ab46501

I have seen several write ups on this but I am not sure if anyone has done exactly what I did so I thought I would share since it was a pretty simple install.

Like most of you I was a little underwhelmed with the Sony system. It sounded OK but lacked power, especially with the bass. Within a month or two of buying the truck I swapped the stock sub out for a compact Kicker 40CWRT81 that I was able to fit in the stock box with some minor modification. It improved things in the bass department but still did not give me what I wanted.

So after looking around for a bit I went with a Kenwood KAC-M3001 compact sub amp. It puts out 300 watts RMS which is perfect for the Kicker sub.

The Kenwood accepts speaker level inputs via RCA's so I disconnected the wires from the sub, installed some speaker to RCA inputs and ran to the Kenwood Amp. Then the outputs from the new amp were run back to the sub. For the power wire I was able to tap a 10 ga wire that supplies the power inverter that is under the rear seat. Since I really don't use the house type plugs in the truck for anything other than cell phone charging I did not see an issue with this. For ground I ran wire to a couple of the body bolts. The amp senses a signal and turns on and off automatically so at this point I was good to go.

I have to say this is a huge improvement over stock! I have not changed out any of the door speakers, I probably will at some point but for now this is definitely something I can live with.

LRHogFan

iTrader: (1)

Did you ever consider opening that box up a little bit and fiberglassing the inside of it? I don't even have my truck yet but have ordered one of these subwoofers to do this mod as soon as I get the truck.

dhmcfadin

Glad it worked out man. If I could give any suggestions, clean up that wiring quick. What's up with the two strand ground wire?

ab46501

Have not considered that but I have thinking about building a box, I think I can get enough volume to fit the Kicker 10" version of this sub. There is more room to work with than what the factory box uses.

Took the picture right after I hooked it all up and I did not have the correct ground wire at that time so I improvised. I really wanted to just get it working to see how it sounded. That's all been corrected now.

LRHogFan

iTrader: (1)

Can you post up a pic of what the finished product looks like? Any other amps you considered going with? Any issues with fake engine noise being pumped in? Exactly what type of Line Output Converter you used to convert the speaker inputs to RCA? Is there room in front of the speaker to use an adapter ring versus modifying the interior of the box? Anything you wish you would have known going in?

Sorry for all of the questions, I really want to do this but also want to make sure that I can learn from any mistakes you might have made to make it easier for anyone that does this in the future.

ab46501

Don't have a pic handy of finished product but I will try to take one and post.

Kicker makes a couple of compact mono sub amps but after comparing the Kenwood suited my needs better.

I have the 5.0 so no fake engine noise in my truck!

No line output converter needed with this amp. It accepts speaker level inputs. I just used some speaker wire to RCA adapters from ebay. One of the reasons I chose it.

I did not use an adapter ring but I have seen post by others who have. The room for one seems to be there. I just modified the back of the box.

As far as anything different.... no not really. I have upgraded my front door speakers to infinity kappas. Overall I am happy with the sound now. That does not mean I may not continue to upgrade or change things. I probably will replace the rear doors at some point.

Go Hogs!

Haas

@ab46501

I am looking at this Kenwood Amp and I notice something that every other amp seems to have but this does not.

1. Gain controls


How are you dealing with this?