Adding some more boom boom - Infinity BassLink install

Even with my aftermarket amp setup, there wasn't enough low end for me in this system. So I bought a used BassLink off eBay. I wanted something small that wouldn't take up much trunk space. This was a well talked about unit on the net and, I've been eyeballing one for a few. Finally found a good deal on one so I pulled the trigger.

After some though and research I decided to run RCAs to the BassLink. I chose the center console route instead of the driver side method. Running them in this car has been similar in my experience to every other car. However, since it was all new to me it took me a bit longer to figure out how to get the center console apart. The arm rest is a bit more complicated than the non arm rest models.

This post will not be a full blown how to just the areas that stood out to me. There are several pop covers and hidden screws.

Removing the backseat requires a swift pull up for the bench. The back of the seat requires a swift pull forward towards the front on the car. I used my handy Bojo trim tools to separate the backseat from the upper deck so I could get my hands behind it to pull. Ultimately my plastic pry bar popped the back part of the seat off the clips. It took a good bit of force but, as the Internet told me, the clips are metal. There's no need to worry.

The next piece off is the small plastic trim piece running right next to the drivers side, back door. There are two clips on the underside of this piece where it sits on the door sill and one 10mm nut up at the top. I was unaware of where those clips were, made this a challenge.

The carpeting is well put in this car. It has a think foam backing in most places and is molded very well in to position. To get the RCAs from the bench to the console I used a metal hanger to fish them through. I could pick up both sections of carpet slightly but, the carpet heading up the side of the center of the car was a bit tight. It would have been better if I removed my front driver side seat. I didn't want to create more work than I had already.

The center console

This was the toughest part because I'm a newbie. There are screws:

• Under the emergency flasher button
• Under the cup holder
• Under the back seat cigarette holder/ash try.
• Under back seat flip tray thingy.

To get the arm rest to physically pop out there are three small screws on the underside of the arm rest that have small covers over them.

A normal #2 screw driver is all you need to get them out. Behind that cover, when the arm rest is up, are two little slotted openings.

Applying pressure with a small screw driver. This allows the plastic pins to release leaving the arm rest free to remove.

Disassembling the rest of the center console just takes removal of the screws properly.

Screw under the "closest to the arm rest" cup holder.

 

More screws under the back seat coin purse and ashtray.

So after pulling the center console I gently pushed the wires through a small opening on the left of the shifter. There is a 10mm nut securing the front console section to the floor of the car. Taking that loose allowed for just enough extra room to allow me to push the wires through with little effort. That puts you right at where you need to be. I pulled them up to the stereo din, following the route of the rest of the cabling.

 

Now the hard part, reassembling all of this.

Mounting the BassLink

The unit comes with mounting brackets for sideways or upright mounting. This made installation very easy. I secured both brackets (after measuring of course) to the left hand raised plastic floor tray. This put the unit nicely off to the side. Still plenty of room for junk in my trunk!

  The lower screw secures the bracket. The upper screw secure the BassLink.

I was having some issue with the unit turning on. When checking the power and ground connections I discovered that my ground wire was to put it nicely, terrible. I had it on the rear shock tower mount bolt. This was a not a good spot in this car, for me. I finally bit the bullet and did it the "good" proper way. True 8 gauge cabling, sanded the paint bare, screwed her down. Now I have nice even voltage from the battery. A proper ground is so important.

This thing also came with a remote bass controller. I ran that with the RCAs. I like my bass heavy and down low. Where it should be however, since this is a family car after all, I wanted to be able to tone it back. This is an awesome way of doing so, makes things nice and easy. I still need to "secure" the remote Bass adjuster but it fits the in the pocket of the dash almost perfectly.

I still need to put the rear drivers carpeting back in as you can see. I just want to be certain that I've got all the amp stuff buttoned up before doing so. 

  *Note: I still have enough room to get the taillight cover off without pulling this thing out of the car every time. Not that light bulbs fail that often but, they usually do in the worst times. BMW made them quick and easy to access and replace. I want to keep it that way.

Dialing in the Bass

So, there she is, secured, and "dialed" in. If you didn't get an owners manual with yours you can find one here: BassLink Manual via harman.com. Its not deep in its coverage but, it does describe what is necessary to "tune" the sub for the best sound. No rocket science here, just patience, the ability to read, and to listen. I found that dialing in the most bass, by turning the crossover knob towards the lower Hz setting, Then, turning the crossover towards the higher Hz rating, just to the point where the big sounding bass falls off. This gives me the best sounding sub bass for all genres, so far.. Each head unit will offer different results I'm sure. So tune it till you think it sounds good. 

Bottom line

• This is not the sub you want if you want to beat down yo block and let all the neighbors hear you.
• If you want clean sounding bass that can fill the cabin, shake the mirrors without the dreaded trunk rattle, this unit is for you.

Distracted by the aftermarket - E36 Factory Lowe Amp Open Case

Thanks to Brad at Parts European for donating two amps for tear down.

  *My Original intent with this post was to dissect the inner workings of the stock amp and, gain better sound quality from it. Read below for more details. After some work, reading, thought, and ultimately time needed in other areas, this post stands as a what if. Nothing more.

  I've been distracted by the after market. Given the low cost of small amps pulled me over to their side. I'll have more up and coming on that in future posts. I'm still prototyping mounting locations. This is my rough draft if you will so far:

  Original Post:

  I'd like to discover whats inside these guys and how/if I can get the rear channels before they are crossed over. In our quest for stereo goodness I need a full range signal to the rear coaxial pioneers in our setup. I'm jumping head long in to territory I know nothing about at all. I'm not an Electrical Engineer by any means. Given enough time and reading material one can be good at just about anything.

  My thought is this: We only need about 25watts RMS to the speakers to get reasonable sound levels. If I can somehow get this from the stock amp or, stock amp parts, I don't have to fool around with mounting an aftermarket amp. Clipping harnesses, is really not an issue as you can get the pins from your current amp and make a harness for your after market amp fairly easily.

  I've browsed many a forum, never posted. I've read a lot about how amps work. I've so far been able to identify what amplifies the sound however, I've got no idea where it goes from there.

We are peering into a Loewe, Low amp. 

Those little flat raised silver pieces are what do the amplifying. They are called transistors. Cool stuff.

  I know from many a wire diagram and, tracing out the wires, where the four channels come into the amp, from the radio. From there the signal goes through a series of resistors and capacitors. There appear to be several similarity configured items on this board. More noticeable from the bottom.

  To get to the signals internally I need to understand which paths come into the transistors from the head unit and which leads they are output through. I reached out to Loewe to inquire about a wiring diagram for these circuits. Of course they were not able to furnish such because of private/proprietary knowledge or copyrights. I assumed that this would be the case. I mean why wouldn't it be. When a company puts time into making and designing something you can't just give out such knowledge to some random e-mailer. 

  This case will be up to me to crack. I've begun doing some more research into how transistors work in general. If I can find another similarly designed transistor perhaps I will have success in finding the output signals I need. This might just be a pipe dream, given my limited time, however, it is certainly an interesting prospect.

E36 Door Card Speaker Replacement - Part 2 - Wiring it up!

97 E36 4 door w/o door airbags

  In continuation of the speaker replacement install on Jeremy's 97 328i, we are now to the point where we can wire up everything and put the door card back on.

  I looked through several forum posts about water coming into the door if you do not use proper sealer on the moisture barrier behind the door card. 3M window weld seemed to be the go to of choice. 

Also the newer style push clips for the door cards kept the rattles to a minimum. Check and check.

Materials: 

- 3M window weld. We went with 3/8" thick stuff. I think you could use 1/4 no problem.

-20 new style clips, 10 on each door card.

Door card with new style push clips ready to go.

  We had to snip each one to make it easier to get them in. The newer style clips has a solid head instead of a slotted one.

  Getting the old sealant off the door frame was the hardest part for me. I was trying to use a plastic scraper. The stuff BMW put on here was like tar. We used the heat gun but them it was just became soft tar. 

  Jeremy found that using a bit of the old stuff to dab at the rest was the best technique. When he was done he had a large tar ball. Which I should have got a picture of but, I didn't. 

  I went back over a few sections with alcohol then, we were ready for the new stuff.

  Laying down the 3M sealant. The old stuff was 3/8 wide when it was smooshed. I think we would have been fine with 1/4" stuff. The 5 series seem to have bigger issues with door leaks.

  Installation is a breeze. Just push on and smooth it out.

  Now on the speaker wiring side of things I wanted to make sure I was getting my polarity correct. I saved all the door card speakers and short pigtails from each so I could verify this as I went. This method helped me stay on track since, I'm easily distracted.

  As you can see the stock speakers are clearly labeled. Just make sure the solder points on those contacts are going where you think is positive.

  For reference:
The tweeter seen here did not have its ohm rating listed on it. The stock mid-range speakers were 8 ohms. The stock kicker panel (bass) speaker was 4 ohms.

  There we go. Terminals properly crimps and labeled. Door card can be removed again if need be. All the pigtails remain about stock length as well. 

  And that's that. So in terms of sound, how does it do? Well the front speakers are much more clear but, they still sound muddy. The mids are very low in terms of volume in comparison to the tweeters. This is because the Viva's we choose have a lower sensitivity per watt than the pioneers. I'm hoping to be able to tune some of that out once I figure out the settings on the aftermarket Alpine head unit. The bass speakers seem to be robbing power from these when the bass is down low, which is where everyone likes it. 

  Again, getting the stock amp out of there and putting in the proper three way crossovers out back, I believe, will make a world of difference. That is our next step: 3-way crossover installation, stock amp bypass, and aftermarket amp installation.

E36 Rear 6x9 Install - using plastic aftermarket adapters

  The 96+ E36s, without the Harmon Kardon premium sound package, came with 4 inch rear speakers and separated tiny tweeters. Its a two way component system in its own strange way. For sake of cost we opted to go with the traditional coaxial speaker setup. BMW put a two way system in back here so we replicated that same thought while looking for replacements.

  You can't just mount 6x9s in the 4 inch plastic baskets that come stock. You need some soft of adapter. You also cannot fit these pioneers in the stock HK 6x9 assembly due to the size of the magnets. You could modify them to work but, I wasn't happy destroying a perfectly fine working set of HK 6x9s. We thought about making one ourselves however, given the limited time frame I have, it was an easier option to find inexpensive plastic holders already made.

  We went with a two way coaxial speaker from Pioneer (TS-D6902R). From the same model as the front components. I like matching speakers given my limited knowledge of all things stereo. The pros can mix and match stuff and make them sound awesome. We needed a cost effective solution that doesn't sound like dookie. We listened to several different speaker variations from other manufactures before pulling the trigger on these. They are a good sounding entry level speaker for a good price.

  Install is also simple. The adapters accept screws that are about an inch deep/long. Jeremy brought the hardware over. We also used bolts with self locking washers to secure the adapters, using the stock holes.

  Wiring is fairly straight forward depending on how you would like to have these installed. If you want to bypass the stock amp all together you will need to clip and cut wires from the 26 pin connector going to the amp which, is located behind the carpeting, on the driver's side, in the trunk. Since these 6x9s want a full range signal you can get more highs/mids from them in this fashion. More to come on this. Replacing the speakers was the first step for this project.

We were curious how these would sound if that were hooked up to the stock amp on the sub outs. They are the larger wires in the 4 pin connector. Instead of cutting the stock 4 pin clip we opted to unclip the harness from the stock 4 inch boxes. Jeremy made quick work of busting them out.

  I then soldered and heat shrunk the leads that came with the 6x9s to them. So we still have the stock connectors and they are running from the bass speaker outputs on the stock amp. This runs, from what I've read, at about 22 watts RMS. The aftermarket Alpine that Jeremy has runs at 14 watts RMS by itself. So to really get the beats pumping we will probably need to add an aftermarket amp back here as well but, in the mean time, 22 is a bit more than 14. 

  To our surprise the sound coming from them was decent. Obviously comparing a new 6x9 to a blown 14 year old speaker is unfair. Since we only connected the bass outputs I figured we would only get low end. The factory amp does crossover/mix in some mid-range. Which makes sense. With the adjustment on the head unit for the treble we were able to reproduce decent sound. The treble is of course muffled still. The only way around that at this point, is to get the stock amp out of the picture, and get the full range signal to the speaker. Pushing the signal further through an aftermarket amp would  increase their effectiveness as well.

  I wired my 6x9s to bypass the stock amp. They do have more clarity in the high and mids however, they have barely enough bass to enjoy them. I would recommend either run off the stock bass leads or run and aftermarket amp. That's the fun part about testing things. Hearing the difference in real life vs just guessing.

