[Paul W]

I am going to post my progress on two separate forums as I believe there are two different communities. Still haven't figured that out yet, but I'm sure I will.



Hello all....have not posted to this forum (just the 968 forum)....just bought a 93 968 and bought a new stereo and amps for it....I am going to use this thread to document my install plus ask questions.



Looking forward to some help, and hopefully my tons of pictures will help the next guy.



My car came from the factory with a 6 speaker unit and the last owner put in the "el cheapo" $39 radio.....but that is not important.



First thing, this is what I purchased and what I plan to do:



Head Unit: Becker Porsche Traffic Pro, actually put it in last night, got it working. Man, it's a cool unit, perfect for my car!







It replace the Uber Cool Bravo Unit:







Here is the start up screen on the Traffic Pro...I like! I would call it PIMP.







I plan to install the following JL amp and signal conditioners in the spare wheel well, remove the spare from the car, it is MUCH bigger than it looks, will reconfigure it and make a custom board to mount it on.





The tweeters and rear speakers are Focal K2 Power including crossovers....nice equipment!







I will be buying some new door speakers in the 5.25" version to replace the existing speakers:







I got a TON of wiring and extras with the stuff I bought....



Also going to be installing an iPod/aux input for the Traffic Pro and a Bluetooth phone kit.....more to come.

Question Number 1: How to Route the Amp Wire?



I have pulled the car apart....searched the forums and am looking to pull a 4 AWG wire from the battery to the trunk area.



Here is the stock location behind the glove box....do I drill and new hole and put a grommet in it or can I use an existing hole? Doesn't seem like I can. What would you do to get it through the firewall?





Question Number 2: Routing the Speaker and Power Wires



I have to run 8 speaker wires from front to back, 4 from the head unit to the signal conditioner, and 4 back to the front to the doors for the tweeter and the other door speaker.



I also have to run the "remote turn the amp on in the back" power lead from the head unit.



So it will be: (1) 4 AWG power, (1) 18 AWG switch power, (8) sets of speaker wires.



Would you run them all in one group along the passenger side to the back wheel well? Or would you separate the speaker wires from the power wires and run them in a different location? If so....where?



There is quite a bit of wiring to run.



Thanks!

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[bombfactory]

Paul I also located my amp in the spare tire well. I ran the power wire (covered entirely in corrugated plastic protection) from the battery into the right front fender well (zip tied to the brake lines behind the wheel well splash guard), then down under the passenger side of the car, threaded through the mounts for the lower plastic body cladding. In front of the rear wheel it turns inboard, beside the diff, held with a zip tie here and there, and then heads straight back to the front of the spare tire well, through a hole I drilled and fitted with a nice tight rubber grommet. This separates the power wire from the RCA and speaker wires, which run under the passenger side door edge molding. So far so good - and no alternator noise!

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[flash]

just two words:



dynamat extreme!!!



not much point in upgrading speakers without it.

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[bombfactory]

Dynamat - definitely yes! And don't forget the rear quarter foam-fill mod. I still need to do that.

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[Paul W]

[quote name='bombfactory' timestamp='1377534320' post='148012']

Paul I also located my amp in the spare tire well. I ran the power wire (covered entirely in corrugated plastic protection) from the battery into the right front fender well (zip tied to the brake lines behind the wheel well splash guard), then down under the passenger side of the car, threaded through the mounts for the lower plastic body cladding. In front of the rear wheel it turns inboard, beside the diff, held with a zip tie here and there, and then heads straight back to the front of the spare tire well, through a hole I drilled and fitted with a nice tight rubber grommet. This separates the power wire from the RCA and speaker wires, which run under the passenger side door edge molding. So far so good - and no alternator noise!

[/quote]



Thanks for the info....sounds interesting, I will investigate this. Right now I have the blue wire in the picture above (came with the radio) and I don't think the insulation on the wire would be acceptable for being outside the car....at least long term. I'm sure I could find some high quality outdoor stranded wire at Home Depot or the such. Don't need much.



