S3 (8P) ICE upgrade - more complicated than I thought

[copperband]

Took the car in yesterday to have the ICE upgrade and although told it would all be done in a day it was far from it.Quite honestly it's all got a bit complicated!
Apparently the door cards are what's called "wet" so anything in the door needs to be totally waterproofed so they are having to build bespoke speaker pods.
The plug on the back of the HU is a new design and as a result there is no adapter yet made to convert to the Pioneer unit going in.
They can't connect up the rear speakers without hard wiring them to the back of the new HU meaning all the rear seats and panels need to come out to run the cabling.
The amps won't fit behind the rear wheel arch covers so I am having to ditch the space saver and have them under there instead and carry a can of tyreweld (not too bothered about this as my RX8 only ever had a can of foam instead of a spare)
The CD changer won't fit in the glovebox without cutting out a small part of the rear of the plastic (invisable once the glovebox is back in place)

Has anyone elseupgraded an S£ or A3 with concert HU recently,if so did you have all the same problems and what were the solutions?

 

[gg9485]

I am in the process of doing so, but rather than putting a new HU in I am installing a computer so I am installing a new 4ch amp that will power all the speakers.

as for speaker pods I am making my own baffles out of MDF, didnt know they needed to be waterproofed but thta's easy enough.

I noticed there is a distinct lack of space behind the panels in the boot, unless you remove the stock sub (which I will be doing in time) so I think false floor is the way to go!

back to the speakers, because the rear speakers along with the sub are powered by the amp in the back you could hook up new speakers to that but its more hassle than its probably worth.

Are you upgrading the sub aswel or leaving it stock?

 

[JamS3]

I too am wanting to upgrade the stock system in my new S3.

Is it possible to replace the standard sub with a new better one in the boot space (I know one won't fit in the space the standard one is in) and change the rear speakers keeping the existing wiring?

What I dont want to do is start pulling the sat nav unit out as I've just sorted all this or will this have to be done to wire it to the head unit?

I was thinking that the existing wiring could be used and just plugged into the new stuff, but that sounds too simple....

 

[copperband]

I'm upgrading the amp as well,having seen it out of the car on the floor of the workshop I can't really see that it's good for anything more than a door stop,it's so lights and plasticy that I'm surprised it does as much as it did!

I am going to leave the stock speakers in the back but just have them amped from the new HU as opposed to a seperate amp whhich is what I have for the front speakers.

I think the problem with the rear speakers is that they are connected to the sub/amp as opposed to the HU.I understand the HU is simply supplying the signal to the sub/amp which I assume then processes it and sends the correct info to the rear right and left speakers?

It is clearly complicated made more difficult on the S3 because the lack of floor space in the boot, which is where I would have ideally put the sub if I could (hidden away and not taking up the space that my current box does).Hopefully someone will do a stealth enclosure soon

 

[gg9485]

Andymac did a sub replacemnet for the 8L and I'm sure if someone lent him there 8p he would be hapy to do one for it lol

If your going to change the sub then you are best off getting a 3/4 channel amp, using one/two (bridged) channels for the sub and the remaining two channels to power the rear speakers, this does however mean you will need to run rca's from your HU to the amp, or I do believe you can use the cabling already from the HU, this will most likely involve splicing cables in/re-terminating them. I'm not to sure as I havent looked at it myself.

As for front speakers you can just use the existing wiring

For a reasonable stealthy sub box look at http://forums.fourtitude.com/zerothread?id=2706676

 

[Gti Jazz Blue]

I am currently in the middle of my 8P install (3 door) and have had an interesting time.

Whilst there is space behind the rear boot panels - there isn't that much so I am going to loose the spacesaver and carry a couple of cans of tyre moose.

I decided to try a pair of 7" subs IB in the rear panels in place of the rear speakers (single cone with no tweeter in the 3 door) as I don't want to loose any boot space.

So far I have had pretty much every panel out of the A3 including the complete rear seat. All back together now so far I have put the minimum I can get away with sound deadening in (I'll come back and install more if required), installed the subs, installed the mids and tweeters and got all of the cables in.

As I've got DSG I used the clutch firewall hole to run the power down the o/s the Ai-Net, optical and processor control panel cables go down the n/s and the mid and tweeter speaker cables run down the central tunnel.

Getting the speaker runs into the doors was a PITA as the A3 has a plug arrangement on the wing, so the cables can't use that route. Luckily there is a grommet above the plug and I used that and modified the seal cover so that the cable gets into the door that way.

I will posts some pics when I get the time.

I suspect that Andy will struggle to do a Sub install like he did for the 8L as there isn't a lot of space. I ended up leaving both the Bose Amp and Sub in situ as it is a sfae place to store them.

Paul

 

[Boydie]

I fully upgraded my sounds system in my 04 TDI

Becker head unit
Focal components
genesis amps
diamond sub
streetwires wiring kit
audio control EQL
custom boot build and tweeter pods!

if you have any questions, let me know and i will try find out for you!

 

[Gti Jazz Blue]

They did a nice job of the tweeter install. I'd like to do something similar but use the same material as the current A pillar. Currently I've cut mine into the stock tweeter grill and it doesn't look too bad just not as nice as yours.

Looks like they have installed them just below the side airbag.

Need to find a crashed A3 at a scrappy and to pinch the headlining for enough material to re-cover the whole A pillar trim.

Nice install.

I'm currently at day 5 of my install and haven't even got to building the amp rack in the boot. Currently running the front off of a temporary pair of speaker cables run across the cabin from the HU to at least get some music back in the car.

Paul