  In current form, these are a large improvement for bass over the stock 4 inch Nokia's (duh), and the highs are more pronounced when increased from the after market head units' built in EQ. In comparison to the HK 6x9s (in my car) they are also more clear and have more bass. The magnets are bigger, and the tweeter is much larger. The tweeter on these is the same as the ones in the corresponding component set. 

We are going to leave these as is for now and refocus on taking care of the rest of front speaker stuff.

E36 Door Card Speaker Replacement - Part 1 - Getting stuff out, speaker mounting

97 E36 4-Door w/o Door Card Airbags

Before reading please note:

• If you don't want to grind/cut the stock tweeter and mid-range speaker holders don't read further.
• The tweeter supplied in this kit(TS-D1320C) is much larger than the stock unit. It will have to be ground down to accommodate the stock tweeter holder.

Stock Speaker OHM ratings:
tweeters: 4 ohm
mid-ranges: 8 ohm
kick panel "bass" speakers: 4 ohm

On our quest for a better sounding E36 stereo system, Jeremy and I finally made a decision on some speakers. Given my past experience with Pioneer we choose this component set:

   TS-D1320C

  We went with mid-ranges from a thread post.

Vifa Mid ranges.

E36 Door Card Removal

  Removal requires a little bit of patience and care but, nothing too extensive. We have a set of plastic panel "pullers" between us. There is a small crow bar in the set which made getting the panels off simple. Note: This pertains to a four door without door panel airbags.

First up are the two screws behind the door handle.

 There are plastic clips glued/clipped in.

 I used a very small flat head screw driver to pry them out.

   The two screws are torx. Sizing.

The one towards the latch side of the door is the shorter one.

The door handle surround also has to be removed. It slides towards the hinge side of the door for removal. Notice the "teeth" on the surround. 

 There are 10 clips on each front door card. There is no airbag on the door for this year. I'm not sure if there is an extra screw behind the airbag symbol on the 98/99s that have the door airbags.

The tweeter and mid-range are secured to the door with screw on sandwich style plates. Its a really cool way of doing it in my opinion. Here is a shot of all the stock speakers removed. 

E36 Kick panel mid/bass speaker replacement. - Easy Street

Removing the lower kick panels consists of a plastic twist lock on the front side. On the driver side the twist lock is behind the hood latch. Don't miss that and break it off like we did. Once they come off you will see the 5.25in stock bass speaker. It is surrounded by what I call rat carpeting. This serves as sound deadening.

Notice that spade terminals on these pioneers are designed just like the stock connectors. No wire splicing required here.

Four screws hold them in. Easy stuff.

Please note that these sound no different than the stock speakers when driven by the stock amplifier. You may notice a slight improvement if your speakers are blown.




E36 Midrange speaker replacement - Stock holder modification.

The vifas fit almost perfectly in the stock mid-range holder. There was a raised plastic guide on the inside of the holder. I needed to shave that down.

I also removed the stock bottom plastic. I don't need that impeding our mid-range sounds. These are a slightly larger diameter than the stock units. A "perfect" fit. Just a little hot glue to keep them tight and cozy.

E36 Tweeter install - Not exactly an easy job with these pioneer tweeters

The tweets that come with the Pioneer components are large. Much larger than the stock units. They are a soft dome design which is what I was looking for. BMW originally out soft dome tweets in the car for a reason. Having a larger tweeter makes for a broader range of capability as well. 

In terms of install I struggled because the tweeter will fit the stock door card opening just fine. It can be secured with the clamps that come with it. HOWEVER, the pioneer is not the same size as the stock tweeter housing. Leaving an ugly indentation from where the old one was originally. Not cool. 

 I also thought about hot gluing the face of the Pioneer tweeter to the back of the stock housing. There is room for this but, i was nervous about them falling off eventually. The only other option was to make these fit in the stock housing. This was an intense moment for me. Grinding/cutting in to a brand new tweeter meant i might ruin it. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS METHOD for the faint of heart.

  Ground out the stock inserts. After shaving the stock tweeter housing they fit "perfectly." 

Much larger than the stock tweeter. You can just see the outline behind the grill. That was that. Next up was to mount the speakers in the door card and wire up everything.

