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installing an active sub

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:52 pm
by danbrazier
Hello, howdy, how are ya?

OK - after trying to mentally prepare myself for the task ahead this morning - I failed miserably at finding a decent walkthrough for how to install an active sub woofer in to the new megane.

I discovered there were loadsh for the older meganes, but the phase 2? (I believe they are, anyway!)

Basically - on the 23rd November (2007) my car was hit by an uninsured driver, he did some ridiculous damage, but i honestly think my megane saved mine, and my girlfriends life! My old car, a P plate 306 would probably have been annihilated!

So anyway, on hearing that it would be fixed, I've vowed to treat her as best I possibly can :) So, before giving her a jolly good hose down tomorrow, I decided I'd install my sub from my 306 (which I sold about 9 months ago, to pay for the deposit on the megane).

I've just come in after about 3 hours of planning, and installing all the wiring, and hopefully tomorrow, or maybe friday, my head unit should turn up!

So, basically - I've taken loads of piccy-tures, and I plan on writing these in to a walkthrough on how to install a in an easy, and relatively non-destructive way!

Pictures to follow!

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 4:44 pm
by kylehimself
good stuff. will be good to see how you went about it.

kyle :cool:

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 5:31 pm
by danbrazier
Okey dokey - the pics have arrived!

I started by putting the sub in the boot, on the side that i wanted it (I chose the single folding-down seat, which I never actually fold down, the double gets used a lot for my doggy :))
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After positioning the sub where I wanted it, I went about planning how to actually get power to the back... hopefully I'll be able to save you the same confusion! Undo the glovebox, and you'll see what you can see below, except there was a little plastic cover bit over the first torx screw I targeted! I pinged it out, and nearly took my eye out, so go easy guys and gals!
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If you're wondering what a torx screw is, its modelled in the sexiest way ever below. I think they were t20's. And yes, I do bite my nails :)
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Next there are 3 (only 2 pictured!) more torx screws at the top of the glovebox compartment. I removed these, but as luck would have it, the glovebox still didn't budge! Doh!
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Right, so to fully remove the glovebox, you should have already removed the 3 torx screws (in the 3 red circles along the top right of the image) Now there are only 2 more. To get to these, you have to firstly lift up the door sill (green circle!) and then you can remove the big "hockey stick bit" (yellow circle!) and tehn remove the end "cap" on teh glovebox (orange circle!). Now you should be able to get at the last 2 screws... and GERANIMO! the glove box should be all yours!
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I forgot to take a pic of exactly where the grommet thingy is, but you if you can't see it, you might wanna put your car together and drive to somebody and pay them to do this for you! It's a whacking great rubber doo-hicky that requires a fair amount of force to pull it out! Go easy, as I don't want to be responsible for anybody screwing up their door looms! After faffing for ages with a laser pen to try and spot the corresponding hole on the engine side, I resorted to a vaguely straightened coat hanger. If you get right in to yoru footwell and peer through the grommet, you can just about see some daylight - that's your target. So get poking. I found that just pointing it in the right general direction and pushing it tentatively through bit by bit (whilst running around to the engine side of things frequently to check I wasn't ballsing anything up!) did the trick.
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Anyway, on the outside, this is where it emerges (again, I nearly forgot to capture this, so excuse the blurry bit of my hook!) this is between the accessory cover (which I had removed the lid of to make more room (2 t30 torx's, if you need to take it out of the equation!)
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A better image of my fashioned hook which i was able to thread the loop on the power cable over. Run back round to yoru passenger footwell, and give this a tug, and slowly but surely it should come out inside the car! Yay, getting close!
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Back inside the car, this is the power lead all the way through, complete with my beloved coat hanger still attached!
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Pull through all the slack, and you can begin laying this down along the sills. I hid the cable under the middle bit of trim (the yellow circled one in the pic above!) and let it poke through along the sill - as i found it a bit of a mission to get the sills to lay flat with the cable under!)
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Carry on working your way down the car (bear in mind mine's a 5-door, so proabbly easier than 3-doors :wink:) then on this (below) piece of trim, I fed the lead under it, and pulled it pretty tightly in to place (giving lots of spare in the boot, but reducing the trip hazard bits in front of the doors!)
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Feed the cable up, and in to the boot to your amp (which in my case, is part of the sub!)
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That's all for now, next chapter is the how-to on the remote lead (which means the sub won't be drawing power when there's no need) and the earth and RCA plugs, but they'll wait for when my head unit is here to plug it all in to!

Thanks for reading guys, hope it's a help so far!

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 10:20 pm
by cactusbob
You do realise that if you remove the sill trim all along there are some handy clips you can put your cables into?

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:49 am
by danbrazier
^^ really? hmm.... i saw those kinda "bulldog" looking clips and they looked like a) they'd not be big enough for the cable, and b) almost as if the equivalent part on the sill used up all that space when it clips in? i'll mess around with it later when i install my head unit and get back to you :D

cheers for the heads up!

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 12:55 pm
by cactusbob
If you take the sill trim off you'll see some other cables and loads of space

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 12:59 pm
by danbrazier
Now going out to have a fiddle :) it's pouring with rain though, so I'm parked under our car port trying not to get soggy!

I'll make sure I'll take lotsh of pics of everything... any tips on removing the head unit?

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 10:14 pm
by davidloveshismeg
Thanks for that! really cool, ive been looking to put my fusion in for a while now but havnt been bothered trying to find a good place to bring the power cable in, and then I found this so ill have a go at it this weekend!

Cheers
Dave

Re: installing an active sub

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2010 2:00 pm
by nickakamoby
This is excellent, had my megane a dew days now & waiting for the new amps & crossover to arrive so this has helped me a lot in preparation for when I start ripping my car apart.

Keep up the good work and make sure you keep taking those pics, you're a genius! :)

Re: installing an active sub

Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2010 4:13 pm
by STH
what head unit have you got buddy?

Re: installing an active sub

Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 7:52 pm
by Andi.R
did u not put the power lead through the big grommet or is it down the ide of grommet against the metal if it is good luck your car doesnt catch fire if it shorts

Re: installing an active sub

Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2010 10:44 pm
by STH
I am considering getting a sub for my megane, however i want to use the original head unit. Is this possible? Cheers

Re: installing an active sub

Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2010 9:17 am
by wyuen1
STH wrote:I am considering getting a sub for my megane, however i want to use the original head unit. Is this possible? Cheers


yeh its possible but you'll need to get a feed from the rear speakers as the original head unit doesn't have pre-amps like after market HU. i thinks this is what you http://caraudiosecurity.com/shop/product/products_id/3794.html

Re: installing an active sub

Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2010 12:33 pm
by beatmonkeytwo
Has anyone done this using an original head unit? I want to do this but am unsure how to wire the remote wire in??? :conf

Re: installing an active sub

Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2010 6:46 pm
by wynney1978
Been a great help for installing a boost gauge too. :cool: