WaZe

First off, I'll start by saying Hi, I'm WaZe (yes like the app, no not related ), I've been lurking this forum for just shy of a year now. But been a fan of the g's since my high school days. First post, so a little backstory.
Skip past the squiggly line break for the actual topic thread and situation. Later post will also be about my plan, progress, and current questions.

Anyhow, March of 2020 (just a week before covid shutdown) I purchased a 2012 G37x Coupe for a great deal. Mostly because I was able to haggle down price due to majority of the audio system not working. The audio was, in a word, horrible. A muffled undistinguished hot mess of garbage (more on this later). And Bluetooth/Handsfree didn't work at time of purchase either. (have since remedied this through my investigations). But with the g37 awd coupe being somewhat of a unicorn around my area. And it matching the somewhat of a dream car on how i would have spec'd it (colors, features (save for the audio issues), even some tasteful handling mods I almost certainly would have done myself, mechanically sound, well maintained with tracked service receipts, good life left in her at only 85k miles at time of purchase) and it being an obtainable price. I took it. And I'm so happy I did! It's been fantastic for this near first year of ownership, apart from the headaches of getting it plated in the middle of a Pandemic Lockdown, and eventually deciding to raise and soften the coilovers up a little for our weather requirements (still roughly a 1.2" drop from factory all around). The only REAL drawback has been the audio sound. So here we are. Lets get started

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So my car audio system needs significant help. Previous installer appears to have had a pretty powerful system in the car, and also clearly stripped out the system prior to trading it in. They also appear to have done the bare minimum to replace any semblance of the bose sound system prior to trade in as well. I've been investigating why the system sound is so bad, and it's no secret as to why:

CORRECT (mostly):
Head Unit and everything behind it seems exactly as it should (THANKFULLY)
Door Woofers (though soldered instead of oem clips, and the right hand is technically a left door speaker placed into a right housing, but works lol)
Center Speaker
Bose Main Amp (but harness is horribly mutilated. more on this in 2nd post)
Bluetooth/Satellite Box (everything present, just was all disconnected. ez fix yay)

MISSING:
Mid Level "Squawker" Door speakers Right and Left.
Rear Fill Speaker Right and Left.
Woofer Amp
OEM Bose main amp bracket. (instead, it's just tap screwed into the trunk floor, oof)

DISSCONNECTED (but at least present):
Door Sail Tweeters Left and Right

MISSMATCHED:
Right and Left Rear 6x9 "woofer" speakers actually have 6" bose speakers (appearing to be from a sedan rear doors) unconnected in their place.

BONUS (lol):
Lots of random lengths of speaker wires going nowhere (snipped).
3 large wires, 2 of which were grounded to chassis under bench seat going nowhere. 3rd was just free floating in the spare wheel area. Talking SERIOUS amps capability lol. Its like 3 or 2 awg stuff. Bigger than the 4 awg stranded wire I had here at home lol.
Two Image Dynamics CTX-65cs Crossover Networks stashed away behind the upper trunk liner with wires connected to them snipped (whoops. somebody forgot their component speakers were connected to in line crossover networks
A cat 5e ethernet cable that ran from the center console ash tray area to back under the bench seat. My guess is some sort of high end controller used it with remote control. But if you think you know what it was far, I'd love to know haha.
Sound dampening materials throughout. Including substantial amount on and in door cavities. And more dampening sheets here and there throughout the car. Actually excited about this one lol


So there you have it. Evidence leads me to guess the previous owner took car audio very seriously (except for harness wiring). But then stripped their high end system out, and replaced with whatever they could find quickly, prior to trade in. And so, of my 11 total stock bose system, only THREE speakers were actually connected doing anything. Two of them 10" woofers, the other being the center speaker lol. Just imagine, if you will, how bad that actually sounded. I'm no car audio purist (as I feel the road is hardly the best place to get picky, but I do like to enjoy music. And as such, I'm shocked it's taken even this long for me to get this fixed). What can I say, this year has been hard financially lol. But I've been researching options and preparing for a while now. Have a pretty solid grasp of what my plan is, thanks to service manuals, these forums, and investigations through the car. Also, I have personally done sound systems in several other cars, though this is the first time I've had to fight with an OEM head unit that is evidently VERY integrated. But I have a fairly good knowledge of car audio wiring and such.

