Ok so I have finally bought and taken back and repurchsed a couple times due to audio excitement.I finally have a system minus a deck.as i took that back and am now looking for a new one with higer voltage preouts.My front components are now focal 165a1 80 rms,I am wondering i do not have the premium sound system ,but am assuming the spkrs are still amped...are they?..Can i hook up my new components to it,As well as this i cant find a harness anywhere and the guy at my local shop said they would have to splice it in,to keep my wires.Is this goona be ok?.Like i said i got some serious fronts...being that our system is better than the norm,are the doors soundproofed.And ond last thing if i decide to use a double din ..will they all fit or is there only a few that will go in .....any help would be awsome.as I am close to finally putting in these pieces and having sooooound

 

what is your reasoning behind needing higher voltage outputs?? you do realize that is part of matching the output of the radio to the input of the amplifier right??? just because it has high voltage ouputs doesnt mean anything. If you need more in depth info, i will be glad to explain.

Harness is most likely going to be tapped behind the factory plug. I have had to do this before and its not really a big deal, as long as the installer understands you dont have to cut anything. Its when installers cut the wires and make it impossible to go back to factory, is when trouble starts.

You need to sound deaden the doors??? may i ask for what??? other than it being a pain in the butt to access things if they break in there, it really isnt necessary unless you find resonance is happeneing, in that case a good installer can find it and eliminate it without going nuts with the sound deadening.

Double din.........hmmmmmmmm.....let me put it this way......anything can be done, its how much work do you want to do, to do it. Best thing to do is take the factory unit out and start measuring around in there. Just because ne person or many, has done it, doent mean you will want to make the same modifications as others have. Then again, you may not have any issues at all, and making a simple faceplate to blend the dash is relatively easy and t will all come down to how good the installer is.

the preceding message is nothing more than my opinion, however i stand firm with my statement, and believe in doing it aesthetically right and wired right. Hope this helps

 

Irish, I back up what PHD said. Higher voltage outputs of a radio is only helpful if you have an initial noise problem. What you are doing is essentially masking the noise problem by making the relative signal levels between the noise and the music more. Therefore, the amplification of the noise is less. You get a good quality head unit, you can run 500 mv outputs and not have a problem vice going cheap with a unit running 6V outputs and running the chance of noise.

As for putting a double din in the dash, when I had my radio out, there is plenty of room to fit a double din radio in there. Where you may have an issue is getting it mounted in there. It is a big hole with nothing to really mount the radio to. You make that head unit a CD player and now you are asking for skipping problems (the CD players like to be firmly mounted in place so the radio does all the vibration cancelling). You get the cover plate issue figured out, the rest of the radio mounting will be easy.

As for sound deadening, unless you are a serious sound head, save your money. Sure it helps, but the amount I feel is minimal. If you had a classic muscle car with a lumpy cam in it, then sure. But, you don't. put that money towards a better head unit.

You can run those Focal speakers off of the factory radio. The speakers are more than capable of handling the factory radio power.

As for your wiring harness issue, I am working on a fix for it as we speak (just got the part today). What I would tell you to do is to go to a car stereo shop and have them order a standard wiring harness and a reverse wiring harness for a 2008 Ford Expedition (hear me out on this). Now, what you are going to do is take the factory radio plug and pull all the wires out of it (I personally recommend labeling all the wires so you know what pins go where should you ever reinstall the factory stuff). The wires are removed simply by removing the face of the plug, removing the retaining clip, and then lifting up on the small retaining spring inside and the wires slide out the back (no need to cut the wires). You can then remove the wires out of the reverse wiring harness using this same process and insert the factory wires into the plastic part of the reverse harness. All you have to do is match up the wires for the normal stereo wiring harness to keep things simple. Any person with some wiring background could do this modification. From there, you have a much easier to obtain wiring harness to play with. Sure, converting back will take a little more time, but we are talking about 10 minutes if you label the wires now. You don't, well, you will have to find a wiring diagram and go from there. Not impossible, but, much more of a heart ache later on.

If you need more input, let me know.

 

So .pre out are not that big a deal''''man i took back a deck based soley on 2v pre outs. Guess I'll scoop another one,Got ant solid sigle din suggestions ..gotta be hands freeBluetooth biult in as there is a new law in canada.I am told it is better to amp the focals,but have no idea what amp to use..2x50,2x65? They are focals and I'm told they can handle some power so I want to give it to them.Where i could use some help is on the 2ohm 4ohm thing,,,,do I have to match the whole system at the same ohm type?.All the amps i see are 2&4 ohm bridgible..dont want to get an amp and have it not push right.As well Im sure these new components are thicker then foctory spkrs but I'm not sure.will I have to do some craszy mod,or is it a simple spacer.?I will start with these few questions and work my way up lol..I really appreciate you two guys helping me out.Alot of shops up here see..Jag and want to misinform me...

 

since I'm still an X-type noob I'll reserve comment on the amp etc. But like the other guys said and from experience the pre out power shouldn't be an issue unless you're getting a lot of noise, which you won't. My advise since it's free is to install the focals, and see whether the factory amp will power them. If it's the premier system it's around 300W so it should. As far as getting the head unit make sure you do some searching because unless you want to forego your steering mounted controls you'll need the steering wheel adaptors as well.

There is an install in this forum where he's done the double din and you can tell by his pictures there is a ton of room. Personally if you use that fascia that you told me about (not the nexxia) it looks color matched and a double din looks a lot better in all the pictures I've seen of radio swaps in X and S types. And you can add a Nav system just for giggles and get up to a 7" screen.

If you wire it right with all the isolation between the power and pre outs you shouldn't get radio noise, run preout to the back sub down one side and main and remote power down the other, keeping it clear of speaker wires by the rocker panels. Make sure if you're going to replace the amp you get a good 2-4ohm unit since most higher end speakers are 4ohm tops. Not efficient but tighter sound.

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