[adams_jody]

I found myself with a nice used SLK 230 that came with the factory Bose Audio system complete with cell phone adapter widget etc. All junk by todays standards..... I have decided to upgrade and detail the install online for you folks searching for tidbits to do the same. I have learned plenty about the SLK 230 along the way that I wished I'd known at the outset. If you have never installed car audio before...perhaps this should just be an armchair session for you. However, if you have done some basic installs and dont mind having your SLK out of commission for a very long weekend, well dig right in...

Here are the components I selected based on factory fit and space available:

Alpine iDA-X001 Head Unit
Alpine PDX-5 Amp
Alpine SPS-600C Front Speakers (6 1/2" components)
Kicker SSMb6 Rear Speakers (6 1/2" Mid Bass)
Kicker Solo-Baric S8L5 Subwoofer (8" Woofer)

Overview of the install:

I opted to completely eliminate the factory audio system including the head unit, factory amp, and speakers etc. I also chose to run all new wire for the speakers, power etc. I will detail each phase of the install along with pics relevant to each part.

PS. The Rims and tires are from Home - Discount Tire Direct. Replica Wheel AMG Twin 17 inch rims and Yokohama S.Drive tires. I did the staggered fitment vs. all tires the same size. 225/45 front and 245/40 rear.

 

[adams_jody]

Seat Removal

First step is to give yourself some room to work. The seats are removed via four torx type bolts. I found that a 3/8" drive socket fit over these without stripping them. There are two sensor wires under the seat that must be unplugged before yanking out the seat itself. Tilt the seat to get at these. Once you have the seat loose you can then get at the seat belt bolt much easier.

 

[livefreeordie]

I am looking forward to your pictures and instructions, i too had plans on this type of mod at the end of the season.

 

[adams_jody]

Factory Bose Amp Location

The factory amp is located in the passenger footwell. Remove the floormat and peel the carpeting back starting at the top. You will then pull out a white piece of styrofoam. Under that is a metal kick pan that has all the goods mounted on the backside. There are three plastic nuts (one at the top and two at the bottom) that must be removed. Once the pan is loose it can be tilted down revealing the factory amp. (the big black box on the right). The amp can be removed by disconnecting the factory harness and removing the four screws. The new amp will go in this footwell area. I chose the Alpine amp due to its small size. Too much bigger and it never would have fit this location.

 

[adams_jody]

Door Speaker Installation Part 1

Well I wish I had taken more photos as I went but It's all reassembled now so you'll have to settle for a thousand words vs. one picture..

Start by prying off the interior door grip cap via the slot at the bottom. It;s stubborn but will pop off revealing two screws. The third large screw is under the SRS Airbag emblem which pops off with gentle persuasion from a flat blade screwdriver. You also need to take two end caps off the end of the door at the lock mechanism (one phillips head), and at the top of the door (two very small torx heads). You must also take off the little triangular cap at what would be the a-pillar. Start at the top and pull out then up. Now work your way around the door popping out the door clips. Once the whole panel is loose it lifts up and off. You'll need to disconnect the tweeter wire and the door handle mechanism.

My door panels came apart due to age of the glue and fiber mat construction. I tried both hot glue and epoxy but neither worked well. I ended up using a product called GOOP that I found at Wal-Mart. This worked perfectly. It also worked to reattach some of the door clip mount points that tor loose as well.

I removed the factory tweeter from its little cup and installed my new Alpine tweeter in this same location. I had to strip the tweet down to it's bare bones and then do some filing on the door panel cup to get it to seat properly. Once fitted I set it in place with a couple dabs of 60 second epoxy.

 

[livefreeordie]

What ever instruction you can provide will be a big help, thanks.

 

[adams_jody]

Door Speaker Installation Part 2

After completing the work on the door panels I then moved on to the doors themselves. I routed the new speaker wire through the existing hinge grommets which was fairly easy. Do yourself a favor and remove the kick panels on both sides of the footwells. One side of each footwell has a single screw hidden under a little cap. The other side is held in place by the heater duct trim bezel. This "screw" is simply a knob that must be rotated a 1/4 turn then pulled out. (I stripped my first one thinking it was a screw). With open access to the guts of the footwells, routing the wire was straight forward. Home run all wires to the passenger footwell for termination at the amp.

