Added a sub

I have an 802A w/ Sony sound, super crew. I went the path of someone who blazed the trail before me:

2015 Subwoofer Mod - Page 2 - F150online Forums

The amp was ~$89 and the sub was under $120 on amazon, and these may not even be the best prices out there.

That Kenwood amp is small, about the size of an iPad mini, about 1.75” thick?

This particular sub has been superseded by Kicker, and the new one is a
Kicker CompRT 43CWRT81. Others may work, but if re-tasking the factory Sony box, you need a shallow depth sub.

I did tap power from the inverter like the original poster, but will tap power from the battery as time permits.

The install really was not that bad, however I did check out a power run to the battery, briefly and I’m going to have to come back to that.

My initial tests were positive, but at 100% I can hear some noise at the sub that sounds like ‘fluttering’? so i backed down the input about 1/5th turn and I believe I have it where I want.

It looks to me like there’s room for more back there and I’d love to have a 10” back there because I could stand about 25-40 % more bass. I’m not into heavy bass rap, but bass is the underpinning of a good sounding stereo.
For some context, I think it would be fair to classify me as a “bass enthusiast”.
My TV is wired to my home stereo, with a 10” sub and 5.1 system. In Jurassic park when the show the iconic shaking glass of water, I can do that on my living room table.


This setup goes a good way towards that and still retains your under seat storage, fold up the seats and can still use the whole floor. I really thought 300w would overpower the factory stereo. Nope. I’d definitely opt for more power / bass, but not over the top. I have a mix of music on my iPhone from 70’s rock, through present day. I like rock, blues, some jazz, some big-band, Motown, some modern country... you get the idea.

So I tried a few songs out with good results.
It’s a long way to the top: great.
Def Leppard; Photograph: great.
One bourbon, one scotch, one beer - had to turn the input down just a touch.
Foreplay/Long time: sounded great.
After Midnight/Just one Night(the beer commercial version): could take just a little more bass.
Woke up This Morning (The Sopranos theme song) - big, big improvement.

So, after buttoning things up for the first outing, I headed out and at the first light auto stop did not engage. I suspected it might not, and checked and the truck indicated battery charge as the reason.

Don’t get your hopes up - after I’d driven a few miles, the next light and all others after, it worked.

So, with just the factory stereo, new amp and sub, it’s definitely an improvement.

Now, when the The Car Stereo Company comes out with some stuff, pay attention. ( I’m not affiliated with them, nor am I even a customer [yet] but they are a supporting vendor willing to help us out)

There’s pictures in the thread linked above, and I didn’t do anything groundbreaking here, but I can grab some pics if needed.

Wow....

This is the kind of thing I'm looking for. So you grabbed the juice off the power inverter run? That'd be fine for me as I'll never use it.

Did you have to remove the back seats to do the install? (I'm guessing yes)

So you pulled the Sony Sub? Did the amp get pulled too or no?

Did the new sub mount into the factory enclosure?


If my questions sound dumb it's because I am. Truly. I've never owned an F150 before and I'm learning as I go. I also don't want to sink a ton of money into a truck that's already 70 grand because chances are in 3 years I'll be trading it for another new Raptor. But for under 500 bucks... I'd go for it.

Pics?

Thanks

Guy

Did you have to remove the back seats to do the install? (I’m guessing yes)

Click to expand...

No, lift the passenger seat, and do the opposite to the driver’s side rear seat.
Lift it first, eyeball the seat release bracket, pull up on the ‘button’ to release it, then the seat comes down, lower the bench and backrest on top of it.

sub enclosure and amp are revealed.

So you pulled the Sony Sub? Did the amp get pulled too or no?

Click to expand...

Yes, the sub enclosure comes out easy peasey. One rear mount, two floor mount bolts, same size socket. Unplug amp to sub connector and pull it out.

Sony amp got left in place.

Sub enclosure is modified to make room for the bigger rear of the (same size) 8” sub. You just have to relieve some of the lower shelf and the rear attach point. use a heat gun or torch and 3 pound hammer or similar flat surface you can put a bit of force on.

Did the new sub mount into the factory enclosure?

Click to expand...

Once you modify the enclosure the new sub fits.

If my questions sound dumb it's because I am. Truly. I've never owned an F150 before and I'm learning as I go. I also don't want to sink a ton of money into a truck that's already 70 grand because chances are in 3 years I'll be trading it for another new Raptor. But for under 500 bucks... I'd go for it.

Click to expand...

