[kenth]

I installed the Alpine kit a couple of weeks ago. Hints found on this forum was very helpful.
To answer your questions.
1) To remove the backseat just grab at the rim of the seat and pull upward. It will come off even though you might have to pull hard.
I have the E90 with foldable back seat rest and I didn't have to remove that to route the wiring. I suppose the same goes for the E91.
2) To remove the side cushions again pull straight towards the front of the car at the top of the cushion. They come of quite easily. There is a plastic piece between the cushion and the car body which you have to remove from the cushion and place in the hole in the body to be able to reseat the cushion afterwards.
3) when it comes to connecting the wires the installation guide provided in this thread is very helpful since it says which wires and colours that should be connected. Finding the original splices is not that easy though

[zoltan_tms]

Originally Posted by kenth

I installed the Alpine kit a couple of weeks ago. Hints found on this forum was very helpful.
To answer your questions.
1) To remove the backseat just grab at the rim of the seat and pull upward. It will come off even though you might have to pull hard.
I have the E90 with foldable back seat rest and I didn't have to remove that to route the wiring. I suppose the same goes for the E91.
2) To remove the side cushions again pull straight towards the front of the car at the top of the cushion. They come of quite easily. There is a plastic piece between the cushion and the car body which you have to remove from the cushion and place in the hole in the body to be able to reseat the cushion afterwards.
3) when it comes to connecting the wires the installation guide provided in this thread is very helpful since it says which wires and colours that should be connected. Finding the original splices is not that easy though

Can you help me please,i will also install my speakers soon,I have navigation professional,can you tell me if the connections are correct in this picture...

[robbie99]

Yes, those connections are correct.

[raj55]

No the connections are NOT correct. The tweeter should be connected to the wire that YOU have labelled as "To the original socket casing for the door loud speaker". The wire that is labelled "to the radio head unit 663" should be connected to the original wire that went to the original speaker. What ever you do do not forget to listen and check before you put the door trim back in place. That way you can rectify problems.

[raj55]

Originally Posted by kenth

I installed the Alpine kit a couple of weeks ago. Hints found on this forum was very helpful.
To answer your questions.
1) To remove the backseat just grab at the rim of the seat and pull upward. It will come off even though you might have to pull hard.
I have the E90 with foldable back seat rest and I didn't have to remove that to route the wiring. I suppose the same goes for the E91.
2) To remove the side cushions again pull straight towards the front of the car at the top of the cushion. They come of quite easily. There is a plastic piece between the cushion and the car body which you have to remove from the cushion and place in the hole in the body to be able to reseat the cushion afterwards.
3) when it comes to connecting the wires the installation guide provided in this thread is very helpful since it says which wires and colours that should be connected. Finding the original splices is not that easy though

Thanks Kenth, but I managed to remove the back seat bottom and side cushion last night before I read your post. I realise that there is no need to remove the back seat bottom. Just pulling out the back seat side cushion is enough to route the wires. I have got a big day today, with the amplifier connections. Thanks for your reply. It completes the picture for all others who want to try it.

[kenth]

I think you have to remove the back seat to be able to remove the sills.
The splices you need to find is located differently on the left and right hand side. On the right hand side of the car they can be found approx. in the middle of the door opening but on the left hand side the splices are towards the frontmost part of the door opening. They are also well wrapped in tape.

[zoltan_tms]

Originally Posted by raj55

No the connections are NOT correct. The tweeter should be connected to the wire that YOU have labelled as "To the original socket casing for the door loud speaker". The wire that is labelled "to the radio head unit 663" should be connected to the original wire that went to the original speaker. What ever you do do not forget to listen and check before you put the door trim back in place. That way you can rectify problems.

I don't understand why,in the instructions manual "says" cable marked with
SA 606, SA 609,SA 663 To tweeter E,as I understand,and also seems ok to connect a yellow cable to another yellow,not to a blue one
Someone else?

[robbie99]

Originally Posted by raj55

No the connections are NOT correct. The tweeter should be connected to the wire that YOU have labelled as "To the original socket casing for the door loud speaker". The wire that is labelled "to the radio head unit 663" should be connected to the original wire that went to the original speaker. What ever you do do not forget to listen and check before you put the door trim back in place. That way you can rectify problems.

That wire is not labelled "to the radio head unit 663", it's "Radio Headunit SA663 606 609".

The instruction manual gives you two choices, but the choices are for which connector the tweeter should plug into.

"Cars with SA662 only", "Connect branch B2 to tweeter E".
"Only cars with SA663 SA606 SA609", "Connect branch B4 to tweeter E".

The wording in the connection diagram is consistant.

I think Zoltan's connections are correct.

[zoltan_tms]

I connected the crossover to my Denon,and tried connecting the tweeter to both sockets,but no difference noticed.

[kenth]

You're connections are correct zoltan. As Robbie99 points out it doesn't say "to". I don't know the difference but since both connectors are intended for the tweeter depending on head unit you will probably get sound any which way. Probably a difference in the filter but I didn't bother to check that when I installed the speakers.

[zoltan_tms]

Other questions:
1)When connecting the amplifier to the underfloor cables ,a have seen on pictures that there are 3 pairs of blue/brown cables 3 of them beeing striped,these are the positive ones and the non striped the negatives?Is this rule(striped=positive) aplicable to the harness that must be routed to the driver and passanger side too?
2)After disconnecting the negative pole from the battery and reconnecting,the error message that systems malfunctioned disappears after several minutes?

[robbie99]

Originally Posted by zoltan_tms

Other questions:
1)When connecting the amplifier to the underfloor cables ,a have seen on pictures that there are 3 pairs of blue/brown cables 3 of them being striped,these are the positive ones and the non striped the negatives?Is this rule(striped=positive) aplicable to the harness that must be routed to the driver and passanger side too?

