[bigwillokc]

I am gutting my Titan and going to Dynamat the entire cab, install new Kenwood dnx-6960 headunit with gps, sirius, ipod, bluetooth, back-up cam, kenwood 6.1" lcd's in the headrests, polk audio db6501 components in all four doors and dash, jl 300/4 and 500/1 amps and a jl stealthbox with 2 10's and remote bass knob. i'm still waiting on one amp and my headunit to show up (should be here tomorrow) so i decided to bring my headrest in last night and see what happens. i've never done any headrest monitors on my own, so i was a little nervous when it came time to wield the razor blade, but i have done plenty of reading and it wasn't nearly as hard as i thought. I took my time and measured many times before each cut, and was still done with the first one in less than an hour. Didn't get to the second one yet, but let me just say, if you are considering head rest screens and want them to actually MATCH, you can do this on your own if you are even halfway handy. Anyway, here are a couple of pics and I will continue to update this thread as I progress on my install. At this point just the monitor is mounted, the wiring isn't done yet.

Headrest is cut and the foam picked out in the shape of the bezel.

Monitor is mounted and very sturdy....ready for power and a video source!

 

[bigwillokc]

Thanks. I still have the other head rest to do and if there is interest, I will take more pics and detail the process for anyone that may want to do this themselves.

 

[bigwillokc]

OK guys...just finished the second head rest and this one was much easier and only took 45 minutes and that was stopping to take pics and also i had to reattach the bracket three times to get it perfect. Here's the detailed info with pics:


Remove your stock head rest and take it inside where its easier to work.

I noticed on mine that the stitching was not perfectly aligned around the headrest so i did not want to use it as a reference for leveling. I did try to center the monitor between the vertical seams, but for the horizontal line to start with, i put my headrest posts on a flat surface and used a level while holding the bracket in place (three hands helps with this part). I used a pencil and just made a line all the way across the top of the bracket. Also make sure to account for the lip of your bracket to make sure everything stays between the vertical seams or else you won't be able to get it to look recessed.

Using the template that should have come with your monitors, hold it in place and draw an X from corner to corner, leaving about 1/2 inch from going all the way to each corner.

Now take a deep breath and use your box cutter or utility knife to cut on your X. Pull the four triangles of cover back and out of the way.

Using your template again, take your blade and cut out the box for the screen bracket. I cut mine about 1/4" smaller than the box all the way around just to be on the safe side. You can always trim out more, but you can't put it back I have found that with a box cutter and the blade all the way out, you can put the blade all the way in and cut. This will cut the foam about 3/4 to an inch deep. Then just pick out the middle of the box with your fingers. It doesn't have to be perfect, but once again, try to make it level, try your bracket fitment, then try more if its not right. Don't get too aggressive too soon.

Keep removing bits of foam from the bottom and sides of your foam square until you can put your bracket in the hole (with the triangles of cloth folded back in), and it takes a little force to get the bracket to recess inside into the cloth. This is also the point where you want to make sure you hole is as level as possible on the bottom. Its ok if it doesn't make contact with the foam all over, but the main thing here is that you want to be able to get the entire bracket to recess into the cloth without bending or warping in one corner, otherwise your screen wont sit flush or may not snap in at all.

Once you're satisfied with your cutout, its time to prep your bracket. The good thing about the method i used is as long as your monitors came with flush mount brackets, these instructions are universal. Mine are Kenwood models and they have a plastic flush mount bracket. The brackets for mine came with 4 holes drilled, one in each corner. We are going to use zip ties to secure our bracket to the seat, so what you want to do is drill another hold about 3/8" to the inside of the existing holes. If your bracket has none, then obviously you will want to drill two holes in each corner. Make sure the holes are horizontal. Also, very important....make sure that your holes are big enough so that the head of the zip tie can pass through it easily. Here's my pic of my finished bracket and also the pic with the ink pen pointing to the holes i made.

Now what you want to do is get yourself some zip ties that are at least 8 inches long, preferably longer. You will want to take your finger and poke a hole in the foam until you can feel the seat bar in each corner of your cutout. You will need to poke a hole on either side of the bar in each corner and fish a ziptie through the holes and behind the seat bar in each corner. make sure not to let the ziptie get twisted. For me this was the hardest part of the head rest install. Just keep working your finger and get the foam to pull away from the seat bar and you will eventually be able to fish your ziptie through. The good thing is the foam is pretty good about going back in to place. Don't hesititate to pull a big chunk back to get your fingers in there, just make sure you don't rip it all the way out and it will go right back when you're done. Leave the zipties poking out about halfway in each side.

