had the plan to gut the interior of the car and put down Dynamat. Which meant removing all the door panels and carpeting. So off came the front driver's door panel. I had decided to actually keep the factory speakers in the front door. This would save me a little bit of money and I thought they were good enough especially since I was upgrading the tweeters in the dash with much better speakers. I was also planning on bi-amplifying the front speakers. Therefore the speakers in the door would only see the frequency range from approx 80 Hz to 400 Hz. Below 80 Hz would go to the sub. Above 300 Hz would go to the dash speakers.

Next comes off the left rear door panel. (Yes I know the carpet is gone too, just don't look at that now.) I can't believe that Toyota put the rear speakers in the doors. Ok, if you are sitting in the rear seats, that might be good because you get a pseudo-front soundstage. But for me being in the driver's seat, that sound being right behind you is just wrong. So those speakers were removed.

Working around the vehicle. I removed the panels in the hatch area and the spare tire.

The right rear door. So it is kind of hard to miss from this picture that I removed the carpeting, the seats, and the center council. So I will mention them here now.

Finishing up the circle around the car. Here is the front passenger's door and seat missing.

As mentioned earlier, I took out all of the seats, carpeting, and panels around the traction battery. I only took off the left side panel of the hatch because this is where I am going to run all of the wiring.

And a shot of the back seat interior.

Finally a shot of the dash.

 

Dynamat time. I'll work my way around backwards for this post. Here is the floor complete with Dynamat.

Passenger's side door.

Rear right side door complete.

Hatch Area around the spare tire well.

Around the battery. Notice the panel is still there, as mentioned earlier. I also didn't have enough Dynamat to cover the area behind this panel even if I did take it off.

The other side of the hatch.

Driver's side rear door.

And the driver's side door.

 

The other main reason I wanted to upgrade the stereo was the my head unit did not come with GPS or a camera. When I first got the car I did not like the view out of the back and was afraid I might hit something due to the poor visibility. So I made sure I bought a new unit with a camera. Of course that meant that I had to install the camera. About the only thing I can complement Toyota on with regard to this overhaul is that they put a common rear emblem frame thing on all their vehicles. That meant it wasn't difficult to mount a camera in the factory location.

All that was required besides removing the panel was drilling a hole in the plastic and screwing in the four screws. That is after removing/reattaching the connector on the cable such that it would fit through the hole I drilled.

Time to run all of the wiring. The next few pictures are just showing how some of the wiring is run under the carpet.




This isn't a very good picture, but it is the best I could come up with. I needed to modify the connector/wiring for the AUX connector in the center council such that it would work with my new head unit. I noticed that there were 5 or 6 wires (I don't remember now) attached to the 3.5mm jack which I couldn't understand. So I just wired it up for Left/Right audio. But after I got it all installed, I wondered if they also had the possibility of including video in that jack. And that was what the extra wires were for. It is too late now because I'm not going to take it apart just to see if video would work. And besides I don't know if I'm ever going to use this jack. But it was nice to know that I could still use this jack if I really needed it.

 

I have gotten access to a good pair of home audio speakers that I found out would fit into the dash location. They don't fit directly as there was major modifications needed. The first step after running the wires was to fill in the dash location to give the speaker some type of enclosure to work with. This also prevents the sound waves form the back of the speaker from coming around the speaker and canceling out some of the sound. This is important since I would be running these speakers down to 300 Hz. So step one after removing the dash speakers was to fill in the area with expanding foam. Right side:

Left side:

Some of these pictures are kind of blurry because the only way to get a photo was to take it through the dash. Trust me, that was the easy part compared to having to work on the dash up there without removing the windshield.
The next step was to cut out the foam to give my speaker a place sit. This didn't create a perfect enclosure with the correct volume. But it was better than nothing. Right side:

I'm amazed how clear of a picture I got of the palm leaf in this photo. That came from off the windshield, across the garage, and through a window. And it looks clearer than what I was actually trying to photograph. Left side:

Next was installing the speakers. I had a hard time trying to come up with some way of mounting the speakers such that they would not vibrate, could be removed later if I needed to, and also mounted securely so that they would not fall off after time passed. I took a page from another hobby I have and decided to use PL flashing and roof polyurethane sealant. That actually fit the bill perfectly. It holds, but it is not a "good" adhesive. So I could remove the speakers later if I choose. It stays flexible so that the speaker would not vibrate when played. And it would seal up all the gaps around the speaker and odd-shaped dash cutout. Right side installed:

Of note - no I did not have the side panels in when installing the speakers. I actually had to remove some of their bottom end to make the speakers fit. They were removed and reattached before taking these pictures. Left side installed:

I don't currently have a good cover over these speakers. I just quickly took some grill cloth and using Velcro I attached the fabric to the dash. I will eventually remove that and make some plastic frames that I will attach to the dash by use of magnets. Then I will cover the frames with the cloth. But if I were to wait for that to be complete, I would never start this thread, as this covers already three months of work.

