Hi everyone, a few weeks ago I completed the premium sound system upgrade for my Model 3. I recorded a video detailing the steps, but unfortunately I couldn't record while I was doing the work since it was dark and I needed both hands most of the time. However, I go step by step and try to detail everything as much as possible.
Check out the video HERE.
PARTS LIST
(all prices in Canadian dollars, multiply by about 0.75 to get USD prices):
$295: OEM Model 3 Subwoofer Assembly, Part Number: 1079747-00-D
$0: 10mm nut for mounting sub. OEM part number is 1016227-00-A
$237: Soundstream Picasso Nano 5.640D 640W 5-Channel Amp
$0: Ten Gauge Ground/Power wires for amp (about 8 feet each)
$12: 100ft roll of speaker wire (for amp outputs to new speakers)
$0: ~50 ft of 18 gauge wire in various colors (for speaker level inputs)
$35: 18 pack posi twist connectors
$24: 12 pack posi taps
$0: 4 t-tap connectors ~12 gauge wire size (for tapping door woofers, I'd recommend posi taps instead)
$36: 5kHz bass blockers, I never ended up using these since the tweeters weren't worth the work for me. YMMV.
$6: a small plank to mount the amp on and some metal brackets to mount it in the sub cubby in the trunk.
$0: A bunch of zip ties to clean up all the wiring
$0: Two ring terminal connectors for the ground/power wires.
$12: 2 Pack 100W 4 Ohm wire wound resistors.
Total: $457 CAD, about $350 USD.
NOTES
I got the sub from the Tesla SC in Calgary. My local one in Vancouver was zero help and even told me I needed a software flash to use the sub, haha! Some prices are zero because they are parts I had in my parts pile. Namely the 10mm bolt and wires are parts harvested from my crown vic after it got totaled.
I didn't have the chance to use this, but you do, so I highly recommend forking out the $120 USD for this harness kit so you can use the pigtail connectors to make a solution that avoids hacking up your car's wiring. Not required, but would be nice for a cleaner install: Model 3 SR+ Inactive Speaker Activation Wire Harness – Tesla Offer
TOOLS:
You'll want a good tool kit with a 10mm wrench or ratchet, a variety of screwdrivers, some kind of trim removal tool, a torx 20 screwdriver, wire snips, a wire stripping tool, a power drill for mounting the amp, and probably a flashlight too. I also highly recommend an OEM service manual so you know how to safely remove trim panels, OR youtube it. If you need help with this, message me.
INSTRUCTIONS
I recommend watching the video before reading the instructions for an overview of the job.
Step 1: Strip down the trim pieces on the dash, lower A pillar (below the dash), and door sill trim on the front driver and passenger side of the car. There should be a total of 6 pieces removed here, two small ones that just clip in, and the big piece that runs along the sill, which has one plastic push screw retaining it to the A-pillar area, then a bunch of push clips.
Step 2: Remove the rear seat bottom cushion, followed by the rear seat side bolsters (a major pain, be sure to pull towards the front of the car from the top, rotating it out as you pull). This was one of the worst parts of the job. Then remove the door sill trim on the rear doors.
Step 3: Remove the trunk bottom trim, sub trunk liner, trunk upper trim, and the passenger side carpeting so you can work on the sub area of the vehicle.
Step 4: Wire the OEM sub up. It is a dual coil sub, so just twist the red and green wires together (positive) and black and blue wires together (negative). I attached these to about 3 feet of speaker wire, later to be attached to the amp. Now that the wiring is sorted out, remove the black insert where your sub needs to be, and install your OEM sub there. Note that the blank insert uses 2 bolts and 1 nut. You need 1 bolt and 2 nuts to install the sub. I sourced a 10mm nut from my parts bin, you can order one at the SC (although it is a restricted part for some reason). Save the extra bolt, as it is handy for mounting your amp later.
Step 5: We need to get signal for the sub, so go back to the front of the car in the kick panel areas and tap into the OEM woofer speaker inputs. I did this with T-tap connectors, but I highly recommend using posi taps if you have ones big enough to fit. T taps are garbage. Driver side polarity: white is positive, blue is negative. Passenger side polarity: orange is positive, black is negative. Run a good length of wire back along the door sills to the rear trunk. Take your time routing this BEFORE cutting from the roll. Don't be like me and end up having to splice in extra wire TWICE because you were in a rush. Don't zip tie your wires down just yet, I put some straps in place but left them loose.
Step 6: Tap into the rear door speakers for input to power your 4 inch deck speakers. I tapped these at the B-pillar area right beside your left hip as driver. You don't need to fully remove the B-panel trim, just gently pry the bottom out so you can access the area to work. You can also tap this signal at the ICE computer, above the passenger footwell, but I found that area impossible to work in due to the size of my hands. I also ended up using this signal for the 2 inch A pillar speakers because I am lazy and don't move my Fader from the center position anyhow. If you want to tap the ICE computer for front signals, I wish you luck. Polarity of the wires are driver side: red positive, black negative. Passenger side: blue positive, green negative.