Get your bracket in place and get each zip tie started but not tightened down. The longer zip ties you use, the easier this part will be. Make sure you have ran your cable for your monitor through the bracket and out the bottom of the head rest along the bar. You will then want to start cranking down the zip ties, a little at a time in each corner until you get the angle and depression into the headrest that you want. Keep in mind the seat bar is closer to the back of the seat the lower it goes, so at the bottom of the headrest you will want to get those lined up first. Pull in the top ones until the bracket is just where you want it.

Once you have the bracket in just the right place, cut the excess of the ziptie off close to the head and push the head into the holes we drilled. This way the screen can snap into place without being obstructed by the zip ties.

Now you just pop your monitor into the bracket and you're ready to tackle the rest of the install.

This is probably as far as i'm going to get until this weekend. I'm going to try and do the rest of the install this weekend which means stripping the cab down to the metal and dynamat'ing, running cables, headunit, etc. If anyone has any questions so far let me know!

 

[bigwillokc]

The screens are Kenwood 6.1" and they are touchscreen. You get both screens and the control box to add inputs in the box and i got it on amazon for $299. The price fluctuates on amazon but its $339 right now and to me thats a great price for everything plus a well known brand. i have yet to even power them up so i can't comment on their clarity or functionality yet... here the are on amazon

 

[bigwillokc]

Great Write Up.

How are you going to run the wiring down to the bottom of the seat?

Honestly I haven't even looked at the rest of the seat, I'm going to do that this weekend when i pull them out to dynamat everything. From what i can see the seat cover come apart at the bottom with a plastic clip just like the one in the bottom of the head rest, so I will probably make a small hole next to the seat post clip and just run it down the back of the seat under the seat cover.

 

[bigwillokc]

Yes the plastic along the bottom of the seat comes apart, it is a pain though and you should be able to just snake the wires all the way down. Are you doing passenger side too? That side is even easier, at least on my truck it has the plastic panel on the back and you can just pop that off and run wires. Good luck with the install. Post up some more pics as you do dynamat and other stuff. Also what are you planning on dynamatting and how much are you planning on using?

I am doing both sides and I took a closer look at my seats this morning and they actually unzip in the back, so it should be pretty easy to get the cables down to the bottom. I am for sure dynamatting all four doors and the rear wall, as well as the floor under where my stealthbox will be firing. I may do the entire floor depending on how much it takes. Right now i have two big boxes of dynamat that is the 'trunk kit'. I think it is 32" x 5 feet so I will probably get at least two more of those.

 

[bigwillokc]

Real good job and nice write up. This has the making of a really good thread.

Thanks...I'm thinking since I am doing pretty much every a/v mod you can do, all at one time. I can document the entire process and hopefully this can be a one stop thread for anyone wanting to do one or all of the mods and we can all learn from each other.

 

[bigwillokc]

I want to see how this plays out. I assume since they are just monitors you have to contect them to a DVD source? Is that going to be your head unit? Are you able to add a 2nd source to that they can watch 2 different programs? I defenately want to see the final product.

Yes the screens came with a control unit that you can connect two sources to. My DVD source will be my head unit and I can add a ps2 or something later when my kids get older but right now they are 4 and 1 so I wont use the second input yet. The screens are touch screen and can select whichever input you want on eAch.

 

[bigwillokc]

Ok guys. I had a chance to get started last night around 6pm and go the truck gutted and ready to start on my install. Here's my pile of stuff to install (forgive the trashbags we had a garage sale saturday and those are the leftovers to be dropped off at goodwill):

There's really not a lot to see so far, but i will say that when i took the door panels off i was surprised to see only a piece of styrofoam as a liner!