Not quite (but you should )

Brown stripes on the cables = negative (for both left and righthand sides)
White stripes = positive (righthand side)
Black stripes = positive (lefthand side)

There's a table in the instruction manual which tells which wires join to which in the harness. The only difficult colour code is SW which is black (German for black is swartz).

Originally Posted by zoltan_tms

2)After disconnecting the negative pole from the battery and reconnecting,the error message that systems malfunctioned disappears after several minutes?

Maybe someone else can help with this one.

[zoltan_tms]

Originally Posted by robbie99

Not quite (but you should )

Brown stripes on the cables = negative (for both left and righthand sides)
White stripes = positive (righthand side)
Black stripes = positive (lefthand side)

There's a table in the instruction manual which tells which wires join to which in the harness. The only difficult colour code is SW which is black (German for black is swartz).



Maybe someone else can help with this one.

Thank you, I see it in the manual.I will take some pictures,today I will install the spaekers on th front doors.

[raj55]

Originally Posted by zoltan_tms

Other questions:
1)When connecting the amplifier to the underfloor cables ,a have seen on pictures that there are 3 pairs of blue/brown cables 3 of them beeing striped,these are the positive ones and the non striped the negatives?Is this rule(striped=positive) aplicable to the harness that must be routed to the driver and passanger side too?
2)After disconnecting the negative pole from the battery and reconnecting,the error message that systems malfunctioned disappears after several minutes?

My apologies for almost misleading you with the connections, you are right. I checked mine today and they were connected exactly as you showed.

On the "error message" the only error message I get is one for the time reset and Km reset.
Just finished connecting my amplifier and the sound is gorgeous. The treble, bas, sound stage everything is far better compared to the original. It took me two whole days and one broken white clip from the B pillar trim. BMW donated two extra clips and I completed the project. The dificulty grade was quite high but I saved about 300 Euros and learnt a lot on the way. Pulling out those seats, cushion, panels etc were the most scary part. Locating those wires in that tight spot was back and eye aching. I double checked all my wire connections, too many wires and too many similar colours. Now it is done and I am a happy man.

[zoltan_tms]

Ok people,I finished yasterday with the door speakers,all I can say that it was a very easy job.I did it in 2 hours on both sides,including listening tests.
My only problem is that the new midrange speakers seem to be less powerful,
they move too strong with the bass.It seems that they get more bass than midrange.
I hope that installing the amplifier will solv the problem,maybe the door speaker channel is filtered, to pass only high and midrange.
Some pictures:

[raj55]

Zoltan,
You will appreciate it more when the amplifier is connected. It sounds really nice. The seat removal was the easier bit. Finding and connecting wire took quite some time. The problem was small tiny space.

[kenth]

Here are some pictures I took during installation that shows approximately where to find the splices.

[zoltan_tms]

I finished the amp install yesterday.It wasn't difficult,it took aproximatively 4 hours.There are two thin wires on each side ,those are from the door speakers,and 4 thick wires,2 from subwoofer,2 from the headunit.
I did not disconnect the battery at all,just worked carefully not to short circuit somethging.I identified the wires by cutting one by one,then verified once again the dor speakers and subwoofer with a little battery.It's pretty simple,black stiped cables must be connected to black triped ones,white striped to the white striped ones,you just have to have in mind, that blue is going to headunit,red to the door speakers,and green to the subwoofer.
On the driver side be careful not to damage some green wires,I think those are fiberoptics,going to the navigation system.
It sounds really good,surprisingly it's not very loud,but you can hear the difference,the bass hits harder,now all you need is to change your underseat woofers...

[zoltan_tms]

PICS:

[Googlyamnesiac]

Quick question... if i've upgraded my Head Init to an Alpine one is this upgrade useless for me now? i.e. does it have to connec to the Professional BMW Head Unit to work correctly?

I'm also a bit confused about the pricing. A friend of mine was shocked when I said the Amp and speakers cost just short of £300 when I could get some top of the range speakers and a decent aftermarket amp for this price.

Can anyone help my brain out!? :-)

Thanks!

[zoltan_tms]

Theoretically it is possible to connect your alpine headunit to the alpine retrofit,but it has no sense,because if it is 40-50w/channel it's nearly the same power like the amplifiers power.Better search e-bay and buy 2 midrange speakers and 2 tweeters for the front door.Retrofit is for those who want to keep their OEM headunit!
In the other hand the output of your Alpine may be too high,for the retrofit amplifiers imput!

[raj55]

Originally Posted by zoltan_tms

I finished the amp install yesterday.It wasn't difficult,it took aproximatively 4 hours.There are two thin wires on each side ,those are from the door speakers,and 4 thick wires,2 from subwoofer,2 from the headunit.
I did not disconnect the battery at all,just worked carefully not to short circuit somethging.I identified the wires by cutting one by one,then verified once again the dor speakers and subwoofer with a little battery.It's pretty simple,black stiped cables must be connected to black triped ones,white striped to the white striped ones,you just have to have in mind, that blue is going to headunit,red to the door speakers,and green to the subwoofer.
On the driver side be careful not to damage some green wires,I think those are fiberoptics,going to the navigation system.
It sounds really good,surprisingly it's not very loud,but you can hear the difference,the bass hits harder,now all you need is to change your underseat woofers...

You certainly worked very fast to complete every thing in four hours! Very brave of you in not disconnecting the battery. I connected and disconnected battery after each connection and test listen before the final job and that took time. I was probably being unduly careful. I have actually drawn two extra cables (one on each side) from the head unit to amplifier connection point backwards towards the rear end of the car to connect two extra rear speakers in the wagon to make it into a ten speaker system in future. I suppose one could even tap that signal to xtra speakers from the signal wires going in to the amplifier itself.