I finally got round to documenting the ICE setup that I’ve installed – its actually been in the truck for quite a few months now.
When I got the truck, the standard tuner and speakers were pretty weedy, plus the cd autochanger had stopped working. After failed attempts at fixing it – but discovering Mamma Mia!, Michael Buble, and Bon Jovi cds stuck in there from the previous owner – I decided to replace the lot. I looked at a few options and was originally considering a RaspberryPi in car system, but decided I liked the idea of an Android powered system, and having an old Galaxy S3 smartphone lying around that I could use, I thought I’d go down that route for now.
So, I needed to but a suitable head unit with rear auxiliary input port, plus new, meatier speakers, and an amp to power them – I selected the following which seemed to offer the best value and quality:
JVC KD-R332 head unit
Pioneer GM-D8604 1200w amp
JBL GTO-6508C 16.5cm composites
JBL GTO-947 6″x9
The first job was to decide where the amp should be located, and run the wiring to it. I bought an amp wiring kit seeing as it was cheaper than buying just the items I needed individually.
The main power feed from the battery (fused) was routed through the big grommet on the nearside of the firewall.
This lead through to the passenger footwell.
And under the carpet to the amp, which I installed under the front passenger seat. I rerouted the heater vent using some flexible air ducting (not pictured), to keep the amp from getting blasted with hot air.
The next job was running new speaker wire from the amp into the doors. This was a lot trickier than I thought due to the door electrics being connected with waterproof plugs. The simplest solution was to make a small hole in the waterproof seals/grommets in the door and bodyshell, and push the new cable through. Front:
Rear:
Wire for the tweeters was easier to fit, nicely slipping down behind the dashboard.
The front speakers are hidden in the door panel, but the rears are on display.
Next up was the head unit. I also made a blanking plate for where the cd autochanger used to be. This will act as a holder for the smartphone, see the heavy duty velcro stuck to the face, which will allow quick removal of the phone for for security.
Also note the 3.5mm jack which will take the output from the phone into the rear input on the head unit. On the other side is a micro usb charger to keep the device battery topped up, and also act as a sleep function when the ignition is turned off.
Here it is connected. This gives me FM radio and cds via the headunit, plus 32GB of MP3s on the Samsung Galaxy S3.
Nice clear display using PowerAmp.
And full UK offline sat nav courtesy of Navmii.
The apps I’m using on the phone are as follows:
CarHome Ultra (£2.55) – Nice customisable home screen display.
PowerAmp (£3.00) – Great Music player with useful search and playlist functions
AutoSleeper (free) – Automatically pause audio, and enter sleep mode when power is disconnected (ignition turned off)
Music Volume EQ (free) – Tweak the output to give a decent sound quality
NavMii (free) – Full UK mapping satellite navigation, available offline so no data connection required.
Home2 Shortcut (free) – Make the home button launch CarHome Ultra, as a rapid back-to-start button
I have also temporarily hooked up a pair of 8″ sub woofers for some extra bass punch, these are sat behind the front seats at the moment. They will eventually be replaced with a single 12″ sub, which I will build into the wooden furniture/storage later in the project.
All in all, this is a massive improvement over the standard audio equipment, giving fantastic sound quality, a decent volume and great punchy bass.
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