That will never do, so I removed the door panels on all four doors and removed the liners along with the stock speakers since i will be replacing them. I am planning on dynamatting all of the doors, and I'm really anal about stuff, so I actually scraped away the line of adhesive that held the liner on. It was a real pain in the ***, especially around where the stock speaker was, but I think the dynamat will sit flush on the metal now and not have any bumps from the adhesive. This stuff is sorta like the stuff they use to stick credit cards to the paper when they mail them to you, except 1 million times stronger. What I did was to pull it up with my fingers on one hand, and use a plastic putty knife to just keep poking it as i pulled it up with the other hand. I'm not even sure if this was necessary but I would rather get it done now then not do it and regret it later. Anyway here's how it looks now without any liner or adhesive or speaker.

I also removed all the seats, the center console, the trim pieces around the floor and finally the carpet. You will notice the rear wall liner is still in the pic. It is completely loose except for right in the middle there is a seatbelt guide that uses plastic tabs to stay in and is in there REALLY GOOD. I figured I can fold each half in and dynamat with that in place. I'd rather do that than break or loosen those things and have them rattling later. I also got the stock stereo and faceplate removed because I had promised to ship them to their buyers today, but i'm sure you guys don't need any pics or instructions for doing that. Here's what it looks like at this point. I am not actually ready to START my project lol...heading out to get started, will post updates tonight.

 

[bigwillokc]

I'm eventually looking to do a system install myself. What year is your T. Also just wondering how hard it was to take the door panels off? This is a great thread! Keep posting the pics!

My Titan is a 2008 SE Crew Cab. Taking the door panels off is easy once you figure out where all five screws are. One is under the door handle, then remove a plastic piece from under the door handle and there is another. Then pop off the plastic piece on top of the pull handle that you use to close the door and there are two in there. Pop up the armrest and there is one more. Then disconnect your window switches and courtesy light and pop it off.

 

[bigwillokc]

Ok so just came inside from the few hours i got to put in today. Our whole house is sick, so had to come back in and help with the kids. Anyway...I got all of the dynamat laid, ended up using 10 pieces that are 18x32 inches and i think it worked out perfect. That would be two of the "trunk kits" each comes with 5 pieces. I put one piece on each door, one piece on the back wall and under where the stealthbox will be, one piece basically under each passenger, one in the middle, and then cut up the last piece to fill in some gaps. Word to the wise here, folks, if you are working with this stuff where some gloves. The aluminum is like a razor, especially after you cut it. You will also notice I got all of the door speakers installed. I ended up mounting the crossovers directly to the door with metal screws and they will fit perfect under the empty space where the arm rest is when the panels are reinstalled. I also made sure to face the rear of the crossovers to the rear of the door because there is a switch on the crossover to adjust the tweeter output. This way i will be able to pull the door up from the back and use a pencil or something to adjust the switch if needed.

I purchased some speaker adapter rings from a website (don't remember which) and they worked perfect in the doors using the stock 6x9 housings. The tweeter adapters on the other hand, posed two problems. As you can see from the pic, the hole for the tweeter is way to small for any tweeter I know of, so i had to cut it bigger so my tweeter in the flush mount ring would fit.

Once I got that done and did the test fitment, i found that the stock tweeter cover would not snap into place due to the tweeter being too tall on the adapter plate. What i ended up doing is installing the adapter on the UNDER side of the dash. You can imagine what a b this was. I used a 3/4" screw from the top and a wing nut on the bottom so that i could use my finger to hold the bottom and a screwdriver to tighten from the top. Now that the adapters are secure, my tweeters will drop in perfectly. Once everything has been tested, I plan to use all weather silicone around the tweeter mount to secure it to my adapter.

I am now to the point where i am starting to lay everything out and get wires ran and start connecting stuff. I plan on putting one amp under each seat and using the mini center console i found under my bench seat in the middle as a mounting spot for my power distribution block and the source box for the headrest monitors. More to come tomorrow...

 

[bigwillokc]

Looks good. How many watts you Plan on pushing.

I'm only running 800 watts. JL audio 300/4 for my components and a JL audio 500/1 on my stealthbox.

 

[bigwillokc]

Ok guys....the Titan install is officially DONE. I may have skipped some of my steps because i got anxious and have been sick for three days, so if anyone has any questions about how I did something, feel free to ask. Today i got all my wiring laid out where i wanted it, bundled together where it would be and then relaid the carpet.

I then used the mini center console i found under my bench front seat as a wiring spot. I put my fuses and distribution block there, as well as the source controller for the headrest monitors and the sirius tuner.

