Posted by: gbsallery
Jaguar XJR install - 15/01/2004 10:38
Hello all,
Well, after three days of fumbling around in sub-zero temperatures, my empeg is now installed in a car worthy of such a device - my 1995 Jaguar XJR. It certainly beats the Ford Escort it's been living in for the last year. Many thanks to CMU for helping out, it was a mammoth task; more details can be found below but first, some install pr0n:
http://www.colour9.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=empeg
...mmm, tasty. It's not a particularly complex install by the standards of this BBS, but it took a lot of time largely due to the complexity of the vehicle. Jaguar seem to have a large bin of computer modules at the factory which they staple liberally to every available surface; we counted 14 computers and we weren't even looking. Fortunately we didn't need to displace many of these, but there's still and awful lot of trim to move around.
Essentially, it was a straight install of the empeg (alright, a RioCar Mk 2a) in place of the original head unit, and the addition of an amplifier in the boot. This was complicated by a need to upgrade the front mid/bass speakers (in the doors), remove the old CD-changer and also put in a nice Nokia Bluetooth car kit.
Taking out the old head unit was easy, as was fitting the fascia adaptor from Autoleads - and it even looks fairly tidy. The hard part was splicing into the Jaguar wiring loom ("Oh my god, it's full of cables...") in a sensible place. It turns out that unless you want to re-run cables to each individual speaker (there's 8; 4 mid/bass and 4 tweeters), you have to splice into the Jaguar head unit connector. Which is behind the head unit. Which would be fine if you had an amplifier anywhere near there... but there's not really room for that, and it would require running power cables all the way from the battery in the boot. So the amp stayed at the back, the speaker connections at the front, and we had to join the two together. Which means removing the centre console trim, displacing the centre console, routing wires (audio, speaker and amplifier remote) along the transmission tunnel, digging through the carpet, pulling cables through the underlay, routing the cables through the rear seat junction boxes, removing the rear seat, routing cables up to the parcel shelf, through the handy blanking plate for the Jaguar premium stereo install and down into the boot. Fun!
That just left mounting the amplifier (on a board attached to the mounting points Jaguar kindly left under the parcel shelf, running power cables from the absolutely monstrous battery, round the petrol tank and up to the amp. Oh, and installing the hands-free kit, which works very nicely with the empeg's mute facility.
Reassembly was the reverse of removal :-)
Anyway, that's probably all of interest to nobody except myself, but I just wanted to record for posterity how much effort it took for such a simple-looking result :-)
And, of course, now it's installed, it's absolutely brilliant - sounds great, looks fantastic, and adds a perfect finishing touch to an already rather nice car.
Gavin
Well, after three days of fumbling around in sub-zero temperatures, my empeg is now installed in a car worthy of such a device - my 1995 Jaguar XJR. It certainly beats the Ford Escort it's been living in for the last year. Many thanks to CMU for helping out, it was a mammoth task; more details can be found below but first, some install pr0n:
http://www.colour9.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=empeg
...mmm, tasty. It's not a particularly complex install by the standards of this BBS, but it took a lot of time largely due to the complexity of the vehicle. Jaguar seem to have a large bin of computer modules at the factory which they staple liberally to every available surface; we counted 14 computers and we weren't even looking. Fortunately we didn't need to displace many of these, but there's still and awful lot of trim to move around.
Essentially, it was a straight install of the empeg (alright, a RioCar Mk 2a) in place of the original head unit, and the addition of an amplifier in the boot. This was complicated by a need to upgrade the front mid/bass speakers (in the doors), remove the old CD-changer and also put in a nice Nokia Bluetooth car kit.
Taking out the old head unit was easy, as was fitting the fascia adaptor from Autoleads - and it even looks fairly tidy. The hard part was splicing into the Jaguar wiring loom ("Oh my god, it's full of cables...") in a sensible place. It turns out that unless you want to re-run cables to each individual speaker (there's 8; 4 mid/bass and 4 tweeters), you have to splice into the Jaguar head unit connector. Which is behind the head unit. Which would be fine if you had an amplifier anywhere near there... but there's not really room for that, and it would require running power cables all the way from the battery in the boot. So the amp stayed at the back, the speaker connections at the front, and we had to join the two together. Which means removing the centre console trim, displacing the centre console, routing wires (audio, speaker and amplifier remote) along the transmission tunnel, digging through the carpet, pulling cables through the underlay, routing the cables through the rear seat junction boxes, removing the rear seat, routing cables up to the parcel shelf, through the handy blanking plate for the Jaguar premium stereo install and down into the boot. Fun!
That just left mounting the amplifier (on a board attached to the mounting points Jaguar kindly left under the parcel shelf, running power cables from the absolutely monstrous battery, round the petrol tank and up to the amp. Oh, and installing the hands-free kit, which works very nicely with the empeg's mute facility.
Reassembly was the reverse of removal :-)
Anyway, that's probably all of interest to nobody except myself, but I just wanted to record for posterity how much effort it took for such a simple-looking result :-)
And, of course, now it's installed, it's absolutely brilliant - sounds great, looks fantastic, and adds a perfect finishing touch to an already rather nice car.
Gavin
