2016 CX-5 Touring trying to do a complete audio upgrade

The dash and doors are hooked up in parallel? Anybody measured the Ohms, coming to the stereo?

Per the schematic, between 3.6-4.3 ohm so roughly 4 ohms. I'll check it tomorrow when I hook the 3sixty.2


Update : 12/2/15

Big three completed.
Installed 3rd part of the big 3. ( fused wire from alternator to battery )

Installed/ran power - remote - ground wires and hidden for both 1000watt amp / 600 watt amp. ( both cut on exactly like they are supposed to. )

Tied into the illumination wires in the rear and ran them to the front. Installed 2 LED bars for a floorboards illumination and prepped it for quick and easy connections when my illuminated door sills come in!

Tomorrow I'll be wiring the 3sixty.2 into the the mix, running RCA's / speaker wires / ect and setting up the sound processor. Nearly done.

But also the agenda won't be done. Besides the illuminated door sills coming, I will be making a fiberglass subwoofer enclosure this summer ( when it warms up anyways due to cure times ), and seriously debating doing the plasti dip on my rims. A simple matte black. Might do that this week. Gotta wash the new whip anyways. I'll upload pics tomorrow of all that was done. Didn't finish till late and ugh.

Well it's all hooked up! From mere guess-timation, I'd say roughly 225+ feet of wires ran! Between speakers wires/power/ short grounds / remote wire / remote volume for Rockford 3sixty.2 / rca's / ect it's all done. Haven't done gains/equalizer/crossover ect - just did a sum of all lines and everything works great just gotta tweak sound to what I want!!!! I'll take pics and unless you put seats down you won't really see any wires! ( except at the top of the speaker box where both amps / sound processor are mounted. Where a light "would be" I removed the plastic clip and ran all wires from there except speaker wires and rca's. Each of the plastic door sills that line the car are tight! Lol. I'll take pics and tragically, a good 150+ zip ties died in the wiring process. pics will be coming, took longer than I thought getting the wires hidden/fit/safe and I'm entirely 150% OCD ABOUT wires. Only thing left is to modifify the plastic housing thing under tcs/tpms/lane watch for the remote control. Hopefully I'll be utilizing the main volume more than that but hey, I figured I'd put it close incase I need to use it more than I'm anticipating.

Firstly, I forgot to check the Ohms of the speaker sets ( Front door / Dash ) But i can easily just check it off the amp tomorrow.

Here's the pics I promised!

Floorboard Illumination ( only when doors are open of course the coming sills will tie into the same lines. )

Next 4 pictures are some wiring just to show, I had the car stripped completely down. ( side note, not a fan of fuse boxes, granted they will not and cant possibly move.... still not pretty in my book -.- )

Here's the system! It works.....AMAZINGLY! Granted, Ill eventually replace door speakers and haven't done so yet but this 3sixty.2 puts every headunit I have EVER used in my 13+ years of doing systems to utter shame. Ill never not use one after this! The setting up was so easy, as well as adjusting and tuning. All the worrying was for nothing!


***** And Yes, the left grill does look horrible -.- but the darn thing just wont budge off -.- so its like that...might take a sharpie to it! lol****

Power/Grounds from side plate (Eventually a fiberglass box will take up the left side so simple and easy and even more hidden wires.

(Heres the side ill be making the enclosure take up )


Picture from the trunk hatch.

Picture when you let the seats down.

Picture from the top.


Roughly 300-400 total in additional equipment, quite a few hours of wiring, hiding, searching, studying, shopping, and installing.... but worth every penny and second!

My ONLY two issues in this ordeal.... the rattle and some fairly strong light dimming!!! Above the back window/body panels/ and inside are quite horrible when that bass hits (gonna look into figuring out how to minimize this substantially!

**** FYI the outside double sided 3m tape ( the grey tape thats like rubber, really thick, comes as the adhesive backing to window visors/sticky add on's/ect); well outline your license plate with that/maybe some in the middle as well, then put it back on and never worry about a rattle from there again! I've done this for years on all my cars and friends I hook up sound systems in and it works amazingly...just wish i could do the same thing for the entire body -.-.... ****

I couldn't quite completely tune this beast due to law enforcement intervening ( Fret not, friends with most of the cops near me!!! And had a conversation and gave him tips for sub-woofer ideas on his personal ride haha ) I was setting car alarms and i went to a construction area quite a bit away from the house when the bass would hit consecutively on a few songs. Ill fine tune it a bit more but as for Audio I'm all done!!! Thanks for all yall's help and if you need any help shoot me a message.

(be careful if you wires between seats, some moving parts could snag/tear/cut/rip your wires if you aren't paying attention to your wire route, just a heads up from when I ran mine. But there are tons of places to run these wires, love the back seat/underneath back seat design!! very conducive to putting in a system.)

Next thing to do is plasti-dip my rims this week! ( already bought the cans :/ i couldnt resist!!! )

Oh here's the remote for the 3sixty.2! Mounted and wire ran through the back! and I have retained all volume control on stock!!!! Remote controls subs only, and it's amazing not like those scrappy bass knobs on cut rate systems.



( yes more zip ties!!! But the housing isn't the....sturdiest or to my standard. Not sure if since I got it used or they are like that standard but a few zipties to make it sturdier, hold volume lever where I want it, and hide most of that annnoying led glow but enough to see it's working. )

Stock spear ohms.

FRONT DASH/FRONT DOOR - 4.3 Ohms
REAR DOOR - 4.1 Ohms

And my Two parallel 12 in JL AUDIO 12W3v3's sitting at a pretty 2.1 Ohms haha

Well I did a poor man's dynamat today! I'll upload the pics Sunday night most likely got army coming up then a drive to Louisville area.

Side notes: led door sills came in and put them in!

