2020 Army Green TRD Pro Build

Wow it bleeped me saying taco tunes. Let’s see if it does again.

 

Sounds good Chris!! I had mine done with my audio guys. All arc audio. 5Channel amp also. Dual 10 inch subs. And kept the JBL headunit. It’s hooked up to a DSR1. Also all my doors and back wall sound deadening. This is the only system I did not remove the factory headunit. All my systems over the years I did. Very happy how mine sounds!! Yours should sound awesome!!

 

In my opinion... I'd keep your build wrapped into one thread!

 

Thanks man! My 2 main reasons for wanting the new head unit are that I have a weird thing where my iPhone makes the factory stereo pixelate out really badly for no apparent reason. I tried changing cords and using Apple brand. None of it helps. So why not go with a massive touch screen!! Lol

But the second reason is that I really wanted the HDMI input. So I can have a Firestick in there for, of course, only when I’m not driving!! Lol

Again, if the pixelated screen thing wasn’t happening consistently I would have probably kept the factory head unit. But as you can probably tell from my build so far, I am very much so the buy once cry once type of person. And since this is the first vehicle that I have bought for myself that was in no way a compromise, I refuse to compromise on anything else. I’ll probably drive this thing for 10 years or so. So I may as well love everything about it.

 

Speakers!!

 

I agree!! That is a awesome headunit. I figure I would go this route this time on the headunit. I figure if I have any problems down the road it won’t be a big deal to upgrade my headunit. Also I have always been a Rockford Fosgate fan. I had a awesome system all Rockford in my C5 Z06 years ago. A killer system. Plus other vehicles.

 

Well I have most of the stereo parts, but not all.

So I can do the head unit today, but not the door speakers or amp and sub or sub box. Basically I’m still waiting on the subwoofer itself, the amp, and the subwoofer enclosure/box. It will probably take the longest to get here and is coming from taco tunes.

And as I understand it, all of those things have to be done together. Because of the type of speakers vs the type of amp.

But once I commit on the door speakers and amp I won’t have a functioning stereo until I’m done. And then I can add in the subwoofer and box whenever it’s all here and put together.

 

Lots of stereo goodies and goodness.

Cloth wiring harness tape to clean up wire runs.

Singer 6 channel RCAs. Left/right for front and rear, so 4. Then 2 more for subwoofer.

A collection of various harnesses to use under the passenger seat to try and dissect the JBL harnesses and back feed amplified signal to the 4 main channels. Along with some adapters/jumpers to be able to plug in the new speakers to the factory Toyota plugs without hacking up the factory harness.

Only the finest quality Chinese polarity tester that $$ can buy off of Amazon! Lol So this was cheap, and in my opinion, a necessity. Once it’s all setup, there are YouTube videos that you can play that will illuminate the green light 3 times and then the red once. This happens over and over in sequence. So you hold the tester to each speaker/tweeter and if it blinks that way you’re good. If it’s red 3 times and green once, you flipped the +/-. So that just means to flip the connections and retest. You could have this issue and never know it. And you will get sound out of your system, but it will never be right or 100%. And you’d never know that this was why it sounded like crap. So in my opinion, even though this is a DIY job, it’s worth it. It also comes with a CD to play the sequence, but I won’t have a CD player. Hence the YouTube video. Which you can use through CarPlay or Android Auto. Or, in my case, actually watching the YouTube video streamed through your Firestick connected to your head unit via the HDMI input port.

 

I also got one of these OCD organizer trays as well.

 

Front and rear door speaker adapters for 6.5” speakers.

 

Fast rings. These are kind of hard to explain. But they go in the door surrounding and behind the speaker as well as around the woofer itself. So if you use these along with some sort of sound deadening you push the sound and sound waves out of the door better instead of part of it getting lost or trapped inside the door.

And then just a 4 gauge amp installation kit.

 

Fast rings and sound deadening makes a big difference. I have had this done on numerous vehicles.

 

The sound deadening just came in today.

 

that is the fun part

 

Ok, maybe you guys can help me. I’m getting my a$$ kicked trying to install this head unit.

I’ve watched countless non JBL aftermarket stereo installation videos. And there are only 3 main harnesses from the truck. Which would work perfectly for me with this harness adapter that was provided by Crutchfield. The problem is that when I unplug the factory stereo there are way more than 3 harnesses. There are 2 extra ones.

Are those just not used? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Hey Chris, I cannot help because mine was done by someone else. But Crutchfield has good support with that. I would call them. Not sure if you tried.

 

I did. And they don’t show anything like my setup. I’ll try again tomorrow. I’m to pi$$ed off and don’t want to get mad and break anything!!

 

That’s sucks. Hopefully someone from the audio section can help you.

 

I got it working. Here are the cables that were, and were not connected on the new new JBL setup.

 

And some of the finished product. As well as testing out the Firestick.

 

Ok, I consider myself fairly intelligent, and have installed a similar style radio before. But this was a pain and took a lot longer than I planned. But also I usually take my sweet time and don’t rush things. Plus, there were several unused wires from the factory harness. Like that still exist, but weren’t used at all. I have no idea what they did, but I’m assuming that they were functions that were maybe replaced by the idataling Maestro RR. It hasn’t been night time yet so I can’t verify yet if it dims like it should or not. But the steering wheel controls work like they should. Also, I ran the microphone through the dash to the driver side A pillar and up that, across the headliner and to the location in the overhead console where there was a blank for a microphone. Like people typically do. There’s barely enough room to fit everything with the wiring and idatalink in the dash and still install the 4, 10mm bolts. But that’s also because I adjusted mine to tuck in very tightly instead of protruding out super far.

Ok, the sound. This was step one for me. As soon as I get back from my family mini vacation I will be installing the aftermarket amp, subwoofer and enclosure, and door speakers and tweeters. However, it sounds amazing! I’d say easily twice as loud as the factory head unit and MUCH more clean and clear and crisp. There’s even a mediocre amount of bass. Nothing crazy, but it’s there.

Is it worth it? I would say yes. In my opinion it is. But I have disposable income that a lot of others do not. And I recognize that. Especially in the world that we live in now with everything be crazy inflated price wise. If you can afford it and are looking for an upgrade I’d go with this.

Unfortunately, I will have to pull it out again at least one more time. When I put the new amp in a will need a remote turn on wire as well as have to run the 6 RCAs. So far though, the screen is super bright, clean, clear, and crisp.

Also, if you look at the pictures of the back of the head unit, you will see a light green wire coming out of the back of the main stereo wiring harness. This is the park brake safety wire. It is what lets the HDMI video input work, but only while in park. I just put a closed ring terminal on it and unscrewed a random screw from the metal case of the head unit that was out of the way and attached it there. That grounds out the park brake, allowing the HDMI video input to work all of the time.

 

Awesome setup Chris!! This is probably what I would go with down the road if I have any issues with my JBL headunit. It would not be hard for my audio installer to switch mine over if I need to. Great write up.

 

awesome build

sub'd

 

Nice!!!!!!!!!!

 

Thanks for your service. Hope you’re well