  

After Market Head Unit Install - Beats by Dr. Brizow

  The stereo in Helena has always sounded kind of like it was under water. There was no treble, and very little low end. I'm not the kind of stereophile guy who needs it to be perfect but, I'm surprised by the lack of quality from the 10 speaker system Helena came with. This is not the mac daddy Harmon Kardon system just the standard Hifi system. In researching further this seems to be a very common complaint from owners. I'm assuming that Germans didn't need to listen to the radio when they have the sweet sound of a 2.8 inline 6 purring down the autobahn. I'm not that lucky.

  So I started at the easiest place, change the head unit. You need two things for this: a radio adapter harness and an antenna adapter.

  There are several styles of antenna adapters out there. Given there is so little room behind the head unit, I went with an a pastor that had no pigtail. It simply plugs into the stereo flush and then, accepts the Nokia/euro style antenna plug.

  There is very little room behind the head unit for extra wires. This was the hardest part of the install for me. There is a vent and a backing plate the head unit rests on. On the back of the stock head unit there is a small plastic piece protruding proudly. This slides in to the hole on the backing plate.


  The pioneer head unit I had laying around did not have a hole big enough to accept the threads on the proudly protruding plastic piece. So, I ended up using a bolt that would fit and, wrapped it in e-tape. It worked fine for me. Little non factory approved as well. Eh.

  I had to eventually had to press the wires and the harness for the stereo gently back towards the left side of the din opening. It's also a tight spot but I found the harness and adapter would slide in. From what I can tell the whole harness is in between the dash cluster surround and the open space below. There is a cable that drives the air temperature from the center most vent. The harness was getting caught on it. After a twist of the harness as a whole it was like the harness I made was meant to fit there. Seriously, I struggled to get the head unit in there was a good bit. What finally brought it together was spinning the whole harness 360'. Weird. If you don't want to tear up stuff patience was definitely key for this one. 

Comparisons:

 The stock head unit has Amber back lights. The pioneer does not. The pioneer also has a removable face plate which doesn't really fit well into the space provided. The stock tape deck also provided control for the trunk mounted 6 disc changer. Unfortunately the previous owner/s lost the cartridge for it, making it useless right now. I don't really listen to CDs anymore anyway but, on occasion it is nice to have.

  At the end of all of this how does it sound? Well honestly it sounded almost exactly the same as the stock HU (head unit). However the Pioneer has more equalizer settings built in. With this I was able to get more mid and tweets out of the stock speakers. This was good. It made the install worth it to me.

  Now supposedly per the Internets my amp will die any moment because the signals from the stock unit are different than after market one. This is possible but, is that a bad thing? The stock amp does serve a purpose and honestly for 1998, I don't know too many other vehicles with 10 separated, amplified (all be it only slightly) speakers, and a CD changer. BMW didn't do a terrible job at all.

  The problem for me is that my wife's 00 Saturn with a factory tape deck and four speakers; sounds clearer and has more bass than my "luxury sport" mobile with 10. :/ I digress. Moving forward I'd like to try a few things to sort that out. If one bypasses the stock amp then, you will need to cross over the signals going to the front speakers. High, mid, low. A three way cross over.

  The rear deck speakers whether 4in or the hk 6x9s, have the sub and the tweet mounted separately. A two way cross over would be needed here.

  Would new coaxial style 6x9s without amplification sound better off the aftermarket HU? No cross over needed you can just send the full signal straight to the speaker. The rear makes sense and is easy to get at. The fronts however are not. 

  All the speakers wires do route to the amp mounted in the trunk. It's on the drivers side behind the carpeting. Accessing all the incoming and outgoing wires makes thoughts of aftermarket amps or bypassing it altogether easy. I just don't want to hack up and wiring.

  Clearly I'm still working through what to do in this area. More to come on this subject.

After thoughts: 

  If I was going to spend money on a fancy new head unit, it would have to have color adjustment to match the interior. No silver on it either. Black or grey only.

  All the stock speakers run through the factory "amp" which works as a crossover for the speakers and an amp for the "subs." 5.25s in the kick panels. 4s on the deck.

  Changing the amp or, running an amp bypass seems to be the preferred method depending on your budget and the quality of sound you are looking for.

  Not blown speakers will always sound better than blown ones.