My current plan in next post. (hopefully I figure out attaching pics that aren't huge by then)

WaZe

So the goal I have is to get to a respectable audio experience. Again, I love my music, but I'm not one of those people trying to have a "studio on wheels" (hehe oh wait). So long as it sounds good to my ear, I'm good. With the crazy times that are going on right now, cost is another big factor in what I've decided to do so far too.

The first place to start is speakers. Given I was missing over half of mine, I strongly considered a whole aftermarket system. The drawbacks? Cost. In order to get quality without use of the bose main amp, it looks like it was gonna be a fair bet to say it'd easily cost at least a grand or more in speakers, signal processors, amps, etc to make everything work with the stock head unit. And to use the factory amp still, I needed to figure out what the heck was going on with the harness anyways. (I have pictures I promise) So I kept researching, and came across this amazing thread by Milosz that is really analyzing the bose performance on a sedan g37, that really speaks to my nerdy audiophile side. Luckily most of that thread can be at least conceptually applied towards the Coupe version as well. Even if there are slight differences that I've had to figure out. In the thread, where he scientifically tests the speaker performances, he concludes that the speakers performances are a "solid meh" to "actually quite good" (paraphrased in my own words ofc). And that it has more to do with the amplifier equalizer tuning, than it does the speakers capabilities (though there are limits on those too). And that adding a subwoofer and amp (this is no secret, there are tons of threads on how this helps on here) to the system does in fact help a ton. With lovely frequency response graphs to support his opinions. More than good enough for me! (and seriously, I hope Milosz catches wind of my "adventure". As I have some mad respect for the work he has done, and would value his input highly on some questions I'll be getting to later on)

So I made the decision to go BACK to Bose. I know, I know.. just hear me out. A few junk yard walks (all sedans though hmph ), and a little online shopping has allowed me to replace: both my missing rear fill speakers, both my missing door mid "squawkers" ( i love this term, and will keep using it haha), a replacement harness pigtail for both the bose main amp connections (this was required. you'll see), an RDL-TX-1A balanced to unblanced transformer (explained later), and various other replacement connectors and pigtails for the system, all for roughly $85. That last one is technically not needed, but I'm wanting to go back to factory as much as possible, at least for now. And they hardly raise the cost at junk yards. So why not.

$85 worth of smart shopping to go to a system, at the very least, designed for the car. Yeah.. way better than the aftermarket route so far.

So why the RDL-TX-1A? Well we already discussed that adding a subwoofer to the system helps a ton. And since I don't have the "correct" rear "woofers" or the Bose woofer amp to connect them. The logical step is to go this route. And the RDL-TX-1A is an elegant solution for going to the unblanced signal required by my old amplifier. Again, shout out to Milosz for this tip. And fun fact, I already had an old 150rms Kenwood 10" sub, box (though debating a false floor custom box later on), and amp on hand from my old daily driver (now project car). Not too loud of a sub, so wont overpower the bose system. And already liked its performance before. Perfect! Checking that box off without spending more than $20.

Well would you look at that. I've got everything I need now to go back to bose with subwoofer for under $100 spent.

