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Easy / efficient wire routing

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Old 08-04-2017, 06:39 PM
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Easy / efficient wire routing

Any installers out there have advice about the easiest, most efficient wire routing for Maximas, especially for 8th Gen ('16/'17)? Particularly:
  • power from the battery to the trunk
  • speaker wires from the head to the trunk (for those of use without Bose)
  • speaker from the trunk to the various speaker locations

Looked at the stickies and FAQs and didn't find detailed information for this tech-heavy topic.
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Old 12-06-2017, 10:17 AM
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Run your power wire on the same side of the car as the battery. I cut a hole in the firewall grommet behind the driver side fuse box from inside the car, taped an XL zip tie to some 1/0 and fished it thru to the engine bay from inside the car. If you don' have small hands you can easily access the firewall grommet by taking off the front drivers fender liner.

Take off the black kick plates on either side, and remove the back seat bottom coushin. The kick plates can be removed by prying up with a plastic tool starting closest to the seat and working toward the front of the car. Release the clips that hold the carpet in place and run power wire under there there under rear seat and into trunk.

run your speaker wire and rcas on the passenger side the same way to avoid interference from your power wire.
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Old 12-06-2017, 06:21 PM
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Thanks for the tips

Thanks for the tips. I couldn't work the power wire through the grommet on the driver's side, so I used the grommet on the passenger's side behind the glove box. There wasn't any reason to buck tradition, so my speaker and high-level output wires were run under the sill plates like everyone else does.

I chose not to change the factory head unit, but I did splice 16ga signal wires to the factory harness and ran all four output channels to the trunk where I installed DSP to clean up the signal prior to my amp. Sounds pretty good.
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Old 12-07-2017, 05:58 AM
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Right on, unless you have bose, Nissan typically sends a full range signal from the head unit and they keep the passive crossovers on the actual speakers, I was able to tap into left and right audio from the rear deck 6x9s and run them to my LC2i so it saved a lot of effort and wire tapping in right next to my speakers. 4 wires have me the full range signal for my mono and 4 channel amps.
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Old 12-07-2017, 07:47 PM
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I completely understand and almost went that way, too. But I just couldn't stomach the thought of the factory 20ga wire carrying the signal, so I was compelled to buck up and run new wires from the front to the trunk.

Next steps are to install another four channels of amplification so I can actively amp all channels with no passive crossovers, install some better 3-1/2s in the rear doors and change the 6.5s I currently have in the rear deck for JL Audio 6" subs (more extension and better power handling).

I can never remember the name of the thread, but if you're interested, search on my username and you can see my install.
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Old 12-08-2017, 09:24 AM
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Nice, sounds like it's gonna end up pretty sick. I'll check it out. I'll try to get some pics up of my whole system too.
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Old 12-09-2017, 06:02 AM
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I don't know about sick, but it is certainly a significant upgrade over the factory stereo from the bottom up. Bass has more than one thumpy note, Midrange is coherent and musical without all that bouncing around off the windshield and the highs have quickness and articulation. I am looking for a little more bottom end, but don't want the trunk rattling associated with dual 12s with 1000W in the trunk.

There isn't much to see in the "end" photos since I was trying to maintain the factory look overall. I chose to keep the stock head unit and add DSP to keep the dash intact. All speakers have been replaced, but my new drivers are in factory locations. Except for my tweeters. That DSP is powerful stuff. As you can imagine, the factory speaker locations aren't optimal, but with DSP everything comes together really well. My home gear still sounds better, but it weighs 500 lb, of course.
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Old 12-26-2017, 03:32 PM
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Originally Posted by macdonjh
I don't know about sick, but it is certainly a significant upgrade over the factory stereo from the bottom up. Bass has more than one thumpy note, Midrange is coherent and musical without all that bouncing around off the windshield and the highs have quickness and articulation. I am looking for a little more bottom end, but don't want the trunk rattling associated with dual 12s with 1000W in the trunk.

There isn't much to see in the "end" photos since I was trying to maintain the factory look overall. I chose to keep the stock head unit and add DSP to keep the dash intact. All speakers have been replaced, but my new drivers are in factory locations. Except for my tweeters. That DSP is powerful stuff. As you can imagine, the factory speaker locations aren't optimal, but with DSP everything comes together really well. My home gear still sounds better, but it weighs 500 lb, of course.
Sounds like a nice setup! What DSP are you using?
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Old 12-26-2017, 06:24 PM
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JL Audio Fix and JL Audio D8. My plan was to use the Fix with my Audio Control analog EQ/ crossover, but I got impatient and bought the D8 the very next week. The D8 is pretty powerful: independent crossovers for each channel, boost/ cut for each channel, delay for each speaker, both graphic and parametric EQ, the ability to store and have access to six different configurations (JLA calls them presets). Just having the delays set so my image is rock solid and centered in front of the driver's seat is enough of an improvement that I haven't even started playing with EQ yet.
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Old 12-26-2017, 09:47 PM
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Sounds like a nice piece. I’ve never used the JL Audio D8 yet. I’ve pretty much used all the others on the market. I just finished up a stealth totally stock looking subwoofer enclosure with a 10” sub with 600 watts powering it. Sounded pretty nice. The trunk lid and truck and panels were sound deaden to stop any rattling. Here is a few pictures of the setup.









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Old 12-27-2017, 06:21 PM
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Cool enclosures. Are they fiberglass?
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Old 12-27-2017, 07:36 PM
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Originally Posted by macdonjh
Cool enclosures. Are they fiberglass?
The Enclosure is fiberglass and mdf wood. Custom built for the car.
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Old 12-28-2017, 05:48 AM
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I had To pull a mold first to get the shape.i used mdf board shaped to the bottom of the floor area. I used sever layers of fiberglass chop mat 1.5oz until I had 7 layers. Then bonded more mdf wood cutout shapes to the fiberglass cavity to make the face of the enclosure. The grill panel is removable, it’s pressure fit and held by neo magnets. The metal grill mesh is custom made as well. It was wrapped in black grill cloth to hide the speaker. To give it s more stealth look.






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Old 01-18-2018, 09:39 AM
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Super clean setup, maximaman! This is my setup I had professionally done in my 15 altima and slightly butchered when I had to modify it for the maxima. Still looks alright though. How do you like the dap? I almost got the Fix but now have the means to acquire kicker gear deeply discounted so I'm running the iq 1000.1 and 500.4 with built in DSPs.
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Old 01-23-2018, 07:59 AM
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Originally Posted by Mlb123

Super clean setup, maximaman! This is my setup I had professionally done in my 15 altima and slightly butchered when I had to modify it for the maxima. Still looks alright though. How do you like the dap? I almost got the Fix but now have the means to acquire kicker gear deeply discounted so I'm running the iq 1000.1 and 500.4 with built in DSPs.
Thanks! Looks good. This has the Bose 11 speaker audio system. The subwoofer is powered off an arc Audio XDi mono block amplifier. The signal to the amp is from an audio control LC2i Converter. Maybe down the road it will be upgraded to a 12ch dsp. Since all 11 speakers were upgraded to high end SQ speakers.
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