[Wermuth]

I made a bigger project as with upgrading the audio in my iX3 having a copy of the Harman Kardon setup. The car was born with the base audio setup which awful. Basically I didn’t want to spend the extra money for the full loaded version, so i settle for “small” one determined to change the audio system. Price difference in DK between the two fo them are approx 12k USD.

My car has the RAM module - so everything is build for that.

Originally the plan was only to have the Match 8DSP and do an upgrade without the front center speaker.
However, I found the match 10DSP second hand hence i also choose to do the front speakers too.

The procedure is very much the same. The only difference is the front speaker.

Needed to do the setup:
Match 8 DSP solution:
- Match 8 DSP amp
- Power kit 8mm2 for AMP
- Wiring loom: MATCH PP1.7 RAM M171310
- 8mm2 wiring set for the power for the amp.
- crimping tool or you local BMW garage
- Speaker wiring 0,75mm2 (with thin isolation)
- 2x BMW speaker plugs: 61132360043
- Metal plade in approx. 0,9mm - 1.1mm
- Rubber spacers
- Black paint and primer
- Full tone speakers for front door and rear door
- I choose match - but there are a lot out
- Component: If you go for a component setup in the front door you also going to be needing trim peaces: 51339460513 and 51339460514
- Subwoofer in 2 Ohm.
- D-pillar speakers (you can find them used)
- Right: 65139837732
- Left: 65139837731
- 4 Screws: 51417067920
- 4 Clips ST 4,8: 63171367868
- 2 Snap-lock coupling
- D-pillar trim
- Right 51437449410
- Left 51437449409
- Molex crimp plugs (buy maybe 10 if you are rookie in crimping)
- Tool for crimping Molex
- Molex pin removal tool

Match 10DSP (no MEC-in)
- Molex minifit jr. plug 12pin
- Center trim: 51459363478
- Cover Trim: 51459363477
- 7 Screws:07149185673
- Center speaker set


Making the AMP bracket
As a starting point i used the jinetix mounting plate. So BIG! thanks for making a good starting point. Unfortunately I don’t have an 3D printer, so basically what I did instead was having a friend of mine make it 1:1 scale printable PDF. Print and cut it out but i made it full 206mm and not only “ears”.





Also i made it approx. 5 cm longer so I could bend it in the top to make it more stiff and have more mounting points. In Aarhus we have a public run place where you can go and learn to do metal work (and all other sort of skills). They have all metal shop machines . Half an hour later in the shop with some good help from some people there I had made a small metal bracket.







Back at the garage I removed the bracket where the RAM module and antenna is mounted. I kept all the cable in the modules but safely place them in the bottom the site room.
To not make the two brackets rattle when put together I made 4 rubber rings with 6mm holes in them. I used rubber gaskets from the local hardware store punched a 6mm hole in them and glued them on the back of the plate.
This also allowed me to have some space between the bolts and nut for mounting the amp on the bracket itself.
I marked the holes by laying the two brackets on top of each other and drilling them out.




In the end I gave the plate some primer and some black paint.

Everything was mounted outside the car - so the two bracket and amp went into the car as one peace. The two bracket is bolted together in to direction so the fixing was very stable.
The hex screw in the top left I switched for one that was a bit longer.




Power for the AMP
There is a fusebox in the right site of the car. The fuse box is connected directly to the 12V battery in the front. There is an 8mm bolt where the power was connected ring. 10 cm the external fuse for the amp was located. I ask the local BMW dealer to connect the kabels. The plus power kabel I ran myself under the floor. It was a bit fiddly but take your time eventually it will happen. You basically need to remove floor, afterwards the site panels, the luggage boxes. The ground was just connect to one of the ground points.
I highly recommend either use ISTA or buy a workshop manual on eBay.

Speakers in the D-pillar
The D-pillar trim I simply need pulled it carefully out. There are 4 clips.

Afterwards it was just to press in the 2 clips in where screws needs to go and the rubber snap-lock.

Pullling the wire for the speaker are very easy on the left site. While the right site I did along when doing the positive power kabel for the amp.

The BMW speaker plug is a pain. I used 0,75mm2 speaker cables but the isolation was thinker than the original BMW cables, so i had to scrape some of the isolation to make it thiner in order to fit the plug. 1 is the negative terminal and the postive terminal. Crimping the terminal required a bit of practice. But after a couple to tries and gave it a go on the wires.

Center Speaker
The center speaker I made the workshop do. I took the man 30 minutes to the whole thing and my car had to do an recall software update even though. If anyone in Denmark are look for a very good BMW dealer i highly recommend Meiniche in Holstebro. The workshop specialist Lars is VERY skilled and very open for something that is out of the box.
It can be a bit tricky the find the whole for running the wire though to the dash so put in some picture off doing that.
Mounting the speaker itself there are billions of video, so that we skipped in this




Wiring the AMP:
Basically the Match PP1.7 wiring harness is build around MOLEX jr. plugs. I used a bit of time looking at youtube to see how it works but it is very simple system and you can buy the plug from China for no money. The crimping tool is the same I used for the BMW plugs. It needs to fairly small but a good colleague of mine had one i could borrow.
The Match PP1.7 wiring harness comes with a MOLEX 8 pin plug for the outputs E to H. I moved all the wires over to the 12 pin plug instead using a MOLEX removal tool doing the wires one by one. The Match instruction manual tells what needs to go where.
When all the wire was done i plugged in the extra wire for the center speaker and the speaker in the D-pillers.


