I wanted to keep my cargo space and keep it less obvious, so had to do away with my precious W6v2, best sub I ever owned and it will be sorely missed.
Here is a pic of it, one day I may use it again.


So here is most of the new gear that will go in the Fit. The components chosen are the JLAudio C3's



What a mess



Mounted the amp here and started some sound damping. Made a rack out of steel corner beam to hold it secure.



The crossover, shame I had to hide it as it's quite nice looking.



Comparison of the stock speaker



Rack for processor



The BTA8250D-DE - BT dual 8" 250 watt Double-Ended Class D Amplified Bazooka. I chose this one cause not only is it really efficient considering the space, but it doesn't spotlight itself as a sub to would be thieves and with it's molex connection, I can quickly undo the quick straps, unplug and take it out if I need the room, something that would be much harder to do with just about any other amped pre enclosed sub on the market.



The placement of the quick connects allows me to just push it under the rear seats and I can very quickly move the Bazooka to the trunk If I have passengers or remove it entirely if I need all the cargo space. I plan to add a carrying strap onto it later on, it's not as bulky as I feared it might be.



The tactile Transducer is attached under both front seats, when tuned properly this will augment the subs for the physical feel of much larger subs.



The HU. 6.1 touchscreen. I mostly use music from my USB drive, I ran the USB wire the same as stock so it's in the proper location. I also have Sirius XM and the Axim steering wheel controller.


Finished amp install. I used a JLAudio badge onto a dark tinted plexiglass panel which hides the amp. I considered putting a light inside to illuminate the amp but maybe another time. I meant to get the badge up a little higher but obviously I didn't measure properly. I can remove the plexi panel and take out the amp without having to take out that interior panel, just in case I felt the need





I used Fat Mat sound deadening in the doors, both on the inside and outside. I forgot to take any pics but definitely improves the midbass from the door speakers sounding much more solid and punchy.

 

My review of the above

XAV-601bt. This is a higher end HU from Sony with a rich list of features from bluetooth to hands free calling. I have no use for 80% of that and probably didn't really need this. I wanted the 6.1 inch Touchscreen to watch video's when needed and touchscreens, I figured would be easier to manage and see while driving as well as give me a full song list and artwork..etc. What sucks is that it won't always keep accurate time, the clock changes to whatever it wants to, it may stay accurate for a month, then change itself 3 times while driving to work. Usually it's around 6:50am it will change to 6:04 pm...odd. It's super easy to change back though unlike most any car radio clock out there. Sound is excellent, 7 band EQ and time alignment, the latter making a huge difference and was a contributing feature to my purchase. Most all but the highest end HU's have this feature built in which is really nice. You can also time align the sub as well, all of this helps set up the soundstage, you can move the sound higher and up front if you want. Overall, it's just ok. I love the time alignment and screen size which is decent rez to look at, however the touch part is that of a cheap Android tablet, it works but it's no Ipad, that's for darn sure.

JLA C3-600. This is one of JL's mid level component systems with a hybrid function to allow mounting of the soft dome tweeter, onto the woofer ala typical coaxial. Since tweeter's should never be farther than 8 inches from the woofer, this is ideal for the Fit since the stock tweeter locations are the worst in the world, no clue what moron at Honda thought this would be a good idea, likely the result of putting a band aid approach onto a poor system. The C3's have full authority, smooth detailed high's with no harshness or fatigue. I pushed the mid bass hard and it didn't bottom out. You can fine tune the tweets and mids via the crossover but meh, reference is just fine and i'm too lazy. Not the loudest speakers in the world but cranked up the sound never broke up. Poor idea on the connectors however and the crossover is way too large to be practical but is pretty to look at. I used Crutchfields door kit they included for free, the C3's are not a perfect fit, takes some twisting to find the right spot and I could not use the default bolt as the head stuck out too far, but it can work in the Fit, just takes some doin. Smooth and punchy is all I can say about these speakers.

JLA 500/3 XD amplifier. JL's mid level amplifier, amazingly small but not as small as RF's PDX line. It's hard to find anything wrong or negative to say about it other than maybe the price.Power supply doesn't cause any RF interference like some Class D switching power supplies can. Sound is indistinguishable from many class A/B amps which is becoming the norm. 3ch design is a good idea with having a mono sub amp channel rather than bridging but in the end it's irrelevant assuming all else being equal. 12/24 slope, hp/lp filter and adjustable frequency and solid build quality.

The Bazooka bta8250d had two highly sensitive poly cone woofers, standard steel stamped baskets and 2" voice coils. The poly filled, non resonate ABS enclosure is 36" long, 1.047ft3 with a tuned port of 39hz. A 250 watt rms, class D amp is tidely built in with quick connect molex style plugs. All this efficiency sacrifices accuracy of course. This is most evident with the fast, tight double bass of some heavy metal bands, where it should go boom,boom, is more like boommph, boommph. However it's to be expected from any such small, higher tuned enclosure, physics won't break down and cry with this one, but it will offer you much more bass for the space drawing far less power than many other types of pre enclosed subs. It won't disturb your neighbors nor move your hair, but the bottom end is there.

 

Damn thats so clean!

 

Do the rear seats go back to normal position completely or does the sub nose them up a little?

 

In for more pix of capable seat functionality!

 

No, if I fold the seats down, I have to take the sub and put it in the trunk as I mentioned for those 2 pics, which is made possible due to its simple connectors, I just shove them into the gap between seats and floor and done. Quick disconnect was pretty important to me as it saved me the issue of a second amp. Very little room when folding seats down under there for much of anything due to the shape of the given space, maybe a custom enclosure with 6.5"'s?. To be honest I never actually tried to fold them down, but pretty certain it wouldn't.

There really isn't a lot of options here as far as adding subs while keeping both full seat functionality and cargo trunk space without either some space or spare tire sacrifices or fiber glassing your own rear side panel to custom fit an 8" or something.

Apart from that, anything you can secure down yet quickly undo and take out is ideal. However unless you have really dark tint, a typical sub enclosure is quickly obvious to any would be thief but for the right price might be more preferred to some of you guys.

I considered using my 12" Jl sub and get some racing latch pins to lock it down and easily remove, but it's another amp I need to find a spot for as most are not quick disconnect by any means, weight might have some inconvenience but I may take another look at that some other time. For now this install works out pretty well. It's a huuuge improvement and sounds great, I managed to keep the bass tight and up front stage and the TT's under the seats give some physical presence as well, it just won't rattle the neighborhood but i'm gettin too old to be doin that anyway I guess.

 

good job,very cool!!

 

I just got two pairs of C3-600s the other day (won't be using subwoofer), but found out the Kenwood DNX9980HD doesn't output enough power for them (22 on HU vs 25 min on speakers!).

So, I'm about to order an amp (first time ever dealing with an amp), the JLA XD400/4. Roughly how many ft of speaker wire did you use?

Oh, and about the C3s with the tweeter attached, they fit? I was worried that the door grille would smack into the tweeters. Where did you "hide" the crossover?

 

I LOVED my XD400/4, then when I had it still on the mounting rack in my storage room while I raced the Fit for a weekend, the termite inspection people jacked it

 

Ouch.

~~~~~~~~~~

Well, I put the order in.
I think 75 ft of speaker wire is MORE than enough, but for the worry-wart in me, rather have extra just in case I mess up or something.

Now, I have to figure out how to install all this.