I just finished up the install in my truck of an aftermarket subwoofer. Thanks to the advise and threads of people on this forum everything went pretty smooth. I am going to try to capture the bulk of the things I did, and hopefully this information will help some do a similar install.

• Truck is a 2018 XLT extended cab (SCAB) with the 4.3" screen radio and has factory satellite radio
• Has the subwoofer connector behind the drivers side rear A-pillar. (WPT1212 or C3049)
• Has a fuse populated in position 22 by the battery which is the 12V lead for the "amplifier" according to the manual
• From my last truck I had a Kicker ZX300.1 which I kept when I traded (and a sub that doesn't fit)
• Kept the 8ga wiring from the last truck too.
• Bought Forscan specifically for turning on the subwoofer output (although I turned on a bunch of other stuff too)
• Used a PAC TR-4 to convert the 6V level coming from the sub connector remote to 12V for the amp (mine requires it)
• Wired the SUB+ and SUB- signal directly to both the left and right input RCAs on the amp
• Bought an alternate to the WPT1212
  from Amazon here
  from Amazon here
  and am very happy with it (not all the same green color)
• Went with a Kicker 43TCWRT102 10" Passive radiator enclosure I bought off eBay to replace the 10" from my previous 2012 F150 truck that wouldn't fit

So I'm just going to show you the picture of the finished project with the rear seat down, and say that I am VERY happy with the way it sounds, before I get into the details:


Kicker subwoofer and ZX300.1 amp installed

First of all, the install I did isn't for those that are afraid to tear their truck apart or scrape your hands up digging wires around. And I will say that although the sub fits, you need a turkey baster and a gallon of artificial butter to get it to where it needs to be...

Step one was to verify the WPT1212 connector from the factory. Apparently not all trucks have this. Mine did. You pull the door seal on the drivers side slightly, lift the bottom of the A-pillar plastic cover and pry it back slightly and shine in a flashlight to see if the connector is there. Mine was. So far so good.

Step two, fold down the rear seat. There are plenty of threads about how to do this. With an extended cab it's more difficult because the seat base doesn't slide forward when folded up, so it's TIGHT. Use a box end 1/2" wrench, hook the square peg pictured below and pull up. The seat will come loose. Not wanting to cramp my hand up again releasing the seat, I wanted an easier solution. I know someone makes an aftermarket pull handle, but I wanted something cheaper. So I looped some 20AWG wire around the release button and routed it to just below the back of the seat:



Release the drivers side rear seat back easier the second time...

Step three of the process was to check to make sure the sub fit. I was worried about this because everyone that I saw that has this sub enclosure had a crew cab. The Pioneer enclosure with sub is smaller, but I've heard mixed reviews about it. I bought it on eBay, and did some test fitting. At first I considered redrillling the seat base brackets because everything was SO tight, but after removing the rear seat I discovered you can't do that because the front brackets have a "lifting ring" on them. So I cut the back carpet out behind the sub, I had to trim the outside vent rib on the bottom (it sticks out from the rear of the more than everything else) and removed the foil covered tar sound deadener and test fit the sub. It fit. JUST BARELY!! There isn't a 1/4" to spare. I noticed (and I think this is an extended cab only thing) that the rear seat has this brace that looked like it was going to hit the sub. I lifted the seat and verified this would be a problem, so I flattened the brace with a 4# sledge. I checked clearance again and had more than 3/4". With XMAX on this sub at 1/2", I had enough room:


Flattened seat brace

The sub was sitting on the screw posts for the rear seat mounts. I took the advise of a couple others here and just drilled a 2x4 to clear those posts and mounted that to the floor. I then screwed that 2x4 to the bottom of the sub box which holds the bottom of the sub as far rearwards as possible to keep the sub from hitting the rear seat bottom.

