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Old 06-02-2021, 12:42 AM
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Aftermarket sound install

I'm gonna try to keep it brief, but still be detailed enough to help someone else out.

So I bought my 2011 35d in the summer of 2017 and due to work/kids/job/military duty/sheer laziness, etc have effectively been dragging my feet on installing aftermarket sound. Perhaps I wasn't searching correctly or in the right places, but I found very little useful info from other installs and I didn't want to pay for the expensive BavSounds stuff. I wanted to use my own. For simplicity and budgetary purposes I kept the stock display and was lucky enough not to have a stock amp in the system, which in my opinion simplified the install.

First step was to upgrade the junk oem speakers. Went with Focal all around (will get full model numbers later) since there are apparently not many companies making 4" mid-ranges anymore choices were kinda thin. Focal quickly became a front runner of the available options. Did components up front and coaxes in the rear doors. In the front doors I found a little void where I could squeeze the crossover into without impeding the door panel from going back on properly. Stuck the tweeter up in the door pillar where an oem tweeter would have been on vehicles with premium sound. The foam held the tweeter perfectly in place with no modification needed. Just a little wiring and I'm done. I set baffles behind the speakers and also used the plastic mounting adapters that allow an aftermarket 4 screw speaker to mount into the stock holes which originally had 3 holes (will try to get source for those as well).

I rode around like that with just having replaced the speakers for a couple years before finally moving on to phase 2; the amp and subwoofer install. I used to install car audio for a living and along the way acquired a MTX Thunder 5400x that has been bullet proof, surviving installations in 2 previous vehicles. It was collecting dust and needed to be released from its rusty cage to make beautiful music again!

So I purchased a Pioneer 12 sub, made a box for it, removed the spare tire and dropped it in next to the battery. Can't recall the exact model I went with but I'll add info later as I find it. I was impressed that I was able to get about .8 cubic feet of volume into a sealed box and the woofer seems to like it by making deep and loud bass.

The most logical place for the amp install was the back drivers side corner, behind the removable panel, where the stock amp would be. I custom built a mdf mounting panel and started securing the amp. From the positive terminal of the battery I went to a Stinger fuse holder, into a Stinger 5 farad hybrid capacitor, then to the amp. For a turn on lead I tapped into the 12v power outlet on the passenger side of the cargo area. It only has power when the car's on, so to me it was the best power source as nothing else in that area seemed to have voltage only when the car was on... at least none that I felt comfortable using. So I skinned back a little insulation and soldered a 18ga wire onto the green wire which is the +12v. Brown is the ground, which seems to be pretty universal throughout the car.

Last component was to convert the speaker level output from the oem radio to a RCA out, to get the signal back to the amp. I accomplished this with a WavTech Link-D. With help from my buddy at the car stereo shop I used to work at, he printed me out the cheater document with all the wire colors and locations for me. I watched a YouTube video to familiarize myself with removing the dash panels without having to figure it out the hard way and commenced to cutting all 4 speaker wires a few inches back from the radio harness. I fed the front left +/- and front right +/- into the Link-D, as it only has a 2 channel input, and this a 2 channel RCA output. I could have easily hid the LinkD in the dash area where you'd never see it, but it does have a gain adjustment that I wanted to have access to so I used the T-20 screw just above the gas pedal that holds on the side panel that runs down the side of the center console.(Pic attached)

Most normal radios would have a +12v remote output from the radio to turn on the oem amp but noooo, not on a BMW! That goes over the MOS bus so I tapped into the radio's 12v +/- to power up the LinkD, and just as I did with the amp in the back, I used the cigarette lighter style outlet next to the cup holder for +12v turn on power. I removed the side trim panel along the passenger side of the center console which revealed a disconnect harness on the way to the back of said power outlet, which was very convenient. That gave me some extra wiggle room to work with for removing insulation and soldering.

I gently pulled the interior trim panels along the driver's side from front to back, allowing me to run the RCA cable as well as 4- 16ga speaker wires to carry the signal for the front and rear door speakers from the MTX amp in the back to the speaker connections behind the radio. That saved me from having to run new wiring all the way into the doors. After all, the oem wires are already going from the radio into the door, why not use em? Also if I ever go to sell the vehicle I can simply remove my stuff and reconnect the speaker wires behind the radio, returning the system to its original state. Behind the radio, I used crimp female/male spades on the ends of the wires, so removal would literally be plug and play.

I'll try to add more photos tomorrow. For now I'm just relieved that everything actually worked, including my trusty old MTX amp! The sound is SO much better with just the radio and I'll continue to tweak crossover frequencies and gain settings to get that good balance between the mids/highs and bass. For now I'm a other bass heavy but I'm working on that.

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Last edited by willyworm*; 06-02-2021 at 02:59 PM.
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  #2  
Old 06-02-2021, 10:34 AM
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Front speakers are Focal ES 100K component set, rear speakers are Focal Performance 100AC coaxes.

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Old 06-02-2021, 01:12 PM
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Old school thunder amp. Good stuff.
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Old 06-02-2021, 02:40 PM
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Yeah buddy! This thing is still pounding.

Only issue with this amp is it generates some serious heat, but I got creative to overcome that. I bought a little brushless 12v blower type fan to draw some air through it and took a hole saw to the metal plate on the bottom of the amp and used some screws to attach it. Made mounting the amp a little cumbersome but I was easily able to overcome that as well by cutting out a hole in the mdf mounting plate to accommodate the fan attached to the back of the amp. Got 12v +/- power from the ground and remote lugs on the amp, so the fan only ran when the amp was on.

In the process of pulling the amp out and getting everything ready for install the little positive wire on the fan got yanked out and I decided to go with a new, slightly bigger fan to draw even more air though it. After a couple hours on the road this past Sunday to go see a friend I felt it and amp was cool to the touch.

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Last edited by willyworm*; 06-02-2021 at 04:22 PM.
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