HyperM3
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Alex
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2024
- Threads
- 27
- Messages
- 545
- Reaction score
- 489
- Location
- Lawrenceville, NJ
- Vehicle(s)
- 2024 Ranger Raptor Velocity Blue
- Thread starter
- #1
Good thing I took a staycation this week 
Parts list: MoBridge Amp, Morel IP-Uni82 for front mid and tweeters, Morel CCR254 for center channel, Morel Integra MKII tempo Ultra 602 for rear doors and JL Stealth Sub for under rear seat.
UPDATE: Finally able to finish this post as everything is now finally installed and up and running. First off, the pictures are all jumbled out of order and I dont know how to move them around. So theres that.
I would say there is about 25 hours into the install here. Some of that time goes to my first time doing a full audio install and unfortunately having to uninstall and reinstall some things. Other time went to the actual figuring out where and how to fish wiring through in places. The actual removal of trims and speakers was the easiest part.
The first thing I did was remove the rear seat to get access to the factory amp and sub. That gives you a ton of room to work with. Then I removed the plastic bin under the rear passenger seat. Since it wasnt going to be in the way, I plopped the JL stealth sub in its place.
I then removed the factory amp and sub and put the new amp and harness in the area I was going to be working in. Then I worked on running the tweeter cables. As you can see in a couple pictures, you basically remove all the running board trim and the b-pillar plastic in order to get to the area where you will run the new tweeter speaker wires. As with everything else in this truck, to remove the plastic, just pull really hard. Everything snaps in place. You think you will break it but you wont. Worst thing that happens is one of the metal retaining clips pops off and you can just put it back on when/if you find it. When removing the running board plastics, I should mention that you need to pull away the rubber seal around the door frame. I would HIGHLY recommend not removing it completely. Just pulling away sections at a time allows you to be able to press it back into place without any bunching or stretching. If you remove the whole thing at once, you will be fighting with it getting it back on correctly.
Removal of the a-pillars was pretty easy. The drivers side just pops off but does have two plastic twist cables that hold it in place when you try to pull it away. Twisting them back and forth will get them out of their respective holes. The passenger side a-pillar needs removal of the grab handle first. Then that just pops off too without the forementioned twist cables. The tweeters just pop out of their places. If you are going to reuse factory speakers, this is very easy. As I was going for aftermarket speakers, I had to modify the speaker area in the a-pillar. Cutting a little away and using some silicone to keep speaker in place. Needless to say, I used a lot of my soldering skills for all the speaker wires in this install. Running the wires back to the amp is pretty simple at this point since everything is very open.
Next was the install of the door speakers. Honestly, I recommend starting with this first. That is if you are even upgrading these speakers. If not, then I suggest opening up the panels and installing some sound deadening material anyway. I had already done this two weeks into ownership before I even thought about installing new speakers. It made a tremendous difference in the factory audio, so again, definitely suggest that before anything else. I had to cut the factory speaker wires and put on adapters for the Morel speakers I was installing. No big deal, again more soldering. The front door speakers I did have to do a little more work on as the adapter rings for mounting on the door werent sitting flush. So after realizing I was losing some musicality because of air coming through, I added another exact cut fit piece of sound deadening behind each door speaker ring. That did the trick.
Next was the center channel. As you can see in one of the pictures, the new speaker I am using is significantly smaller than the OEM one. I ended up using carboard to trace a mount and then used that to cut out a thick piece of plastic as the final install application(see pictures). A dremel was a big friend with this one.
Finally it was to run the speaker wire from the sub under the carpet to the amp. Soldered up those and it was time to hook up the power and try it out.