The factory Bose speakers are mounted in little pods that come off via three larger screws. Pull the whole pod out and disconnect the factory wires at the connector. I peeled back the vapor barrier and applied dynamat at the speaker opening. You can get as crazy as you want with this stuff but I used very little. I took the time to ty-wrap all wires and remove any sources of buzzing that I could find from loose "stuff". I then used spray contact adhesive to put the vapor barrier back in place.

I disassembled the factory speaker from the pod and checked the fit of the new speakers. Of course they didn't fit.... So I used a Dremel router bit to carve up the pod as necessary. Basically I removed the whole back cup of the pod and the protective grille on the front. The back cup interfered with the magnet and the front grille was touching the speaker surround. I obtained some XTC brand collapsible slim line speaker baffles to insert into the pod to protect the speakers. I sandwiched the assembly back together and secured with the four torx screws. I then cut a vent hole in the bottom of the baffle to allow air movement. You can run them without venting but I prefer to vent them to allow free movement of the woofer. There just isnt enough volume in the baffle itself. This will keep the speaker protected from drippage above and allow drainage below. The reassembled pods were then placed back in the door openings and wires were ty-wrapped as needed. I would suggest testing everything before buttoning the door back up. Leave your door panels off for now.

 

[adams_jody]

Head Unit Installation

The factory head unit can be removed with the aid of two special DIN unit keys made for Mercedes Benz. My local car audio shop had these and allowed me to use them to pull the head unit. You local Merc dealer probably has a set as well. Once the head unit is out you'll be left with several harness connections. The only one you want is the largest of them. This is a VW style harness and an adapter can be bought from Crutchfield or your local car audio shop. You will also need a VW antenna adapter. The Constant Power and Switched Power leads are reversed on the Mercedes (red and yellow) so be aware of this when terminating your harness. (yellow to red and red to yellow). The only wires you care about are the power wires. You will run a new amp turn on lead and separate RCA cables for Front, Rear, and Sub. I opted to buy a harness adapter so I would not have to cut into any of the factory wiring. Sure you can reuse the factory speaker wires etc. but why bother. I took the time to find a wiring diagram for the Bose amp, and then converted it from German to english. Trust me...it was more work than simply running the new wire. And technically, I can still put the factory system right back in if I sell someday.

The new Alpine deck has a USB cable that plugs into your iPod (it works with my iPhone too!!). I routed this cable up through the center console to the armrest compartment. I removed the factory Motorola phone cradle and tucked the wires into the hole that was left. I then passed the usb cable through this same hole. The iPod gets plugged in here and hides away for the whole trip. The Alpine unit has all the iPod controls right on it.

I bought the X001 which is the older model. I would recommend getting the newer X100 which has better iPod controls (buttons work more like the iPod itself).

 

[adams_jody]

Subwoofer Installation

I routed speaker wire (all speaker wires are Monster Cable) to the trunk compartment via a small hole behind the passengers seat that pops out by the retractable awning that separates the trunk space from the roof storage. You will need to have removed the rear speakers to get at this easily. You may have read from other posts that the sub in the trunk doesnt sound as good and I will agree to some extent. I had wanted to place subs behind the seats but there just isnt room. I have seen one install of 8' subs but this required extensive modification. Just put your sub in the trunk for simplicity's sake. With the top up, it sounds just fine. With the top down you still feel the thump but road noise does drown it out a bit. (Which is why I installed Kicker Mid Bass' behind the seats in the factory spots...more on that later).

I built a custom box to accomodate the 8" Solo-Baric subwoofer. You can certainly go bigger but I have to say...this is all the sub anyone needs. Plus I still have a usable trunk (as if the SLK trunk was ever usable to begin with).
The sub box is built to fill the space below the retractable roof awning. I am again assuming you've built a subwoofer enclosure at least once and possess at least basic carpentry skills and can compute cubic volume.. If not, thats what they make Bazooka tubes for! Crutchfield has several options for pre-made sub boxes that you can drop right in here. They just wont look as "factory" as mine does.

I applied dynamat to the sheetmetal in direct range of the woofer. No one ever put to much dynamat in their trunk so have a ball. I'm cheap... The only other place I may put some is on the trunk lid itself.

With the sub installed and the roof retracted, the uninitiated would never know its there... I have even had folks ask where it is when the roof is not retracted. The only thing giving it away right off is a slight difference in the carpeting.

