(Warning the forum or I are not responsible for any damage done to your car or amp or anything)
Heres a nice little DIY on how to install a Subwoofer and amp in your a4, and skip the $60 to $120 charge a shop will ask for.
This was done on my car (a 2000 a4 1.8tm with the non-bose symphony I sound system.)
I chose to use the rear speaker amplifier for the audio input and the remote power input.
THIS IS BY NO MEANS THE ONLY METHOD, OR THE BEST, but it’s how I did it.
On the 1 to 10 scale I rate this a 5 for people who have no idea when it comes to car audio. A 3 for people who at least have some knowledge
Parts:
Amp wiring kit (I chose a 4 gauge Rockford Fosgate kit)
Ratchets of various sizes
Screwdrivers (Phillips head and standard head)
Power Drill
Amplifier (again I chose a Kenwood KAC-7203 2/1 bridged amp)
Subwoofer(s) (mine are Kenwood KFC-W3011)
A high to low input converter
Sub enclosure (you can choose sealed, ported, band pass, or whatever today’s fad is. I like sealed because they are the most accurate and also the cheapest
)your radio anti-theft code for when you reconnect your battery.
Procedure:
1.Take off your Battery/ ECU Cover
2.Your engine should now look like this:
3.Now take off your fuse box cover located on the end of your passenger side dash, there are three (3) snap connections:
4. Now take off your kick panel next to the dead pedal. There are two screws keeping it on, one is located near the bottom under a little plastic snap and the other is exposed right next to the hood latch
5. This is a good time to pull up the back seat. This is accomplished by pulling up on the front part of the bench and pulling towards you. You will know when you disengage the snaps.
6. Now you can pull up the door trim in front and back, (WARNING! It is kind of tricky to get up, there are little metal clips placed about ever 1 1/2Ft. The trim on the bottom is all one piece so be careful.
7. Take off the kick plate for your knees under the steering wheel. This has three screws that keep it on. Two are under plastic trim pieces on either side of the steering wheel. The other is located in the fuse box facing the door. (if you were really tricky you do not even need to take off this piece, but I like to because it frees up a lot of working space.
8. This is a good time to disconnect your positive lead to your battery.
9. Now find a good place to run your power cable through the firewall. I did it in a dumb position but it involved no drilling, which is nice. I ran it though the weatherproof ECU box, and directly into the passenger compartment of the car, I freed up a little space on the actual box for the wire by drilling in the plastic so the power cable could seat in the box and become weather proof. In addition, I covered the edges of the wire and box with silicone sealant to make absolutely sure that no moisture could get in.
10. Now you can run your wire through the car, putting it through the passenger kick plates and under the carpet. You are going to want to run the wire under the rear passenger bench and into the trunk.
11. Your going to want to find a ground for your amp. I pulled up the carpet in the trunk and attached it to the bolt that holds the loops in the trunk.
12. Now, under your rear deck you will see a small aluminum enclosure under your driver side rear speaker. Disconnect the wire harness and plug that run into it. You are looking for the white wire that is in the bundle; splice your remote power wire for your amp on to this.
13. While you are playing with the little speaker amp, splice left and right speaker wire from the actual speaker above the amp. And run it to your high to low input converter. This will take the amplified audio from the speaker wires and convert it to low wattage RCA audio. (There is no need to get a left and right stereo signal, because subwoofer operates on mono audio.)
14. This is the time to hook up all your inputs to the amplifier; I’m not going to get into much detail because amp is different. But you need to connect your power, ground, remote, RCA input wires, and your output speaker cable.
15. Put your subs in your box, by sealing them, and then drilling your screws.
16. Now put your enclosure in your trunk and hook up your subs, re connect your battery. You may be asked for your anti theft code on your radio when you try and start your radio
17. Test your system to make sure that everything is working properly before you reassemble your car.
Put everything back together, and ENJOY!
heres what mine came out looking like (disregard the clutter of random shoes and a EMT field kit)
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Originally Posted by brinboston
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