Follow-up on my install ...
Rear doors need a 1/2" spacer for 6.5" coax found here:
6.5" speaker spacers. The opening in the door is odd, so I just attached the spacers to the door using screws and clips with the speakers mounted towards the hinge side of the door. Only two solid mounting points were used (holes drilled in metal of door, no big deal). The door can slam and everything is secure. The speakers I used are
Infinity Kappa 62IX. The rears are just rear fill, so I'm not too concerned with lower frequency response.
Front doors are pretty straight forward. I bought
Infinity Kappa 60CSX and added the
Infinity Kappa 20MX to make the system a 3-way system. Tweeters attach to the stock mounting bracket with strong double sided tape, and the 2" midrange attaches to the stock mounting bracket with zip ties. The drivers door mounting location needs to be skewed towards the hinge side of the door by using one of the factory screw holes (the short leg on the bracket) and use a zip tie to secure the long leg on the bracket to the door mounting location. This is necessary for the 2" speaker to fit with the power door/window control in the door properly. I also put electrical tape around the speaker to wire connections since everything is very cramped with the door card installed and I didn't want any electrical shorts. The woofer driver installs fine with the included adapter to the OEM mounting plate. I put the main crossovers to the SW (on drivers side) of the woofers with double sided tape to the door metal, and they BARELY fit with the door card installed due to the location of the storage pocket in the bottom of the door. It fits, however. The 2" midrange crossover sits to the NE (on drivers side) of the woofer driver with double sided tape to the door metal, as there is a cavity in the door card with enough space. On the passenger side, main crossover goes SE of the woofer, and 2" midrange crossover goes NW of the woofer.
The amp sits in the cavity below the passenger front seat and I use the
Infinity Kappa K4. I bought 2 amp connection kits as well and are
Boss amp connection kits, one 8 gauge and one 4 gauge. For speaker wire routing, I poked a hole through the stock wire loom protectors (the part that seals to the door or car) and fed through the speaker wire. It was near impossible for me to push the speaker wire through the entire loom path, so the speaker wire is exposed between the door and the truck. As for the 4 gauge power wire, I poked a hole in the large rubber grommet near where the blower motor resides in the cabin on the passenger side. You can elect to seal all of the poked holes with silicone for waterproofing; I didn't bother. The 4 gauge breaks out into a distro block near the amp under the passenger seat to 4 gauge for the K4 amp and 8 gauge for the sub (next paragraph).
I wanted an easy quick disconnect sub and my bass heavy days are past me, so I bought an
Infinity BassLink DC 10" powered sub. I mounted it with the cones firing forward/backward and almost flush against the back of the 2nd row when the seat backs are in place. NOTE: The third row seats will fold down and latch, but it takes some force and things get unhappily pinched. I don't use the 3rd row seats (I keep them in the garage for weight savings because race car) so it doesn't matter to me.
The head unit is the
Pioneer AVIC-W8500NEX. I also bought a
NAVICS double DIN surround plate and
Metra amp bypass kit since I was unsure if I was going to run separate speaker wire, or tap into the OEM wiring from the K4 amp. I only used the separate adapter for power, ground, acc, and power antenna from the Metra kit. NOTE: The NAVICS surround plate prevents the head unit from opening to insert discs, memory cards, or the microphone for AutoEQ and Time Alignment. I am currently searching for another surround plate. I also ordered the
Pioneer microphone to use the AutoEQ and Time Alignment feature of the head unit. I HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend this route for a baseline setting of speaker level settings (EQ, time delay, individual speaker volume level). With a proper stereo, it did an excellent job of flattening out the frequency response and provide excellent imaging and soundstaging.
Oh, and I did install an
eRapta wired backup cam and routed it through the stock wiring looms from the tailgate to the left rear quarter panel to get in the cabin.
For $1650 I'm really pleased. The system sounds loud, clean, and clear (and thumpy if I change a few settings on the head unit), I have GPS/NAV without having to use data for GPS in Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, and a backup cam. The cost would be less if I wanted to sell each piece of the stock ML system on eBay or the like.