 

[adams_jody]

Amp Installation

With all speaker wires, RCA cables, amp turn on lead etc. home run to the footwell, the only remaining wire is power from the battery. I ran 4AWG from the electronics box (next to the battery) down through the firewall to the footwell. This gizmo box actually has a nice raceway that passes right through the firewall. I had to pull one of the racks out of the box to make room while I fished the wire through but I never had to disconnect anything. I routed the wire to the right of the box and out through an existing grommet. I then doubled back to the battery terminal and stuffed my fuse block out of sight. Dont mistake that black flex duct for the raceway. It doesnt have any wires coming out of it because its a ventilation snorkel! How cool is that? Fresh air for your new amp...via the little fan in the gizmo box..

I grounded the negative to one of the seat bolts. I just sanded the sheet metal around the bolt hole and sandwiched the terminal connector under there. Have your local car audio shop make up some leads for you with terminals crimped on. 4 Gauge wire is tough to terminate properly without the right tools. You'll end up with heat and arcing if you dont do it right. Make your ground as short as possible. Locate your fuse as close to the battery as possible.

I terminated all wires to the amp, ty-wrapped as needed and then did my testing. Once you've dialed in your system you can wedge your amp into the footwell and then button the panel, foam, and carpet back into place. It's so tight that once the amp was snug in its place, the metal kick pan held it in place securely. With the exception of the head unit, the entire system is "stealth"

 

[livefreeordie]

Outstanding job, thanks. Please post some pictures of the headunit when you get time.

 

[adams_jody]

Rear Speaker Install Part 1

The factory rear speakers are right under the carpet behind the seats. You can slide the seat forward all the way and then tilt it forward enough to be able to access them without removing the seats. I ended up waiting for three weeks to do the rear speaker install so I put the seats back in earlier (had to drive to work!). Carefully pry off the speaker grilles with a wide flat bar. Most of the carpet buttons spin off and the two larger hooks have one screw to remove and then slide up and out. I was able to work the carpet loose and fold it out of the way. With the carpet peeled back you can see the rear speaker in its pod.

 

[adams_jody]

Rear Speaker Install Part 2

I opted to use Kicker 6.5" Mid bass drivers in place of the factory Bose speakers. I had hoped that they would drop right in but the magnets on the new speakers were a much larger diameter. I cut elliptical holes in the speaker surround to accomodate the wider magnet.

 

[adams_jody]

Rear Speaker Install Part 3

The new speakers were then mounted into the existing basket and Dynamat was used to seal up the hole and provide vibration damping. Then just mount the whole assembly right back in the existing location. Be sure to wire these rear speakers out of phase with the fronts. The reason for this is the fact that when the speakers are in place, they actually fire into the trunk compartment instead of into the cabin. You want all speakers to drive toward the cabin at the same time (in phase). Simply swap negative and positive on these rear speakers.

 

[adams_jody]

Rear Speaker and Final Install Steps

When these Kicker Mid Bass speakers crank up, they practically do the job of a subwoofer by themselves. I could have probably got by with a 4 channel amp and no sub in the trunk. My last step was to tune the amp and crossovers. I tuned the amp by turning the gain down all the way on all channels of the amp and then bringing the volume of the head unit all the way up till it distorts (if it does at all). When you hear the distortion, back it off till it's clean. Then bring up the gain of the amp until it distorts again and then back off. What you are trying to accomplish is setting the amps low enough so that no matter how high you crank the volume on the head unit, the amps will never overdrive the speakers.

The whole system sounds awesome and with the exception of the Alpine head unit, the whole thing looks stock. The only item I had to fabricate was the subwoofer box. Everything else dropped into the factory locations with minimal modification.

 

[tstew338]

Question regarding the sub install

I recently purchased a 2002 SLK 230 and am certainly not impressed by the factory setup. I intend to have the following components installed:

Alpine 7998 head unit
Xtant X603 amp
Alpine 6 disc changer
JL Audio 650 component spkrs

I do not want to install a sub in the trunk however, do need to add some low fill to the set up. My question is: Will a 6.5 inch subwoofer fit in the rear as opposed to the mid bass speakers you installed? If so, will there be major modification needed? Your install is exactly what I plan to use hopefully with the exception of the replacing a sub with the mid bass speakers. Pelase advise

 

[Saphykitten]

http://www.benzworld.org/forums/r170-slk-class/1656267-car-audio-install-1999-mercedes-benz.html

I just did mine! I used these steps, figured I would share as well ^^