Setup:
Everything is being amplified this also mean that blinker and the PDC sound is being amplified. So remember to turn dow the sound for PDC. The indicator sound I just has to live with. I still miss to setup the EQ in the match amp so if anyone has good starting point i'm open for any help.

[TacosRule!]

well done. I did something similar to my x3m.

[Jondurbridge]

please could you take a photo of where you have got the 12v feed from?
I have seen the fuse box in the right hand side of the boot, but cant see 12v easily accessible like I hoped.

Thanks

[TacosRule!]

Originally Posted by Jondurbridge

please could you take a photo of where you have got the 12v feed from?
I have seen the fuse box in the right hand side of the boot, but cant see 12v easily accessible like I hoped.

Thanks

The distribution box next to the battery, on the same terminal where the large power cables go to the front of the vehicle in your boot.


https://x3.xbimmers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2019299

[Jondurbridge]

Originally Posted by saabster2010

The distribution box next to the battery, on the same terminal where the large power cables go to the front of the vehicle in your boot.


https://x3.xbimmers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2019299

The battery is located in the front on the ix3, was hoping to tap into it from the rear without running power the length of the vehicle from under the bonnet

[TacosRule!]

Originally Posted by Jondurbridge

The battery is located in the front on the ix3, was hoping to tap into it from the rear without running power the length of the vehicle from under the bonnet

ah, learned something new.

[Wermuth]

Originally Posted by Jondurbridge

please could you take a photo of where you have got the 12v feed from?
I have seen the fuse box in the right hand side of the boot, but cant see 12v easily accessible like I hoped.

Thanks

I will try see if can post a picture of it tomorrow. But it is connected behind the fuse box. There is a big cable running from the front of the 12V battery powering the fuse box in the rear

[Jondurbridge]

Originally Posted by Wermuth

I will try see if can post a picture of it tomorrow. But it is connected behind the fuse box. There is a big cable running from the front of the 12V battery powering the fuse box in the rear

Thats probably my issue - I cant seem to get behind the fuse box. Cant find any bolts or clips to "remove it"

I can see the high voltage cable and 12v cable from the front to the box, just cant get behind it to where I assume its distrbiuted

[Jondurbridge]

Sorted it
You need to take the fuse box "holder" off with the 4 hex bolts, and then you unclip the fuse box from the sides
Then there's a flap with "open" written on it which has the main 12v feed going to it.

[Wermuth]

Originally Posted by Jondurbridge

Sorted it
You need to take the fuse box "holder" off with the 4 hex bolts, and then you unclip the fuse box from the sides
Then there's a flap with "open" written on it which has the main 12v feed going to it.

Great stuff - Good luck with your project :-)

[Gnillab]

Originally Posted by Wermuth

Everything is being amplified this also mean that blinker and the PDC sound is being amplified.

This seems like such a deal breaker for all that hard work.

[Wermuth]

Originally Posted by Gnillab

This seems like such a deal breaker for all that hard work.

The PDC you can turn down in the menu, so that is workable. However, the blinker is a downside few addresses when doing the amp upgrade. However, the upside from extremely bad sound quality from the base sound system it is quite nice. However, cheaper and easier solution is simply just upgrading the speaker in front doors.

[TacosRule!]

Originally Posted by Wermuth

The PDC you can turn down in the menu, so that is workable. However, the blinker is a downside few addresses when doing the amp upgrade. However, the upside from extremely bad sound quality from the base sound system it is quite nice. However, cheaper and easier solution is simply just upgrading the speaker in front doors.

For what its worth, my 10 DSP and Rockford amp installs did not increase the volume of the blinkers. You can actually disable the sound thru protools if so inclined. I'm playing with it to see how it really works.

[Wermuth]

Originally Posted by saabster2010

For what its worth, my 10 DSP and Rockford amp installs did not increase the volume of the blinkers. You can actually disable the sound thru protools if so inclined. I'm playing with it to see how it really works.

Very interesting - can you guide where to find the option in the the DSP PC-Tool 5. I only been working second to none in the software, so a bit of help is very appreciated.

[TacosRule!]

Originally Posted by Wermuth

Very interesting - can you guide where to find the option in the the DSP PC-Tool 5. I only been working second to none in the software, so a bit of help is very appreciated.

Actually, you can disable them through Bimmergeek Protool. I was figuring out how to disable ASD on it (since its not point-and-click) and ran across the option to disable the blinker sound.

[DPlover]

Hi Wermuth,

Thank you so much for the detailed procedures and photos which prompted me to try installing a Match UP8DSP on my iX3 as well.

I have figured out how to connect a power cable to the fuse box on the right side of the trunk. But the biggest hurdle is running the cable from the fuse box across the trunk to the RAM module on the left side of the trunk. You mentioned that the floor panels and storage box have to be removed. I would appreciate if you could advise on the sequence of removing such panels and the ways of removing them (photos with illustration on the sequence would be most helpful). While the panels are affixed with plastic plugs, the storage box appears to be held by other means.

Thank you for your guidance.

[DPlover]

Thanks to information being shared by Wermuth and others, I have completed installation of Match UP8DSP on my BMW iX3 M Sport which is equipped with a Harman Kardan 12 speakers system ( not the top spec.) and a RAM module.

[Agger]

@Wermuth Can you text me on 22796671 (i am from DK), i can’t send you a private message. I have some questions 😀.
Tak.
/Mads