Suddenly my budget felt real big, and my priorities were shifting. Lol. It's sounding like I might be pretty happy with this set up now, But I budgeted for far more than $100. Actually had told myself if I wanted it under $1000. So what could I spend on, to make my car experience that much better? Well, after a lot of debate amongst myself... I decided that I really wanted to update the 2012 to a modern day experience. I wanted android auto, and music streaming apps, and googlemaps (heh you'd think it'd be Waze app huh? ). So I decided to spend some of that extra money I had already considered spending on my audio sound, on my audio experience as a whole instead. And got a Grom VLine V2 with the touch screen upgrade. Just so you know, they are running a decent deal right now. I debated on one of those Tesla style screens, but I really just like the OEM look of the g37 as it is. And judging by reviews, Grom has a way better success record in both implementation, and support if it's needed.

Added bonus of getting the new android based audio system. I can install some equalizer apps to test out. Maybe help balance out some of the frequencies, which several people on these forums claim really helps the sound quality as well.

So that's where I'm at plan wise. All spent, including the new fancy head unit, I'm still a few hundred shy of a grand, and hopefully gains me a system I can truly enjoy with my car.

Again, I may not personally care the most when it comes car audio. But that's strictly because of noise pollution in that environment. Here at home I have much better ways of enjoying audio. But I do appreciate audio performance, and there is a certain level I do expect. It may not be a bar set by a golden ear. But there definitely is a bar to reach for me to be happy. So far my cost of entry has been relatively low, and will gain me creature comforts I enjoy in modern vehicles, that will also carry over if I do, in fact, decide I need more audio performance.

Still haven't figured out pictures yet lol. I might just have to resize them, then attach them. But for now, I wait on the head unit and the RDL-TX-1A to arrive in the mail sometime this week (hopefully).

Next post I'll show off the findings and horrors. As well as maybe pick some of your brains for info. I'm pretty sure I have it all mapped out, but I might need some clarifications. We'll see. Like I said, next post is Pictures for the Adventure Story. Lol.

WaZe

disconnected wires, discovered the missing rear fill speakers, and the random cat 5e ethernet cable.

the substantial wires (about 6awg if i were to guess) that were grounded to the body (even though they were red).

huge (like 2awg i think) wire that was cut here going through grommet and into the cabin under the dash where it was also cut. All evidence to the fact either previous owner was running some serious amps in a crazy system, or they just like overkill. But all the other wires I discovered really leads me to believe they had a crazy system in it.

first impression when i looked at the bose amp in the trunk space. No mounting bracket, Just tap screwed to the floor. And look at that wiring nightmare. Yikes.

the mismatched rear speakers where the 6x9s would be. just 6" speakers that you would find in the sedan tapscrewed into the rear shelf. with what appear to be yard markings.

wires snipped, and were soldered to the speaker tabs instead of using the oem clips (probably cause they couldnt in the coupe)

another view of the ethernet cable that was running to the back from the front center console front 12v outlet location.

This

Is

Just

Yeah, don't be this guy. Thats literally a tpin probing and soldered wire to it.

Don't do this either.. If you're gonna cut a connector off, at least leave space on each end incase you ever want to go back. Sigh.

where the connector likely came from. Red and green matches the found connector. Will depin and attempt to reattach and tuck away. Foregoing the rear shelf speakers all together to instead put in a subwoofer.

They cut and soldered the wires to the door 10"s. Wasn't done terribly, but am replacing it back to factory clips regardless.

these were the discovered crossover networks. My guess is they fed the rear speakers with these, given they were stashed up in the trunk on each side with matching wires sticking out of them snipped as well. They probably cut the wires to the speakers first to pull them out.. but they were still stuck so they clipped them again where they were left the trunk lining too lol. Literally ripped out their system as fast as possible. Just cut wires, and pull the components, leaving the wires behind.

WaZe

With the missing speakers and other stuff ordered or sourced, it was time to face the nightmare that is that wire harness. I had already grabbed all the shop manuals, but here are the important bits for us coupe guys.

I WILL PREFACE NOW THAT THE FOLLOWING PINOUTS, CLIP NUMBERS, WIRE COLORS, ETC ARE ALL SPECIFICALLY FOR THE 2012 G37 COUPE WITH BOSE NO NAV, AND DID NOT CROSS REFERENCE OTHER YEARS. IT IS ENTIRELY LIKELY YOUR DIFFERENT YEARS OR FEATURES ARE DIFFERENT. ALWAYS CHECK YOUR CARS MANUALS FOR YOUR SPECIFIC CAR SYSTEM.