I don't have a good picture of battery right now....but it has the main terminal, plus two places to bolt on additional wires on the positive terminal. Each of those studs have two positive wires attached to them, one with the lug turn upside down (bottom) and one with the lug turned up (top). There is no additional room to put another 4 AWG terminal.







How did you attach the 4 AWG wire to the battery?



Got any pictures of the amp after installation in the spare tire compartment?



Thanks!

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[bva]

In response to your question number 2, consider using Speedwire, made by Stinger, found on Amazon. It's got 9 conductors within a single jacket - 4 twisted pairs for the speakers and 1 for the amp remote signal. Try not to run the speaker wires next to the 4awg power.



guessing the head unit doesn't have RCA outs and/or the JL Cleansweep doesn't have RCA ins; RCAs from the head to the signal processor would be better. 4 and 6 channel ribbon RCAs are also made by Stinger.



also, slap some dynamat on that plastic speaker mounting panel before you mount a new 5.25 in it.

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[Paul W]

Thanks...just got the speedwire....exactly what I needed!

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[bva]

re. another cable to the battery, get a distribution block. pull 1 wire from the battery terminal to the d-block and connect everything else plus your amp to the d-block.

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[Paul W]

Thanks....got the power block also.

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[bombfactory]

I used a thick-ish piece of plywood - trimmed to size and with two large open areas to help ventilation - to bolt the amp to, and fabbed up a bracket that secures the whole thing to the car with the large bolt that previously held down the spare wheel. The amp sits vertically with some padding on the lower edge of the plywood platform to help absorb vibration. The whole thing ain't pretty, especially with the inside of the spare tire well covered in dynamat, but it works! I can get a pic for ya once I get home tonight.

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[Paul W]

Austin-



Would love to see a picture....I was thinking of making a level "shelf" that goes across the entire area that will sit on top of the bracket on one side and have to make some supports for the forward side.



I think if I can at least wire everything up and do the speaker installs, I can always do the amp installation last. Hopefully all my parts will come in this week (have a GPS antenna coming from the UK for the Nav and a Bluetooth/iPod set also for the head unit coming from China)....it would be nice to do all the hard work this long weekend.



Including shampooing and giving the interior a real cleaning, already have the passenger seat out.

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[craigawoodman]

Paul,



The right hand drive 968's have the battery located in the left rear well of the car. So Porsche must have a route for power to go from the rear of the car to the front (and into the engine bay) as this is what my car has fitted as standard.



Would be good to know if you can find the upper trim pieces for the front door pockets. I need some of those.

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[Paul W]

I'm back to the job again, ran a lot of wiring yesterday. I am having difficultly figuring out the antenna amplifier. Hopefully somebody will be able to help. It's a 1993 968.

I have these last two connectors on the white connector, it appears the red and black should be attached to the amp turn on power supply on the head unit to power the antenna, but I am unsure. There is no voltage in any condition on either red/black wire, and it has a very high resistance to ground, about 5 meg ohms. I'm thinking it could be the amplifier, but nothing was previously attached to it:







I do not know what the brown/blue is for....but it is strange, have 4 VDC at this connector on the wire, if the ignition is on or off.

Here is the wiring diagram:









Then the following red/black and brown/blue are found just hooked up to nothing in the radio area, the brown/blue has 4 VDC on it regardless of ignition switch position. Weird.



Does anybody know what these are for?









EDIT: The red/black wires are the same wire (electrically the same point) as is the brown/blue.....I'm thinking the red/black should be hooked up to the remote switch also.



And here is what I thought was the antenna booster wire, it is fused to the antenna wire, I added the blue wire for the amplifier remote switch.

Is this the antenna booster? If not, I don't know what it might be, unless it's a ground/shield that gets attached to ground.....but that just doesn't seem right.







Thanks for any help! Hope to get the radio wired up today, still waiting for the Bluetooth kit and GPS antenna, so I will have to go back in there once more, it will probably be another week or more until I get those parts.



FYI, my car came with the 6 speaker system....will check the 10 speaker system wiring diagrams.....