I got the head unit installed and found the perfect spot to mount the bass control knob for the JL 500/1 amplifier. Just to the left of the AC controls, there is a round plastic piece that worked great. you can sorta see it in the pic.

I mounted one amp under each seat and got the wiring all cleaned up. One thing you can't see in the pics is how i mounted the amps to the floor. I took hard plastic rod i had in the garage that was about 3/4" diameter and cut 8 1" pieces out of it. I then drilled a hole in the middle of each one and put them under the corner of each amp and used self tapping machine screws to secure the amps to the floorboard. This keeps the amps 1" off the floor so that the rear floor heaters were not blocked as well as giving the amps some distance off the floor in case of a drink spill or wet carpet or whatever.

Put the front seats back in and then ran the lines up the backs of the seats to the headrest monitors I previously put in. To do this i came out the side of my console, into the back of the seat and up to the headrest. This was really easy because my seatcovers unzipped on that side so i could just unzip them and run my hand all the way up to the headrest.

For the main power feed, I went through the firewall on the drivers side through the same hole that the hood release goes. There was a large grommet there that i just cut a hole in and fed my 2 gauge wire through. I then ran it across the back and over to the battery, mounting my 150amp fuse to the lid of the relay box behind the battery.

I also installed the Boyo license plate frame back up camera today. No pics of that but it was very easy. With the boyo it has a single wire that runs from the camera to the back of the stereo that also has a 12volt and negative wire. I wired those into my head unit and my head unit had a purple wire that needed to be spliced into the reverse wire on my vehicle. It took me a while to find the reverse wire because i don't have rear view wire or the one everyone talks about in the passenger kick panel. I did find a green/white wire in the driver kick panel, put a volt meter on it and sure enough that was what i needed. As far as how i got the wire into the cab, i found a grommet on the rear wall drivers side about 10" above the floor that had nothing in it. i used my razor to make a small X in the middle and fed the wire out from the cab. Done deal. I like this wiring set up better than what some other have done because it allows the camera to be on at any time rather than just in reverse. my head unit actually has a button i can press to view the rear camera at any time, which will be nice for monitoring my boat on the highway or whatever.

The last thing i did was mount my JL stealthbox under the passenger side of the rear seat. this was pretty easy with only one long stud that had to have a hole drilled through the floor and a nut/washer tightened from the under side of the vehicle. Now everything is completely done, working and sounding great! Just a little tweaking to do on EQ and stuff.

 

[bigwillokc]

Hey so you ran the amp wires under the carpet right? The jacka$$ that installed my stuff left all of the wires exposed and they are always getting pulled out so I want to relocate the wires or relocate the amp. Also lets see a pic of the subs and everything buddy! everything looks great! why not mount the amps behind the rear seat?

Yes all of the wires are run under the carpet and along the frame so that they don't make any bumps anywhere. The power wire is coming along the driver side door frame then under the seat. All of the RCAs and signal cables are coming along the passenger side of the hump in the middle where there is a good bit of space and to keep the signal away from power wires. I thought under the seats would be better because there is much more room for cooling, a much more solid and flat mounting surface, and my back seats can still fold up and down without obstruction. I also chose the stealthbox because I still have 3/4 of the space under my rear seat for storage. I have seen those with amps mounted on the rear wall and they look great but I liked under the seats the best.

 

[bigwillokc]

Very nice install man! Quick question, how did you run the source wires of those headrest monitors through your seats? Any pics of entry/exit points?:teethmast

Basically came out the bottom of the headrest through the existing seam next to the bar (stayed closest to the inside bar on both seats). Then took my razor and made the smallest cut possible to get the wire through on the top of the seat. I pressed in really hard on the seat right next to the plastic piece that the seat rod locks into and cut the cloth under the plastic piece. Then pushed the headrest wire in the hole from the top. My seat covers unzip on the back, so i just unzipped it, reached my other hand through and pulled down the cable, leaving about 3 inches of slack in case anyone ever raises up the headrest. Connected the cables, zip tied to slack wire and zipped the extra wire up in the back of the seat.

 

[bigwillokc]

Yes the truck is much quieter to road and engine noise and I may be imagining things but it seems like it is much better insulated now. Stays warmer/colder.