With that out of the way, let's get into it. First thing is to gather all the info you need for this major project. For this, the most important manual sections were the AV- Audio, Visual, and Navigation, and PG- Power Supply, Ground, and Circuit Elements for anyone looking for direction on where to find the info I did. To make things easy for anyone with a 2012 g37 coupe with the Bose system and no nav, I'm including the specific info I used here. So you won't have to go searching. Lucky you guys .


These are the clip pinouts that are required for this Bose Amp harness rewire, as well as the left and right 6x9 rear "woofer" speaker clips for the factory system. These pinouts are extremely important as they give you the clip number in the harness, the name of the clip (usually will be what it goes to), the diagram of the clip shape, the pin numbers, the wire color per pin, and then where the wire goes. And if that feels overwhelming or confusing, use the wire diagram below to help.

These clip pinouts can also be found in the AV section of the shop manuals, and give more details into each wire and what signals/voltages they should have for troubleshooting. This can easily be used instead of the above, and in some cases may be easier. I used both, as I wanted to be certain I was getting correct signals and such once I had it all wired up, just be extra sure I had it all wired up correctly. But for space saving, I won't be providing images of these. But you can find them starting on pages 236-247 in the AV section.

These wire diagrams are helpful as they show you in a clear visual way where the wires are running. If you notice, each line is numbered to a corresponding clip pin. And each box is labeled on what devices the clips/wires are going to and from. This one is the bose amp speaker side

This one is the bose amp display unit side. Notice how they separate the sides to clearly show the inputs to the bose amp from the AV Control Unit, and the outputs from the bose amp to the individual speakers and the sub amp clip for the rear "woofers".

So with all the technical info above printed off, I just needed new, unmolested, wire harness donor pigtails. I was able to find a sedan with the bose system in it at a salvage yard, and I cut way up along the harness so I would have plenty of length to replace with. Good news is, the sedan and coupe harness contain all the same wires and colors, just not always in the right spots. Specifically Clip B41. If I remember correctly, B42 wiring was all right. But please check for correct pinning before assuming it's correct. I actually chose to de-pin both clips, as this allowed me to solder one wire at a time without the other wires interfering. Letting me do a much more professional job.


Image of B41 de-pinned.

The method to de-pin these clips is to release the locks on each side. (long brown clips that snap into place on the sides). They can be fully removed and placed out of the way. This reveals the open slots where you can use a pic or narrow shim to release a lock peg for each wire. Just press the lock peg down and tug on the wire gently. If you have the peg pushed down enough, the wire should come free and easy.

part 2 next

WaZe

So by now, I have explained the situation, the plan, the preparation. So now I just had to do it. And do it right. So here we go, let's get soldering!

I'll also say, while I believe soldering provides a better more professional result, you COULD do this with crimps. Do whatever you are most comfortable with.

With either method, take your time. Doing it right once slowly is always better than doing it fast wrong many times before getting it right eventually.

My solder iron of choice is a TS100 pen style iron. This allows me to be very precise in the uncomfortable area of the trunk. I can also adjust the temp for the different size wires so I don't burn them out. It heats up extremely fast and hibernates quickly, and wakes when I pick it up again. (they are simply amazing, if you do a lot of solder work, I can't recommend it enough) Then I have a simple "2nd hands" I made with a stiff wires soldered to alligator clips with the tips covered with heat shrink. Beyond that, some flux to clean the wires and promote flow, a solder of choice (i use some nice rosin core solder) and a copper soldering pad (instead of a sponge) to clean the tip as I go. Then some heatshrink of varying sizes and electrical tape.