The top of the sub was another problem. It had a good 3/4" of rearward motion when pressed on. So I wanted that secured to the cab wall. I decided to make a bracket that attached to the rear seat retaining pin bracket. I used some scrap aluminum from work, and bent it appropriately. Nice thing is I don't use a screw to secure to the sub enclosure, just a bracket over the case:


Sub retaining bracket

Step four was to run the power for the sub. The amplifier takes a 50A lead (8ga wire) so running it off the factory harness was a no go. I was limited on length since the power wire came out of my last truck, so that meant I had to route the wire on the passenger side. It is doable, but you will do some disassembly to get there. I removed: Battery, battery box, and the fuse panel enough to tilt it out of the way. I then cut the end of the nipple off the rubber gasket and ran a 1/4" drill through the rubber. There is an inside component to that rubber gasket you need to get through. Then I used some CAT6 wire to push through the gasket as a pilot, and scraped the crap out of my hand finding it behind the glove box after removing a module and a cover that's there. This was the worst part of the job. Once I had the CAT6 fished through, I taped the power wire to it and pulled it through the firewall, and routed it down the passenger side of the truck. The finished result underhood looks tidy, but it's not for the squeamish. There is a LOT of disassembly involved:



Underhood 50A fuse holder


8AWG power wire through the firewall on the passenger side

I drilled a hole in the rear cab bulkhead and used a self tapping bolt for a ground source near the amp.

Step 5 was to mount the amplifier. I used a scrap of plywood. The top of the plywood is held into the truck via a couple of self tapping sheetmetal screws drilled into the bulkhead. The bottom just rests on the cab floor. It holds it secure enough:


Amplifier mounted to a plywood backer.

And finally the remote volume. I grabbed a tip directly from someone here (sorry I don't remember the name) and mounted it directly below the trailer backup controller:



Subwoofer remote volume below trailer controller

The final step was to turn on the sub in Forscan. This worked exactly the way it was supposed to. Turned on the two bits, (one to enable the sub, one to turn off the EQ) and viola, subwoofer enabled.

Some final notes:

• The signal I was getting to the sub was FULL RANGE! I left my internal crossover on the amp enabled.
• The WPT1212 tap, even though I just used the signal and remote turn on, was very nice. No center dash removal or tapping the rear speaker lines.
• The rear drivers seat bottom still flips up, and the jack is still in the same place it was before.
• Total time was about 8 hours.
• No sub pop on turn on. This might be a function of using the PAC TR-4. It has a 1 second delay.

Other things I enabled in Forscan:

- country code 5753 in APIM to allow me to browse my USB folders while moving. The SYNC voice commands don't allow this.
- Bambi headlight mode
- No chime for key in the ignition
- Average speed display on DIC.

I will draw up the schematic for tapping the WPT1212 with a PAC TR-4 one of these days when I get some extra time.

Questions welcome!

 

That looks great. I need some someone to do that to my scab.

 

I owe you guys a schematic, here you go. This should work for any sub amp you're going to power directly from the battery.

I used shielded audio wire for the RCAs to keep the noise down. You do NOT connect the shield at the RCAs. That will create a ground loop. The SUB- goes to the RCA outside. Also, try to minimize the unshielded wire length at the plug. Mine wound up being a little over 2".

 

Wow thanks for the post this is great info.

 

You should always solder the shield at input end. This avoids the ground loop and eliminates noise. By not connecting the shield to your body ground, it offers absolutely no noise rejection. You essentially have a 2 conductor wire with no shielding at all.

 

Thank you, you beat me to it. Amazing how people think a drain wire, foil shield, or even braiding are magic barriers to emf. If it's not grounded at one end or the other it's not going to do anything at all.

 

Actually, it's connected at the ACM end:



And you can see this is exactly how Ford does it too. Their shielding is not connected at the subwoofer amp side, it's only connected at the ACM.

Shielding should always be done on only one side. Not to mention, since we're tying to an RCA, but the output is (presumably) floating, tying the negative side to shield (which is tied to ground) might short the negative leg of the SUB out on the ACM to ground..

 

some of us are having issues with getting the Forscan settings correct - resulting in no signal from pins 6 and 7.
What specific settings did you make to the ACM in Forscan?

 

For anyone going down the passenger side for power/ground.....and NOT using and old cable run....got through the front passenger floor pan ,much easier for the cost of a little more cable(20' with leftover) there is a factory plug in the floor(current gen anyway). Nice job by the way...