Step 7: Get power for your amp and a ground spot. I used a factory ground under the passenger side door sill, unbolt the 10mm bolt and get a ring terminal connector on your wire. Power can be found nearby, at the DC/DC convertor. Obviously be careful with the live 12V wire, I wrapped the end of mine in electrical tape until it was ready to be installed. Be sure not to cause a short circuit with tools when working around the PCS. It puts out 200A at peak I believe, so handle with care.
Step 8: Cut and splice into the harness at the C-pillar area behind the side seat bolster cushion. There should be a pigtail with 6 wires on it (if you only have 2, then you don't have rear deck speakers, sorry). There are 4 wires that will go up to the rear deck speakers. The wire polarities are as follows: driver side channel: purple positive, white negative. Passenger side channel: grey positive, yellow negative. be sure to cut the wires to prevent back-feeding to the stock amp.
Step 9: Power off the car from the touch screen and then hook up the rats nest in your trunk to the amp and test run your setup. If you did everything correctly, you should hear a major difference. Note that I had to turn the gain up on my sub and bass boost a bit to get it to where I was happy. YMMV. Start the volume from zero and work up.
Step 10: I ended up skipping the tweeters, but I did wire up the A-pillar speakers to the rear speaker input. You can access the wires for BOTH speakers at the driver side lower A-pillar area. There is a blue connector with 4 wires in sequence for these speakers. The polarity is as follows: driver side: green positive, grey, negative. Passenger side is orange positive, brown negative. Note: I found these way too overbearing running off the amp, and the gain was at minimum. I ended up getting 2x 100W resistors (4 ohms each) and wiring them in line with the speaker OUTPUT line from the amp. This roughly halved the volume and made them much better sounding.
Step 11: Create your mounting solution for your amp and mount it in the subwoofer cubby in the passenger side of the trunk. Make sure it is secure and won't rattle around. Start tightening up your wire harnesses and cleaning up the rats nest with zip ties. Note: be sure you route the power source wire FAR away from the audio wires so as to avoid interference. If they must cross each other, do it as perpendicular as possible, do NOT run them parallel or you will hear some noise (hiss and transient pops).
Step 12: Test your system one last time and be sure you're happy with it. Install the subwoofer bass boost knob (I mounted mine on the top of my trunk, tucked out of sight near the ambient light).
Total install time was about 22 hours spread over a week or so. Hope the guide was helpful for you guys, just lemme know if you have any questions or comments!
Check out the video HERE.
PARTS LIST
(all prices in Canadian dollars, multiply by about 0.75 to get USD prices):
$295: OEM Model 3 Subwoofer Assembly, Part Number: 1079747-00-D
$0: 10mm nut for mounting sub. OEM part number is 1016227-00-A
$237: Soundstream Picasso Nano 5.640D 640W 5-Channel Amp
$0: Ten Gauge Ground/Power wires for amp (about 8 feet each)
$12: 100ft roll of speaker wire (for amp outputs to new speakers)
$0: ~50 ft of 18 gauge wire in various colors (for speaker level inputs)
$35: 18 pack posi twist connectors
$24: 12 pack posi taps
$0: 4 t-tap connectors ~12 gauge wire size (for tapping door woofers, I'd recommend posi taps instead)
$36: 5kHz bass blockers, I never ended up using these since the tweeters weren't worth the work for me. YMMV.
$6: a small plank to mount the amp on and some metal brackets to mount it in the sub cubby in the trunk.
$0: A bunch of zip ties to clean up all the wiring
$0: Two ring terminal connectors for the ground/power wires.
$12: 2 Pack 100W 4 Ohm wire wound resistors.
Total: $457 CAD, about $350 USD.
NOTES
I got the sub from the Tesla SC in Calgary. My local one in Vancouver was zero help and even told me I needed a software flash to use the sub, haha! Some prices are zero because they are parts I had in my parts pile. Namely the 10mm bolt and wires are parts harvested from my crown vic after it got totaled.
I didn't have the chance to use this, but you do, so I highly recommend forking out the $120 USD for this harness kit so you can use the pigtail connectors to make a solution that avoids hacking up your car's wiring. Not required, but would be nice for a cleaner install: Model 3 SR+ Inactive Speaker Activation Wire Harness – Tesla Offer
TOOLS:
You'll want a good tool kit with a 10mm wrench or ratchet, a variety of screwdrivers, some kind of trim removal tool, a torx 20 screwdriver, wire snips, a wire stripping tool, a power drill for mounting the amp, and probably a flashlight too. I also highly recommend an OEM service manual so you know how to safely remove trim panels, OR youtube it. If you need help with this, message me.
INSTRUCTIONS
I recommend watching the video before reading the instructions for an overview of the job.