 

Completing the dash:
Installing the Alpine head unit went easier then I thought it would. I did run into some issues with trying to find all the correct wiring to tap into. But since I reran pretty much all the wiring for the stereo, I only needed to get access to the reverse line. That was after buying a module to simulate the parking brake/brake sensor lines. Buying that module was well worth the $40 I spent.

Stealing someone else's idea of painting the vent housings, I decided to do that on my vehicle also. Although I could have done a better job if I actually removed them from the dash first, I don't think I did that bad of a job all things considered. I had decided to paint them after I had the dash back together and didn't feel like pulling it apart one more time.


Here is a picture of the head unit. I did not buy a perfect fit kit as they don't make one for the JBL version. So I just bought a cheap $20 conversion kit for a Prius. That means I had to do some plastic welding & body filler work along with painting to get it to look right. That wasn't too difficult although I could have done a better job if I spent more time at it. But because I'm the type of person who is more interested in how the system sounds vs how it looks, I'm pleased with the outcome. The big question was what color to paint it. I went to the auto store and looked at all the different colors they offered. I decided on a nice silver metal flake paint. The pictures do not do it justice as you miss the metal flake aspect of the paint - which just makes it shimmer in the sunlight. Also notice, I reversed all the colors on the panels. What was silver is now black, and what was black is now silver. I think it fits well with the rest of the car as far as color scheme.

 

I wish I had a good photo of the equipment. But with the way my cheap camera takes pictures, if I go in sunlight, the equipment in the shadows doesn't show up. So I've done the best I can with what I have. This is an overview of the equipment in the hatch area.

Individual pieces - 30 Farad Capacitors and power distribution block:

Main circuit breaker, ground distribution block, fan to cool the sub amp. I also found I needed to have a deflector to help move the air over the amplifier. The fans in the system are controlled by that circuit board in front of the amp. When the amp is below 45C, the fans are off. Above that temp, the fans turn on.

Picture of the subwoofer amp, rear speaker amp, and traction battery.

This is a picture of the amplifier used to power the front speakers.

I also added an exhaust fan to the back to help remove hot air generated by both the traction battery and the amplifiers. It's kind of hard to see the fan there, but you can see the wires running to the fan.

This is another picture of the power distribution block. But it also shows a Destaco clamp that I use to keep the back shelf closed. There is two nice holes almost perfectly placed that the rod of the clamp slides into. This allows me to have access to the spare tire well.

There was not enough room to get the spare tire back in its stock location. So I have to go without one. But I have access to that area such that I can at least keep 1) a tire repair kit 2) a can of fix-a-flat 3) a small air pump 4) the jack and lug nut wrench in this location. So I think it will work out. I also figure that with the spare tire removed, I will gain back some of the weight I had to add by improving the stereo.

 

So after my dismal failure on trying to build the subwoofer enclosure, I decided to bite the bullet and pay a professional to finish the last two steps. These were to make the sub enclosure and also come up with a way to install the rear speakers onto the hatch. I knew the rear hatch would be the better location for the rear speakers then the doors. Actually I think the absolute best location is to use the of the the little windows directly behind the rear doors. The problem is that on one of the roads I drive on, I come to a weird stop where I actually use that window all the time to see traffic. So I didn't want to cover them up by placing speakers in that location.

So this is what they came up with for the rear speakers.

A little bit further zoomed out...
And finally the subwoofer enclosure they did. I'm glad that they were able to honor my request to allow me access under the false floor without having to remove the subwoofer. Now the only time I will have to remove it is if/when I need to replace the 12V battery.

Hope you enjoyed viewing my build.

 

Thanks. And no parts left over. I solve that problem by immediately replacing every bolt back in the nut after I disassemble an item. That way all the parts are together even though the system is apart.

 

Wayward - Yes I like PPI amps also. The sub and rear channel amps I had kept from my first real stereo build back in the 90s. Never had any issues with them. I really like those amps.

la9ers - Considering that I paid the installer $2500 to do the sub and back speakers, the total cost wasn't too bad. Ball park total would be around $5,000-$6,000.

It was also overcast today and I managed to get some pictures of the equipment without shadows. Something I wasn't able to do the last several times I tried. So here is a better view of the equipment...

 

I figured that would go without saying that it has a very nice sound. Now I don't mind spending time in the vehicle. If it takes a little bit longer to get where I'm going - so what.