Well.....it sounded like crap. Honestly, worse than factory speakers. Reached out to mObridge, who I need to give the HUGEST compliment for customer service, was responsive almost immediately. It had turned out that where I got my amp from(not directly through mObridge) was sort of a random production unit and wasnt technically supposed to be in my hands. To sum it up, a friend in the industry helped me procure the amp and the speakers directly through Morel. When mObridge support connected to my computer when running the DSP it was discovered the amp had no tune on it. So we needed to download the tune for the Ranger Raptor. What we also then discovered was that the center channel was not playing(more on that later). I ended up getting a DSP mic and we ran some pink noise tests and got the actual speakers running great on a custom tune.
It sounded absolutely fantastic and was exactly what I was hoping for. Crisp clean sound with tight butt thumping bass even at lower volumes. Cranked up, and it was super clear from the end of my driveway with the windows down.
So anyway, after some research on mObridge side, it was found that the center channel on the US trucks are run off the head unit, and not from the amp as it is in Australia. There was some possible solutions that I was working on with mObridge, but that would have entailed taking apart the whole dash area and SYNC screen. This wouldnt work for future installs of the product. So it took about 2 months for a new harness to be sent out with the addition of a center channel speaker cable. No need to take apart the dash, just run another cable up the passenger side running boards like before.
Yesterday I attempted this center channel speaker cable install. You will need to remove the lower glove box which is pretty easy. Just open and squeeze the two tabs on the sides and it drops down and off. Now the hard part, where to run the speaker wire. This took me almost 2.5 hours to figure out. Theres really no direct line to the center channel. Using a flashlight in the open space with the center removed, you could barely perceive any light shining out. I ended up finding one hole underneath on the passenger side(see picture with arrow). I used a thick gauge speaker wire I had laying around to stick through and fish around for a way down to the glovebox area. I put some blue painters tape at the end to see it better. After some fussing around, I did end up getting it to poke through an area I could see it from below(see another picture). Luckily I was able to reach up and grab it and pull it through. I did have to remove the speaker connection on the center channel wire. I see absolutely no way to pull it through with that on there. I clipped the wires about 5" away so I could resolder them when I pulled it back through. I used not only a tight zip tie, but also duct tape to attach to the speaker wire so I didnt lose it if it snagged when pulling back up through the top. Luckily it worked. Resoldered the connection and reinstalled the center channel.
Time to start it all up......and womp womp. The center channel was still not playing. Reached out to mObridge and within minutes they responded that it might need a retune. Sent them a copy of the last tune we worked on and about 20 minutes later I had a new tune to install. Center was working!!! Yayyyy.
Everything sounds absolutely amazing and Im extremely happy I attempted this on my own instead of paying a shop to do it. I know the truck so much better and feel confident trying anything. I want to thank mObridge again for their absolute unrelenting support in getting this all figured out. Now it should be good to go for anyone else wanting to install this product in the US.
The one thing I will say, I wish I had tried the amp alone with just the factory speakers and the sub to see what a difference that would have made. For what its worth, this truck has a very forward soundstage. While Im not disappointed with that, the rear door speakers, front tweeters and center channel are barely audible. The front door speakers, for me at least, are carrying about 80% of the weight when it comes to the sound. So for anyone reading this, I absolutely recommend upgrading the amp and possibly the sub first and foremost. If you still want better sound, then decide if its worth investing in new speakers.
I do have an extra ccwr250 center channel speaker as they came in a pair. If anyone is interested in purchasing it, feel free to PM me.
Hope you enjoyed, thank you for sticking around for the whole post.
Parts list: MoBridge Amp, Morel IP-Uni82 for front mid and tweeters, Morel CCR254 for center channel, Morel Integra MKII tempo Ultra 602 for rear doors and JL Stealth Sub for under rear seat.
UPDATE: Finally able to finish this post as everything is now finally installed and up and running. First off, the pictures are all jumbled out of order and I dont know how to move them around. So theres that.
I would say there is about 25 hours into the install here. Some of that time goes to my first time doing a full audio install and unfortunately having to uninstall and reinstall some things. Other time went to the actual figuring out where and how to fish wiring through in places. The actual removal of trims and speakers was the easiest part.