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[Paul W]

Made some progress today....guess if I was to look at where I was yesterday, made a lot of progress....but this is most likely going to take me a total of 25-40 hours to complete. I'm slow, like to do it right, and it's been a long time since I've installed a stereo in a car....and never a 968 or a Porsche.



As far as the question in the post above, I'm sure the red/black is the antenna amplifier, going to hook it up to switched 12 VDC with a spade connector, I can always disconnect it.



I managed to figure out the wiring of my routing to the amplifier. I did use the standard AWG 4 wire that comes with an amp kit, I went to Home Depot and bought high quality AWG 4 wire rated for 600 VAC, the insulation jacket is very, very hard to cut. It is gas an oil resistant. It's just better IMO.



Here is the car on ramps (I jack the car up and slide the ramps in backwards then I lower and remove the jack) because I was considering running the AWG 4 power wire to the amp under the car, but decided against it. I have not taken the car off the ramps since then, but the place has gotten messy! Time to clean.







I started by figuring I would run it at the bottom of the carpet channel.....OMG it's a bitch to separate the carpet.....but ran it from back to front:











I drilled a hole through the firewall above the glove box (which is removed). Put a grommet in it, then feed the wire. Put some wire ties on it.

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[Paul W]

How to hook it up to the battery? Need to put the fuse very close to the connection, if there is a ground, you want it protected.



Used a lug to go under the existing two wires closest to the firewall. Could get the nut back on it.....then to the fuse, then to the wire run from the back of the car. Note the bend radius of the wire to get it lined up. Minimal stress on the wire and connection. It's the black wire on the bottom of the three with the large AWG 4 lug on it.







On the following picture the power wire comes off the battery basically parallel to the firewall, the incoming from the passenger compartment is 90 degrees and below it. It is feeding the fuse holder.







Here are the final routing. Note fuse is removed until stereo is ready for testing after all wiring is complete. I normally have the negative removed during this install. Good practice.



















Still need to route it from the base of the back seat to its final position at the amp.

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[flash]

yeah - the carpet is a bugger. i get the privilege of doing that soon myself. i need to relocate my front amplifier, and run new rcas and speaker wires from front to rear

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[Paul W]

Didn't get anything more done this weekend, but I got much further than the post shows, did tons more work, but haven't posted it here.



I am a little over half done if I don't have to redo anything major. Maybe have it done by the end of next weekend?

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[Paul W]

I am working my way through this....hooked up the GALA (speed) wire yesterday to the instrument cluster, and finally got the unit to fit into the console completely....it didn't need to be forced, but finally it just pushed all the way in....really don't know what was stopping it.



Then I was trying to figure how to get the nav working....it has been in for a few weeks, but could never get it working. Finally found a document online to perform initial calibration and set up....I have to say it's not easy. But I got it done today.



It's super cool, love the old school navigation, this is how so many are in Europe....it works great and has all the streets in my town even though the disc is 10+ years old.....one CD for more than half the country, the other overlaps the first.



Anyway....you have to hook up the GALA wire for this thing to work, then calibrate the speed signal to the GPS signal. So it doesn't always need a GPS signal, it uses it for calibration and small corrections.



Here are a few shots....with both the headlights on/off, it goes reverse text with the headlight on.....



Headlights off:







Headlights on:







Radio on, it always has a compass on, it's very cool:







Here is the nav active.....I'm on Harvard street, getting ready for a turn on Dunlop Ave:







And it looks so good in the car:

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[tamathumper]

Nicely done!

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[Paul W]

Thanks...just saw your post about how a car is maintained by an owner vs. the radio he puts in! I like it!



Last step is to get this installed on a vertical panel and get a bracket fabricated....going where the spare tire was.....and I need to finalize all the connections, sometimes I get great music, other times I get his pop whine.....made up a ground connection last night and got rid of all the alternator whining....







I am looking forward to finishing this project....but have been siding my house by MYSELF on the weekends....and was in Europe for business last week....complaints, complaints....I know.

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