2014 Camry stereo upgrade

[Hoops79]

Hi All,

Recently purchased a 2014 Camry RZ in red with 32k on the clock.  Nice car to drive but the stereo is a little underwhelming for my tastes.  As a result, i decided to give it a tweak.  The finished product will be:

new front component speakers.  Pioneer 6.5 woofers and tweeters

no rear speakers

Sub 12" Kenwood

Response 4 channel running the whole lot.

Keep original HU.

I have previously had this set up in other cars and like the sound of everything coming from up front, concert style, and given the only rear seat passengers will sometimes be the kids, i am not worried about the lack of rear speakers.

 

To start I removed the rear speakers.  Nice easy job.  Remove c pillars and drop the rear seats first.  Then there are 3 clips near the harness points, pop out the covers for easy access and pop these up.  The parcel shelf will then pull towards the front of the car.  Be warned, on the passenger side there is a set of wires attached the the front underside of the shelf that need to be unclipped.  Once it is out of the road, there are 4x10mm bolts for each speaker.  I put the bolts back in the holes in case i want to use them later, and knowing me, if they went in the garage i would only see them again if i moved house.

 

Once removed i pushed the wiring into the boot and put everything back together.  Piece of cake.

Next were the fronts.  There are door removal vids on you tube and they were right on the money for the RZ.  I popped the tweeter cover and removed them.  2x10mm bolts for each of those.  I whipped up a quick mount out of mdf for them so i could bolt them straight in.

With the doors off i removed the front speakers and made some more mounts out of thicker mdf for the 6.5's to screw into.  Do a dummy run with the window down to test clearance.  Another tip is to make sure your adaptor doesn't impinge on the door clips for reinstallation.

Very basic wiring using the existing speakers wires, as this is far from a competition setup, so they will suffice nicely.

Wires as follows.

Front right + Green

Front right - Blue

Front left + Pink

Front left - Violet

Rear right +Red

Rear right - Pink

Rear left + Black

Rear left - Yellow.

 

I also ran the power lead for my amp last night.  On the drivers side in the engine bay, there is a massive black grommet that the loom goes through.  There is also a small round part on mine that was solid but unused and a bit away from the loom.  I went straight through that area(very carefully avoiding the loom) and into the passenger foot well.  from there i poked a coat hanger through from the engine bay, strapped the power lead to it and pulled it back through.  I then ran it under the sills along the passenger side of the car, under the rear and into the boot.  It looks like i will run it under the air box to the battery.

 

Tomorrow will entail adding the sub and amp, which will be the most complex part.  I have a 4 channel LOC to convert the signal to RCA as that is what my amp uses.  I will run through that part after i have done it with any hints/tips.  Hopefully the wiring diagram stays true to the back of the head unit.

 

Pics to follow.

Edited September 21, 2016 by Hoops79

[Hoops79]

C pillar removed, yep that's the airbag

speaker depth front

[Hoops79]

c pillar out

back of the pillar for clip locations

the pesky sneaky wires on passenger side

the stock speakers.  Such light magnets you wouldn't even know they had them

right rear

left rear