rossman66

All,

I just wanted to drop a line to all early model SC300/400 owners out there who are looking to upgrade. I have been reading many post on this forum for the past few weeks, doing my homework. So i finally decided to take a crack at upgrading. I had an older Pioneer deck in another car that im selling so i pulled that out to put in my SC. Following the photos found here:

http://kenji.fureai.or.jp/soarer/30/...der/index.html

I was somewhat easily able to pull out the molding.

Although the subtitles are in japanese, it helped a lot in removing the paneling. After that, the bracket that holds the radio and a/c unit came right out. And somehow, i was amazed, the pioneer deck screwed right into the existing holes on the radio bracket after removing the stock unit.

So on to the next hurdle. The dreaded wiring harness. Well i grabbed my stock radio and headed to Best Buy. I know Best Buy is the last place to go, but it was the first stop for me. Anyway, it worked out for $15 I found the 87' and up Toyota Metra hardess fit perfectly. Back to the car, a few crimps later and the new deck was up and running.

However after connecting and testing the new deck I realized that I lost my sub. The stock head unit has 4 plugs and the wiring harness only had 2 plugs. So the plugs i wasnt using were 1 for the sub and 2 for the volume ****.

So I also had a MTX 4600 (or something) 2 channel amp lying around, so now with my new pre-out's I decided to wire the amp up. I ran 4 gague from the battery and a remote wire from the head unit along the driver's side to the trunk and the RCA from the pre-out along the passenger side. I mounted the amp on a piece of MDF upside-down next to the sub. Lexus also got cute and decided to solder the sub wires to the sub itself. so instead of cutting them, i just tapped into them using the radio shack inline taps.

All done. Now I have installed many car stereo's and amps, so im not a newbie, but im definatly not an expert. This total install took 2 half days. Starting one day about 2 or 3 and working until dark and repeating the next. So I know a lot of DIY people claim 45 mins or 20 mins, but it definatly took me longer. BUT its still possible and well worth saving the arm and leg that a local shop would charge to install.

I want to replace the sub with the JL Audio IB4 8". Hopfully I'll get that soon. Also I plan to replace the mids when I get the cash. Hope this post might help/inspire a few to try. Sorry its kinda long.

If I can find a digital camera, I'll post a few pics....

rossman66

Just wanted to post an update. I found a shop in Houston that acutally carried the IB4 series in stock. I opted for the 10" even though in my 93' I only have an 8" sub. I figured I could squeeze it in somehow.

Well it took quite a lot of thinking and engineering, but i was able to fit the 10" in the stock hole without cutting anything. I have to fabricate a 10" ring of MDF to replace part of the stock plastic, and after about 2-3 hours of cutting and sanding and more sanding i got everything to fit. Hooked it up to my MTX 480 2 channel and it sounded great. It was a huge difference from the stock sub, obviously.

Again if I can get a digital camera in the next few days ill take some pics....

AutoCoutureSC

iTrader: (8)

so you're saying the 87+ metra harness plugs right into our factory harness? no mods?

BigghookUp

Hey man, I got es300 '96 series and i was wondering if you know a website in english that teaches you how to take out thestereo i already got in the car that came standard and install a new one?

Also Do any of you know any stereos with cd/radio/ + that will work good with the es300 series.
Should I get double or single din?

I could use all the help I could get thanks.

Heres the pic of what it looks right now: Nothing special... YET

rossman66

Yes...that wiring harness came with 2 plugs. They went directly into the stock plug in the lexus. I was truly amazed that this worked. I save a lot of time using the harness.

rossman66

Here's a thread from this forum that is very helpful and in english...

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...threadid=30136

Also this page has quite a few links to stereo and speaker removal.

http://www.carstereohelp.com/strlexus.htm

Hope this helps... also I know Metra makes a dash kit for the ES300. Should make things look really nice.

BigghookUp

Thanks.. this will help me alot.