F90BT in 2007 MkV GTI

[OmegaRed1723]

Hi all! I thought I'd share my F90BT installation with everyone. Below is a list of my goals going into the project, with my overall reaction to the F90BT at the bottom. Thanks to my good friend Bill for installing this in 1/100th the time it would've taken me!

 

System Goals:

• [*:pgfa8vt1]Upgrade factory head unit with in-dash navigation/bluetooth/Ipod control[*:pgfa8vt1]Upgrade front soundstage utilizing factory speaker location[*:pgfa8vt1]Add an SQ subwoofer in the rear hatch[*:pgfa8vt1]Retain stock look and 100% functionality of hatch area

 

Here's the bill of goods going into the new system:

• [*:pgfa8vt1]Head Unit: Pioneer AVIC-F90BT[*:pgfa8vt1]Front Stage: Boston Acoustics Pro 6.53 three-way component speakers[*:pgfa8vt1]Rear Stage: Eliminated[*:pgfa8vt1]Subwoofer: JL Audio 13TW5-3[*:pgfa8vt1]Front Stage Amplification: JL Audio 300/2 v2[*:pgfa8vt1]Subwoofer Amplfication: JL Audio 500/1 v2[*:pgfa8vt1]Sound Dampening: Cascade Audio (various products)

 

Starting off in the front of the car.

 

2AWG power cable & fuse holder. Using stock battery for now:

 

Wiring speaker cable through te molex into the doors. Power wire was run on the driver's side of the car:

 

Sound deadening and speakers installed in/on doors:

 

Backside of door panel (deadening was installed here too):

 

Picture of dash vent (pic borrowed from vwvortex.com):

 

Dash vent removed for installation of GPS antenna. You can see the black antenna towards the center of the photo:

 

Whole mess of PAC adapters for steering wheel control, etc.:

 

Bluetooth mic installed in factory location (sounds great):

 

And finally, the deck permanently installed:

 

Now onto the rear of the car!

 

Here's the hatch with everything removed. Notice the gigantic hump VW decided to put in the middle of the spare tire well. This had a large impact over what I ended up using for the sub.

 

Creating the sub box, amp & crossover mounts, as well as the cover for all the equipment.

 

All the mounting platforms & sub box installed.

 

Pics of the mockup and installation of the components:

 

Finished hatch with cover installed:

 

And with the factory trunk liner on, it looks 100% stock!

 

Overall impressions/thoughts

 

The F90-BT is a pretty versatile unit. I'd consider it a jack-of-all-trades, but master of none. After installing the 2.0 update, removing key beeps, adding a nav mute button, and performing the hardware bypass I feel like the unit does everything I expected it to.

 

The iPod interface is excellent, and a MILLION times better than the standard VW interface. I've had no dropout issues so far. Bluetooth is also very good; my iPhone 3g synched up immediately and contact transfer was painless. My reception is very good as well.

 

AM/FM reception is also improved with this unit, and other inputs (CD, iPod) sound better than stock as well. Overall sound quality of the unit is decent, but not exceptional. I knew there would be a tradeoff getting so many features in one unit; in this case overall sound quality isn't as good as some audio-only decks I've used in the past. But the breadth of features outweighs the slight deficiency in audio performance.

[afareca]

nice install, what speaker wire did you use??? did you put any deander in the trunk??

[OmegaRed1723]

Thanks! Yes, there's a bunch of Cascade V-Max underneath all that. Surprisingly, the car had fewer rattles than I would have guessed so there wasn't a need for overkill on the deadening. Of course, I haven't listened from the outside yet

 

The speaker wire was Stinger HPM 16ga. Since the fronts are 3-ways anything larger than 16 wouldn't have fit through the Molex in the doors.

[terron]

I didn't care for your molex tomfoolery in the door speakers, but the trunk more than made up for it, nice work with the soldering too; good to see people still take their time taking care of that.

[AZFlyingDiver]

Very nice. How's the SQ? I'm all for a clean front stage, but for non-comp and movies considered I enjoy a little rear fill (movies sound awesome on my stock system - after my install I prolly wasted 45 minutes getting caught up watching my test movie!). I'm looking at a very similar setup for my trunk - it's going to be either that or with the sub "backed into" a ski pass cutout my BMW has behind the rear seat - still contemplating... Again, nicely done!

 

One last word - microfiber

[OmegaRed1723]

I don't think the deck is geared towards audiophiles in the sense that it's lacking advanced EQ settings, time alignment, etc. My perception may also be a bit skewed because of the poor factory speaker locations in my car. There was only so much tuning we could do before saying, "It's not getting any better." For true SQ, the Eclipse AVN series is a better bet, but for the money the AVIC is above average.

 

I've never been a fan of rear fill, and since I drive by myself 90% of the time I don't foresee myself using the DVD function all that much. It's one of those toys you break out when you have friends in the car, and I could care less how they think it sounds....I'm the one who paid for it

[madsonp]

Don't your amps build up a lot of heat covered like that ?

[OmegaRed1723]

Don't your amps build up a lot of heat covered like that ?

 

Next to none. There is actually quite a bit of airflow on the rear side of the amps right underneath the heatsink fins. I played the system for over an hour this afternoon at highway volume and they were barely warm to the touch afterward. VERY impressed with the heat dissipation.

[e39m5]

Did you have to do any soldering? For what?

 

How do the steering wheel controls work? I've heard that you lose the right button functionality for switching tracks, is this true?

 

Thanks,

e39m5

[OmegaRed1723]

For the MkV, you need the following adapters from PAC:

• C2R-VW
  SWI-CAN
  SWI-PS

 

This setup retains use of the volume +/- and the mute button on the left side of the steering wheel. You do lose all audio control on the right side of the steering wheel as well as radio information on the MFD.

 

No soldering was required to daisy chain these adapters.

[wonderdiva]

GTI owner here and that looks great! How long did it take your friend to do it?

[OmegaRed1723]

We worked a couple hours a day for 3 Saturdays and then he took the car for 3 days to finish everything. I'd say there's probably 25 hours into the car, not including tuning.

[e39m5]

How did you get the mic up there? IE: What did you snake it through?

 

And is the GPS working will in the dash vent location?

 

Thanks,

e39m5

[OmegaRed1723]

The mic wire was run up the passenger side A-pillar and across the headliner into place. There's plenty of length in the wire so it wasn't a huge deal.

 

The GPS antenna has excellent reception. That center vent grill is made of metal so we were concerned about interference, but it wasn't an issue at all.

[e39m5]

Hi Omega,

 

How did you hook up the antenna? I assume you used the Metra power antenna adapter, but what did you hook the blue wire up to?

 

Thanks