That's what I used to get this job done. This isn't meant to be a soldering how to. Plenty of those around the net. I've been soldering for a long time now, so I'm quite used to it. If you aren't comfortable with it, this is an awkward project, and likely to challenge you, just due to the location and space you have to do it. So maybe evaluate if you are up for the task. Or consider crimp connectors, as I stated before, if you are ok with that being the result.


Connector Clip B43 to the Bose Sub Amp. This too did not escape mutilation. However you will need this clip if you have a coupe. Sedan bose systems don't have the rear Sub Amp it seems. Instead it sends signals directly to the rear sub from the main amp.

That said, if you are adding an aftermarket subwoofer and amp like I am, you don't have to worry about this clip too much. I'll show exactly which wires you need for the sub hookups later. But just look at this.

It looks like this car's audio harness was cut, tapped, spliced through multiple iterations.

It's just crazy to me that someone would consider this ok. Even if you aren't a professional, and just want it done. Try to think about benefits down the road about doing it right. A quick job like this might get it done. But there's no way this was signaling very well, if not shorting out. And some parts are down right dangerous.

Different view of of the mutilated harnesses now that i've cut them out of the car. You can see how far up I went to be sure i have a clean factory wire to solder my new nice wires to.

This is just sad to look at.

So glad I'm taking the time to do this right.

DON'T EVER DO THIS! ESPECIALLY ON A SIGNAL WIRE TO THE AMP. This is open metal that is carrying a constant 10v electrical signal every time the audio system is on. I'm not even a fan of using t-pins to tap a pin when troubleshooting. THEY JUST LEFT IT IN THE "FINISHED" SYSTEM. Talk about shorting hazard!

And example of the "Shielded" speaker wires. What I did for these is carefully strip back the sheath, peal it back revealing the "shield" grounding wire and foil casing it lies against. This creates an electrical shield that helps mitigate any electromagnetic interference. They all share a ground wire that runs to a connector that slide into a common grounding clip. Then one of the connector wires actually runs to pin 21 in the amp which is a ground. This completes the ground circuit.

So what I did here was strip back each side, then separate the grounding shield wire and signal wires. I cut the grounding shield wire down flush to the foil and sheath. Then solder the matching wires to each other. I know I'm losing some of the grounded shielding effectiveness, by not trying to connect the grounded wires together on each side. But realistically it shouldn't be much, as the foil film itself will already help. Grounding it just creates a more effective electrical "shield".

I wrap each in electrical tape tightly, being sure to cover all exposed wire/solder. You don't want these touching, so pay extra attention to this.

Once I have both wires for sure taped, I heat shrink (that hopefully you always apply down the wire ahead of time before soldering) so that it all stays in place and is nice and secure. Then taking a page from the OEM harness, I wrapped up the line with electrical tape. Looks just like the factory did it.

Picture showing the result of all wires soldered together. Again, following the OEM wiring example for my final runs. I highly suggest de-pinning and doing each wire individually as well. Just makes it that much easier in the cramped space you have to do this in.

Picture of the end result of one of the clips. So much better.

These are the wires you will not be needing to solder back to the existing factory wires. These are your rear sub wires going from the Main Amp to the Sub Amp. purple and light blue are speaker signals, grey is the amp turn on signal, and black is actually the shield source wire I mentioned that goes to the common shield clip. It should still have the connector on it.

Both clips officially rewired. I will be wrapping in tesa tape once I am satisfied that everything is working flawlessly. Though initial testing shows great results. I just haven't got my last missing speakers in to test. (also, that brown box with black wires coming to it is the Common Shield Ground Clip)

You can't tell me this doesn't looks sooooo much better. So worth it to know that its all right, and in great condition.

