Major JBL stereo upgrade but keeping stock HU

Power and ground wiring for the Amp rack was straight forward. A small length of 4 ga. Black KnuKoncepts Kolossus Fleks power wire was run from the stock battery body ground location and up into the KnuKoncepts basic Ground distribution block The ring terminals were first soldered onto the ground wire then attached. Black wire loom was used to protect the ground cable.
8 ga black ground cable was then run from the ground distribution block to each amp, on the top side of the amp rack to keep them separated from the power cables.

 

The power wire is also a short length of 4ga KnuKoncepts Kolossus Fleks Blue power cable run from the battery to the KnuKoncepts basic power distribution block with an in line fuse holder in between. Just a note, try to position your fuse holder for the power cable as close to the battery as possible. Any length of cable before the fuse in unprotected. I originally purchased a KnuKoncepts Ultimate Battery terminal to make my power connections to the stock Pruis battery but the post on the stock battery is too tiny for the new terminal to work. Maybe they have a smaller diameter terminal for the smaller batteries. I will have to see. Luckily for me and the rest of us Prius owners, there is a great factory attachment point for power cables right on the factory battery terminal. Again both the 4ga power wire for the amplifiers and the smaller 12 ga. power feed for the DSP ring terminals were first soldered to the wiring before installation. Both amp power cables were run on the bottom side of the amp rack in the internal cavity and kept separated from all other wiring. You can see the connection point on the top of the stock battery terminal as well as the fuse holders in the pictures. The larger 4ga amplifier fuse holder has a 60amp fuse and the DSP only requires a 3amp in line fuse to be installed. Yellow wire loom was used to protect the 4ga power wire

 

Heres a view of the Amplifier rack and the two mini Audiocontrol amps and the Audiocontrol DM-608 Digital Signal processor that is used to get the signal from the stock head unit. For more on the amps and the DSP see posts #4 and #5. As you can see in the pic, I still have almost half the storage try available for use. The amp rack is simply attached to the storage try with a few screws from under side of the tray. You could use a good 2 face tape instead if you did not wish to put holes in your tray but As I've said before I prefer mechanical fasteners.

 

Here's are a few close up views showing some of the wiring and the rear door speaker crossovers. The blue 12 ga speaker wire at the bottom is the wiring for the subwoofer running to the single channel amp. The 4 ga power wire run from the Power distribution bock and down into the cavity of the amp rack where they are isolated from all the other wiring to eliminate any contamination of the signal. All power wires are clamped in place to prevent movement. The 6 channels of RCA jacks also run into the cavity in the amp rack and are similarly kept separated from other wiring for the same reason. The red 12 ga wire that comes in by the power distribution block from the battery terminal and runs to the DSP is sheathed in clear plastic tubing to offer some protection as is the ground wire running from the ground block to the DSP. Where the Power and ground wire meet at the DSP is about as close as any of the wire come near each other in the vehicle. Unfortunately the DSP is set up with the power inlet on the left and the ground on the right . The way the system laid out I had to cross these two wires at that point keeping the separated as much as possible. You can tell in a side picture that the two do not touch and that the clear sheathing on the red power cable extends past the point where they touch. It's the best that I could come up with considering the layout. If I had to have ant two wire be in close contact I'd prefer it be those two

 

The wiring going into the DM-608 with the yellow connectors are the wires coming from the factory JVC amplifier and they supply the signal to the DSP. As you can see all the speaker wires have either Black or Red colored shrink wrap to keep the polarity correct. The same goes for all power and ground wires. As you can see in the close up pic of the Rear Door crossovers , they are capable of being Bi-Amped but I'm running mine in a series like a standard component set would be wired so I needed to run a jumper from each Woofer in connection to the corresponding In connection for the matching door tweeter.

 

So that's my upgrade project for the Gen 3 Prius model 3 with the JVC and navigation and keeping the stock head unit. When I get the system tuned with my Pink Noise CD and adjusted on the laptop thru the DSP I will report back on sound quality over the stock system. I have little doubt the it will be a major improvement. Any questions just ask and I will do my best to answer them and maybe save you a few headaches with your project.
Be Well and Stay Safe
Rick

 

So after living with the system for a month I have to make some changes. Seems that the Audiocontrol DM-608 is not the best DSP to use to integrate with the gen 3 stock system. After tuning I'm having issues with fade and left and right sound controls and volume. Checked all the wiring and that's all fine so I'm scrapping the DM-608 and the 4 channel amp and replacing it with a Helix brand model V-Eight MK2 all in one amp with built in DSP. It is reportedly going to correct the integration issues that the Audiocontrol unit has. This means I will have to make some wiring adjustments as well. I will need to run separate home runs for each of the 6 front speakers as the Helix will be an Active system for the front soundstage. The rear speakers in the doors will be fed a full signal to the existing passive crossovers to give me the rear fill. Also I will have to change out the 8 ga. power and ground wiring going to the recently removed DM-608 and upgrade to 4 ga. wiring as required by the new Helix DSP / Amp. I am keeping the Audiocontrol single channel amp to feed the subwoofer and this will be adjusted thru the helix DSP as it has a tunable RCA output to feed the sub Amp.
I have also decided that I do not care for the look of the Focal 30 degree Tweeter pods in the front so I will be placing them low on the front pillars close to the mid range 4" speakers in the dash. Of course once installed pictures and review of the system to follow. STAY TUNED !!! No pun intended

 

THE HELIX V EIGHT MK2 AMP/DSP IS RATED AT 75WATTS x 8 CHANNELS FOR 600 WATTS TOTAL PLUS THE 300 WATT AMP FOR THE SUB FOR A TOTAL OF 900 WATTS. OF COURSE THEY WILL NEVER REALLY BE PUSHING 900 WATTS. THE FRONT SIX CHANNELS WILL RUN THE 3 WAY ACTIVE SET UP AND THE OTHER 2 CHANNELS WILL SEND A FULL RANGE SIGNAL TO THE CROSSOVERS THAT WILL RUN THE REAR COMPONANTS IN THE REAR DOORS FOR FILL. THE HELIX ALSO HAS AN RCA OUTPUT FOR AN EXTERNAL AMP TO RUN THE SINGLE SUB AND IT IS RUN THRU THE DSP FOR FULL SIGNAL CONTROL.

 

So while I'm waiting for the new Helix amp to arrive I re -covered the front mid range speakers in the dash with a dark grey Speaker mesh. I feel it blends better with the grey colored dash pad then the black grill cloth. What do you guys think??

 

I also removed the 30 degree Focal tweeter pods and installed the tweeters directly into the sail panels. A completely flush mount wasn't possible because there isn't enough of a flat area because of the radius of the sail panels. Eventually I will have to fabricate some nicer speaker pods into the sail panels. Maybe incorporating both the tweeters and the mids into the new speaker pods.

 

Finally got around to installing the bass control for the sub amp. Decided on right behind the directional on the small removeable dash panel for the location.

 

It's just the angle of the camera. The tweeters are actually pointed right at the drivers face