Side note part 2: plastidipped the tires and loving it!

Thanks for the resistance measurement.
I have installed my first system almost a year ago, nothing to fancy.
I also did not want to have a box in my trunk area, need the space.
Why you did not install the amps under the seats? I have my Polk Audio PA880 under the driver's seat and the PA660 under the passenger seat(I have picked them up broken from the bay, for $40 each and I have repaired them).
JL Audio 10TW3-D4 is installed in my spare wheel, which is the enclosure for it.
I don't have a Bose system and I also replaced my stereo with a Kenwood DNN991HD.
Did not ran speaker wires, but I have ran 0 gauge wire from the battery and I have split it in 2x4 gauge for the amps.
I have replaced all my speakers with Infinity Primus components, front and back and Polk Audio's in the dash.
I have used downloaded signals from the net and I have set up everything with a scope. No distortions at maximum volume.
My problem is that I don't know how to setup the system, there are so many adjustments.
I have installed it in a way, that sounds good to me, but maybe it would sound even better, if somebody would adjust it the proper way.

The alpines tend to run warmer than any amps I've used before and I wanted a stage to *EASILY* adjust the gains/ect.


On configuration you have basic rules you can follow but sound is different for us all. I don't want to vibrate the air out of my lungs and shake crap, I want deep deep bass that I can feel that's crisp and clear. Some want to just shake. Each person has their own preference. Burning agree...between my sound processor and my amps gains/equilizer it's a pain to get it just right....especially since you configure it at max you'll ever listen to.....And cops get called even when I'm not near any homes.

As far as space you are limited to options. I've decided when warmer weather comes around I'll be making my own fiber glass box on the left side. It looks simple enough to do, and the only way to learn is to do it! But it's cure time is a lot longer in the cold....

I'll be redoing doors sometime...But *honestly* with me throwing 50~ watts per speaker and choosing how and what each speaker plays ... They aren't that bad! But mine are all mid highs mainly to compensate and hear clear vocals over the bass... Which is my pet peeve. I like to not only feel that bass but clearly and easily hear the vocals.

Pic of the footwell ambient lighting and led door sills.


Outside of the car as of right now. Only thing on my list now is HID Lights for dimming issue....big 3 wasn't enough.


Poor man's dynamat. During process added more. But 1 roll did rear hatch with spare or extra thick. I also RECOMMEND putting it on the edges of the plastic trim, and undo the Velcro "pads" Mazda put and put a piece of useal underneath and restick the Velcro backing pad back on. the plastic will bang and rattle if you don't.




The plastic pieces external and above back window rattle bad. When I have time and figure a way to ease that I'll post. Thinking of looking how they come off and doing some strong outside double sided 3m tape ( same thing I used on license plate.) Any one already do this? Tips ? I can hide inside blemishes and are a bit more..... Easy to fix. Outsides are not as forgiving.

And sorry I dropped my phone and my rear camera is messed up...well the auto focus is ugh...so taking selfie pics of what I'm doing is pretty rough. And I'd do insurance for new one but fighting with Verizon on my last one and prob just go to a new carrier and take Verizon to small claims court lol.

Bought and received my new speakers.

2 Polk 351 for the dash.

1 set infinity component 6.5 + tweeter for front door

1 set infinity full range 6.5 speakers for rear door

I'll be throwing these speakers into the car hopefully tomorrow and putting up pics or whatnot.

Update: installed all speakers and threw the leftover poormans dynamat in front doors.

Well in this all is good, but serious limitations to the front channels ( dash / doors ) though 351's sound great and remarkable difference, they can't handle the full range signal and gains as the door speakers!! :/ which I figured but was hopeful it wouldn't be an issue
My hopeful way to rectify this is run new wire from dash to amplifier and put dash / ( install tweets ) then bridge front / rear doors together so in essence push the doors alot harder and fuller range and push limitations on the set that will run the dash/tweeters.

Any other opinions? ( there is a set of bass blockers that came with speakers.... Debating if they came with polks or infinity component set for the tweeters. Or if the switch for components has one built in. Gotta research and see and see what's what.

Any tips would be absolutely awesome.

twiztedlemon said:

Pic of the footwell ambient lighting and led door sills.
View attachment 212642

Outside of the car as of right now. Only thing on my list now is HID Lights for dimming issue....big 3 wasn't enough.
View attachment 212644

Poor man's dynamat. During process added more. But 1 roll did rear hatch with spare or extra thick. I also RECOMMEND putting it on the edges of the plastic trim, and undo the Velcro "pads" Mazda put and put a piece of useal underneath and restick the Velcro backing pad back on. the plastic will bang and rattle if you don't.
View attachment 212645

View attachment 212643

The plastic pieces external and above back window rattle bad. When I have time and figure a way to ease that I'll post. Thinking of looking how they come off and doing some strong outside double sided 3m tape ( same thing I used on license plate.) Any one already do this? Tips ? I can hide inside blemishes and are a bit more..... Easy to fix. Outsides are not as forgiving.

Click to expand...

i went to homedepot too for my virson of dino mat . i got a big role of something like that . it works

thedaddyb said:

The Big 3 is when you replace or run in conjunction with factory three major wires in the car's electrical system.

1. Negative battery to car chassis
2. Negative battery to engine block
3. Positive battery direct to alternator power out. (must be fused)

I will usually run 4 gauge wire (for serious systems you might want to run 0, or 1/0 gauge) I also will usually make a few extra ground connections to the chassis at different points. Usually utilizing factory bolts so there isn't any drilling.

Some companies sell Big 3 wiring kits, otherwise a standard amp kit with a few extra ring terminals usually will suffice.

It's amazing how much it smooths out the electrical system and even how the engine idles in some cars.

Click to expand...

There shouldn't be any reason to fuse the Alternator Charging Wire.