WaZe

More updates to come later. Still waiting on speakers that are, legit, actually lost in the mail (tracking shows in their possession the 8th, and still not here on the 23rd."in transit arriving late" since the 12th). Had to open a mail search request and everything. (maybe I'm just cursed to have things disappear on me, and take forever to show up this project heh). But the Grom VLine VL2 came in and I'm working on getting that all worked out. Real happy with it so far. Just gotta figure out where I want to put the box. Kinda want to keep my glove box space. Subwoofer wiring and MAYBE a false floor box to come soon I think too. We'll see how my weeks continue to go with work and such.

WaZe

Well, here we are. Some nice progress has been made, and honestly the project is nearly done. So here is an update on everything that has gone on since the last post.

First off, I'm relieved to say that the missing mail search was successful. It was found at the regional distribution center that was about 43 min away from the original drop off/scan location. It spent about 27 days there before my mail search located the package and got the ball rolling once again. (Fun fact... I nearly could have WALKED ACROSS THE COUNTRY to the seller and picked it up myself faster than they delivered it). Needless to say, I'm highly dissatisfied with USPS' handling of this whole thing. But this is neither the place or the time to talk about out that. The only thing that matters is that the speakers arrived, undamaged, and in great working condition. Which means I now had all the missing pieces back in place!


Rear fill speakers are mismatched years. But are the correct sides, and had the same wiring connectors. Testing proves they work perfectly fine. The other door speakers were also installed, but no pics of that. This was just easy and indoors lol. (cardboard boxes for prototyping false floor subwoofer oooo lol)

So with the near month of time I had waiting on the speakers to arrive, I continued to make progress on what I could. With the VLINE arriving, that became the next project.


Grom Vline VL2 arrived! Woooo!

Was excited, so I took picture of this lol.

Honestly, it's a pretty professional finished product, well presented in great packaging. Which just makes my decision of going VLINE over the tesla style screen that much more reassuring. That said, it wasn't completely without worry. This is how my touch screen upgrade arrived from Grom Audio...

This was slightly concerning. Turned out to be a non issue, as the ribbon was just bent over, not damaged. With the online videos, the fairly clear included instructions, and previous experience with electronic internals. This was very simple for me to do. It's really not all that bad at all to get access.

Installed touch screen upgrade on.

So then it was time to install into the car. The glovebox is already so small, I really wanted to avoid losing it to the head unit box. And as you all have probably caught on to, I was only going to take a Dremel to it as a last, worst case scenario. So I really took time to find the right spot for it.


And that was here. There is a nice space on the right hand side behind the glovebox dash beauty panel, where I installed my VLine unit. (where the cabin air filter is.) I used a combo of industrial strength velcro and zip ties to make sure it was secure.


Also put the soft hook and loop backing on both sides of the unit. I saw a post where someone on this forum installed in the same spot, but had issues and it was suggested it might be touching other things with its metal chassis. I figure why, as if nothing else, it just will protect it a bit more.


VLine VL2 installed in it's new home.

Nice and tucked away. Red braided cable is a nice Type C USB cable running to the center console for Android Auto hookup. Wouldn't even know it was there unless you already knew. Which makes me happy.


Annnnd Success! Works great... minus some little weird issues that either I will have to get used to, or Grom will have to assist me in fixing. I've reached out to their support email, but haven't had a reply. If they reach out to me here I can provide more details. For now, I'll just deal.

One of the weird things going on. My navigation buttons are appearing both vertically and horizontally.

This is the splash screen of the current version I'm running. I haven't checked in about a week, but the last time I did check, I was current version.

So, with the head unit, and all speakers installed, tested, and working fantastically. It was time to finish up the wiring project and make it look professional by wrapping it up again.

I first tesa taped each individual wire loom bundle for each connector.


Then wrapped those together, leaving the Sub Amp Signal and Subwoofer leads free for connecting later. I also finished it off with some nice electrical tape in the transition area to make it all look nice and clean.

So happy with these results. And honestly, I'm thinking this set up will be more than enough for me to be happy. Which is a great result in my book. Just got to figure out my subwoofer set up, which deserves it's own post. So look forward to that.

SO CLOSE NOW!!