Temple

Thought I would take some time to share my subwoofer upgrade to a 2010 RX450H. This should be the same for any Gen 3 2010-2015 RX. I had a hard time finding any good information on a stock subwoofer upgrade other than removing and/or adding an external subwoofer, box or combination of. You will need to remove the battery from the car to get the sub in and out, makes it much easier. The goal of this upgrade was to keep the car appear to be stock, no added subwoofer boxes or anything in the rear.

The end result is quite impressive and I have over 30 years of backyard mechanics of installing of creating custom subwoofer boxes, dash modifications, etc. I am by no means an expert but I thought I'd share my experience. In the end it cost me less than $200 for everything and it is some tight deep game changing bass in the car.

The two products I bought were:

Skar Vd-8 Dual Voice Coil DUAL 4 OHM Wired down to 2 ohms
https://www.skaraudio.com/products/v...-car-subwoofer

Rockford Fosgate Mono Amp 500 Watt - Line Level Inputs
https://rockfordfosgate.com/products/details/r500x1d

There are some other threads on how to remove the interior covers to get to the subwoofer, so search for those. I wont cover that here.

So this is the subwoofer enclosure removed from the vehicle:




Comparison between the two subwoofers (OEM versus Skar Sub)






Box that the speaker came in



So one of the things I had to do was use a dremel to grind down the inner hole of the speaker box just a little so that it would fit. There were also some raised nipples on the box that had to be ground down. 10 minutes worth of work. Not a big deal I am a little **** about air leaks so I used backer rod to make a gasket before I screwed it into the box







So once I got this all installed, there was an undesirable amount of rattle/vibration from the panel that covers the sub. I ended up using a bunch of dense foam and put it all around the subwoofer where it would touch the panel and it completely removed the noise / vibration. This foam was the magic ticket to keeping everything tight and clean



I ran my own speaker wires in the box and sealed up the hole with epoxy so that no air leak could occur. (Black wire at top is new wire, stock wiring on bottom)




I tapped into the existing wires that go into the box for my line level inputs to my amp. I only used one pair of inputs. Using two was too much voltage input and didnt sound as good.



The amp is installed in the passenger side of the vehicle so that the adjustments are easily accessible. Used heavy duty Velcro to install Accessible by lifting out the storage box.



Wrapped everything in loom



Remote gain wire - tapped into the rear AUX power port (old school cig lighter)

Green wire is hot



Inline fuse:



See the bolt next to the yellow loom? This is my negative tap for the AMP



Scroll down further to see where and how I installed the remote gain for the amp on the dash.

Temple in Kentucky

Stoodo

iTrader: (4)

Awesome write up. Thank you

Sfcyclist

Thank you for sharing! I was thinking of doing this as well on my CT or RX.

A few questions;

1. The line level that you tapped into for the signal is from the factory amp?
2. How does it compare to stock from a 1 to 10 scale. Stock being 1?
3. Improvements in all types of bass?
4. Do you think it blended in well with other speakers?

thanks again.

Temple

1. Yes I actually cut the wire going into the box from the AMP. There are two sets of input to the sub. I used only one set because if I used both the input was doubled and it was extremely loud.

2. I barely noticed that the stock sub made any improvements at all, my girlfriend who drives the car noticed that I had removed the stock subwoofer She also knew that I had removed it so it could be a placebo. The improvements I would rate 10, it is unbelievable the difference

3. The amplifier has a crossover and you can adjust it, mid range like voices, etc., I tend to set it to where the voices are not amplified and it’s the lower end of the bass so yes it would cover all spectrums of the bass if desired. Not needed however. I think the stock system does a good job of mid range.

4. I think the key to having it blend properly is to have a remote **** to adjust the output level, I plan on installing that next week and yes I think it would blend very nicely.

I’ll update my post after that.

Temple

I installed my Rockford Fosgate remote bass **** today in the vehicle. I chose one of the blanked out sections on the left of the steering wheel for the driver. You could also install it on the right side of the steering wheel. It all depends on what options your car has and how many blanks you have.

First order of business is popping off this side cover with your fingers:



Once you have that off, you can reach behind the panel insert where all of the switches are and push it out.

I ended up taking the case off my remote controller because it is too large and is not needed for operation:




You just unscrew the nut on the inside a little and push up on it and it comes right out.




I didn't need the LED light so I snipped that off



So the goal is to get this to fit inside this blank. To get the blank out of the car, you just slide two small flat head screw drivers in the back of it to free the tabs





I used my dremel again to grind down some of the plastic tabs inside the blank



Once I did that and I knew it would fit, I put a little bit of 'white out' white paint on the end of the **** and pushed it down inside the blank to see where I needed to drill exactly. Then I drilled my hole and then it fits like this:



This is what it looks like on the other side:



This is what the final install looks like (upper left)

Adamsurfer

I just bought the rockford amp and skar subwoofer. I'm needing help on how to hook it up. After cutting the wires from the existing sub that came from the amp does it go directly to the hi level? And if so which one do I connect from the rockford amp there is L- , L+ , R- , R +?

Temple

Just pick one pair from the car (either stripped or not stripped) and then hook it up to either channel, Left or Right.... Doesn't matter.

Temple

You can try both but it was WAY to loud and distorted with both signals hooked up.

Adamsurfer

After I hooked everything up I'm hearing some kind of rattle from the box. Did you come across this problem?

ColAngus

This is excellenot. Did you happen to measure the mounting depth of the stock sub?

Temple

I had rattle when I got it all back in the car with the interior cover over it so that was solved by using the foam as shown in the pictures.

Are you having rattle in the box with it not mounted?

ColAngus

What was the mounting depth of the OEM subwoofer???

AZN Lex

Do you have any pictures or recommendations on where you ran the power wire through the firewall? Or is the battery in the rear of the car in hybrids?

Temple

Battery is in rear and shown in the pictures. Right next to the subwoofer box. Super convenient

AZN Lex

So I’m about to install an aftermarket sub and amp and was going to tap into the wires going into the sub box. My wires seem different than what the OP posted though. OP had 4 wires going into the sub while I have 4 that go into the connector then two that go into the sub.

Anyone have any ideas why or which wires I should tap into?