Under $250, if you buy an amp wring kit.

Did you get an amp wiring kit? Someone sells it?

So what happens? The new amp gets line fed off of the Sony harness (existing from amp to sub). And then the power for the new amp and new sub comes from the power inverter back there?

That sounds very doable. What I don't want to tackle is making a wire pull from the battery. You either have to go through the firewall or or drill through the cab from underneath and I'm just not up for all that any more. I've done it with other suvs and such I've had in the past, but I'm being honest when I say I've gotten old and lazy...

This is right up my alley.

---------- Post added at 05:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:04 PM ----------

Oh and P.S

I REALLY appreciate the information and thank you for sharing it. I'm most certainly going to do this mod but never would have attempted it without your feedback.

One last question.... where did you mount the new amp?

Guy

Sure, no problem. Honestly, if someone comes up with a way to relatively easily stuff a bigger sub back there or possibly the 2x 8” talked about here previously, I might jump on that.

Yes, I cut the ends off the factory sub harness (pig tail), put new connectors on for the run to the sub. The Sony amp is still in place. Sub ground is easy to get, plenty of connections back there. I picked a bolt the factory sub bracket at the bottom, on the floor. Power can be gotten from the inverter, yes, but I will make a run to the battery when i’m able to find someone else who’s done it and can show me what I’m missing. I can see a pair of pass throughs on the driver’s side fire wall that should work but my first effort at sending the wire through did not go as planned and showed signs of one of my typical “20 minute jobs that end up taking all day”. So I finished up my interior work.

New Amp is mounted pretty much like shown i the link, using a bold on the factory sub mount, and I’m going to pu another hole through to firm it up.

Now I'm curious...

Kicker makes a compact sub... it's 150 watts powered. Under seat kind of sub...

Can that thing be stuffed behind the seat and spliced into the existing sub harness effectively creating two 8's? Would that be similar to one rebuilt stock enclosure?

I'm totally a novice and I'm guessing there's a reason that's a bad idea. Just trying to learn the ins and outs.

Thanks

Guy

One last question...

How are you getting the driver side of the seat to fold down?

I'm just not seeing the latch?

Thanks
Guy

I’m not sure you’d have enough horsepower off the 300w amp to drive 2x 8” subs. Maybe someone with more sub install experience would chime in.

The drivers side rear seat is a bit of a challenge the first 2 times.

lift up the bench, but don’t lock it.
lower the head rest.
contort and peer behind the seat and you’ll see the lock mechanism. There’s a button, I think on the driver’s side, pull up and the seat will release. If this doesn’t articulate it well enough, there’s a picture in the link above -- I googled it and checked a couple links to figure it out.

smurfslayer said:

I’m not sure you’d have enough horsepower off the 300w amp to drive 2x 8” subs. Maybe someone with more sub install experience would chime in.

The drivers side rear seat is a bit of a challenge the first 2 times.

lift up the bench, but don’t lock it.
lower the head rest.
contort and peer behind the seat and you’ll see the lock mechanism. There’s a button, I think on the driver’s side, pull up and the seat will release. If this doesn’t articulate it well enough, there’s a picture in the link above -- I googled it and checked a couple links to figure it out.

Click to expand...

I finally got it. It's not glaringly obvious but once you do it... it's not so bad.

I think the truth of the matter is that the upgrade you performed is about as good as it gets for what the stock 802a radio is...

And what I mean by that... the rest of the speakers are mediocre and they lack clean crisp highs and overall their sound quality is average.

Adding some low end punch and cleaning up the bass is an easy upgrade without breaking the bank. The door speakers, center dash, and a pillars all need to be changed out but it's a pain in the neck and a lot of time investment to do it. I haven't done a project like that in at least 10 years and then you always risk developing door and dash rattles afterwards because the factory clips never clip as tight as the first time.

There may be enough gain by going with quality tweeters in the pillars and leaving the center and doors alone... to get the overall sound up to decent... the midrange response is probably the thing the current system does the best.


I'm eyeballing this project and thinking a couple of hours taking my time and fumbling through it to get the sub up and running...


Now in your opinion... being you have it up and running... do you find the low end frequency response is better? The stock sub can't deliver much below a tom Tom drum. Even in bass heavy songs you never feel like you're getting the low frequency response that is intended by the song.

thanks again for sharing

I think it sounds quite a bit better. I’d like to hear more bass at lower volume, but I may still have some tinkering to do. For the money invested, definitely an improvement.