Step 1: Strip down the trim pieces on the dash, lower A pillar (below the dash), and door sill trim on the front driver and passenger side of the car. There should be a total of 6 pieces removed here, two small ones that just clip in, and the big piece that runs along the sill, which has one plastic push screw retaining it to the A-pillar area, then a bunch of push clips.
Step 2: Remove the rear seat bottom cushion, followed by the rear seat side bolsters (a major pain, be sure to pull towards the front of the car from the top, rotating it out as you pull). This was one of the worst parts of the job. Then remove the door sill trim on the rear doors.
Step 3: Remove the trunk bottom trim, sub trunk liner, trunk upper trim, and the passenger side carpeting so you can work on the sub area of the vehicle.
Step 4: Wire the OEM sub up. It is a dual coil sub, so just twist the red and green wires together (positive) and black and blue wires together (negative). I attached these to about 3 feet of speaker wire, later to be attached to the amp. Now that the wiring is sorted out, remove the black insert where your sub needs to be, and install your OEM sub there. Note that the blank insert uses 2 bolts and 1 nut. You need 1 bolt and 2 nuts to install the sub. I sourced a 10mm nut from my parts bin, you can order one at the SC (although it is a restricted part for some reason). Save the extra bolt, as it is handy for mounting your amp later.
Step 5: We need to get signal for the sub, so go back to the front of the car in the kick panel areas and tap into the OEM woofer speaker inputs. I did this with T-tap connectors, but I highly recommend using posi taps if you have ones big enough to fit. T taps are garbage. Driver side polarity: white is positive, blue is negative. Passenger side polarity: orange is positive, black is negative. Run a good length of wire back along the door sills to the rear trunk. Take your time routing this BEFORE cutting from the roll. Don't be like me and end up having to splice in extra wire TWICE because you were in a rush. Don't zip tie your wires down just yet, I put some straps in place but left them loose.
Step 6: Tap into the rear door speakers for input to power your 4 inch deck speakers. I tapped these at the B-pillar area right beside your left hip as driver. You don't need to fully remove the B-panel trim, just gently pry the bottom out so you can access the area to work. You can also tap this signal at the ICE computer, above the passenger footwell, but I found that area impossible to work in due to the size of my hands. I also ended up using this signal for the 2 inch A pillar speakers because I am lazy and don't move my Fader from the center position anyhow. If you want to tap the ICE computer for front signals, I wish you luck. Polarity of the wires are driver side: red positive, black negative. Passenger side: blue positive, green negative.
Step 7: Get power for your amp and a ground spot. I used a factory ground under the passenger side door sill, unbolt the 10mm bolt and get a ring terminal connector on your wire. Power can be found nearby, at the DC/DC convertor. Obviously be careful with the live 12V wire, I wrapped the end of mine in electrical tape until it was ready to be installed. Be sure not to cause a short circuit with tools when working around the PCS. It puts out 200A at peak I believe, so handle with care.
Step 8: Cut and splice into the harness at the C-pillar area behind the side seat bolster cushion. There should be a pigtail with 6 wires on it (if you only have 2, then you don't have rear deck speakers, sorry). There are 4 wires that will go up to the rear deck speakers. The wire polarities are as follows: driver side channel: purple positive, white negative. Passenger side channel: grey positive, yellow negative. be sure to cut the wires to prevent back-feeding to the stock amp.
Step 9: Power off the car from the touch screen and then hook up the rats nest in your trunk to the amp and test run your setup. If you did everything correctly, you should hear a major difference. Note that I had to turn the gain up on my sub and bass boost a bit to get it to where I was happy. YMMV. Start the volume from zero and work up.
Step 10: I ended up skipping the tweeters, but I did wire up the A-pillar speakers to the rear speaker input. You can access the wires for BOTH speakers at the driver side lower A-pillar area. There is a blue connector with 4 wires in sequence for these speakers. The polarity is as follows: driver side: green positive, grey, negative. Passenger side is orange positive, brown negative. Note: I found these way too overbearing running off the amp, and the gain was at minimum. I ended up getting 2x 100W resistors (4 ohms each) and wiring them in line with the speaker OUTPUT line from the amp. This roughly halved the volume and made them much better sounding.
Step 11: Create your mounting solution for your amp and mount it in the subwoofer cubby in the passenger side of the trunk. Make sure it is secure and won't rattle around. Start tightening up your wire harnesses and cleaning up the rats nest with zip ties. Note: be sure you route the power source wire FAR away from the audio wires so as to avoid interference. If they must cross each other, do it as perpendicular as possible, do NOT run them parallel or you will hear some noise (hiss and transient pops).
Step 12: Test your system one last time and be sure you're happy with it. Install the subwoofer bass boost knob (I mounted mine on the top of my trunk, tucked out of sight near the ambient light).
Total install time was about 22 hours spread over a week or so. Hope the guide was helpful for you guys, just lemme know if you have any questions or comments!