The first thing I did was remove the rear seat to get access to the factory amp and sub. That gives you a ton of room to work with. Then I removed the plastic bin under the rear passenger seat. Since it wasnt going to be in the way, I plopped the JL stealth sub in its place.
I then removed the factory amp and sub and put the new amp and harness in the area I was going to be working in. Then I worked on running the tweeter cables. As you can see in a couple pictures, you basically remove all the running board trim and the b-pillar plastic in order to get to the area where you will run the new tweeter speaker wires. As with everything else in this truck, to remove the plastic, just pull really hard. Everything snaps in place. You think you will break it but you wont. Worst thing that happens is one of the metal retaining clips pops off and you can just put it back on when/if you find it. When removing the running board plastics, I should mention that you need to pull away the rubber seal around the door frame. I would HIGHLY recommend not removing it completely. Just pulling away sections at a time allows you to be able to press it back into place without any bunching or stretching. If you remove the whole thing at once, you will be fighting with it getting it back on correctly.
Removal of the a-pillars was pretty easy. The drivers side just pops off but does have two plastic twist cables that hold it in place when you try to pull it away. Twisting them back and forth will get them out of their respective holes. The passenger side a-pillar needs removal of the grab handle first. Then that just pops off too without the forementioned twist cables. The tweeters just pop out of their places. If you are going to reuse factory speakers, this is very easy. As I was going for aftermarket speakers, I had to modify the speaker area in the a-pillar. Cutting a little away and using some silicone to keep speaker in place. Needless to say, I used a lot of my soldering skills for all the speaker wires in this install. Running the wires back to the amp is pretty simple at this point since everything is very open.
Next was the install of the door speakers. Honestly, I recommend starting with this first. That is if you are even upgrading these speakers. If not, then I suggest opening up the panels and installing some sound deadening material anyway. I had already done this two weeks into ownership before I even thought about installing new speakers. It made a tremendous difference in the factory audio, so again, definitely suggest that before anything else. I had to cut the factory speaker wires and put on adapters for the Morel speakers I was installing. No big deal, again more soldering. The front door speakers I did have to do a little more work on as the adapter rings for mounting on the door werent sitting flush. So after realizing I was losing some musicality because of air coming through, I added another exact cut fit piece of sound deadening behind each door speaker ring. That did the trick.
Next was the center channel. As you can see in one of the pictures, the new speaker I am using is significantly smaller than the OEM one. I ended up using carboard to trace a mount and then used that to cut out a thick piece of plastic as the final install application(see pictures). A dremel was a big friend with this one.
Finally it was to run the speaker wire from the sub under the carpet to the amp. Soldered up those and it was time to hook up the power and try it out.
Well.....it sounded like crap. Honestly, worse than factory speakers. Reached out to mObridge, who I need to give the HUGEST compliment for customer service, was responsive almost immediately. It had turned out that where I got my amp from(not directly through mObridge) was sort of a random production unit and wasnt technically supposed to be in my hands. To sum it up, a friend in the industry helped me procure the amp and the speakers directly through Morel. When mObridge support connected to my computer when running the DSP it was discovered the amp had no tune on it. So we needed to download the tune for the Ranger Raptor. What we also then discovered was that the center channel was not playing(more on that later). I ended up getting a DSP mic and we ran some pink noise tests and got the actual speakers running great on a custom tune.
It sounded absolutely fantastic and was exactly what I was hoping for. Crisp clean sound with tight butt thumping bass even at lower volumes. Cranked up, and it was super clear from the end of my driveway with the windows down.
So anyway, after some research on mObridge side, it was found that the center channel on the US trucks are run off the head unit, and not from the amp as it is in Australia. There was some possible solutions that I was working on with mObridge, but that would have entailed taking apart the whole dash area and SYNC screen. This wouldnt work for future installs of the product. So it took about 2 months for a new harness to be sent out with the addition of a center channel speaker cable. No need to take apart the dash, just run another cable up the passenger side running boards like before.
Yesterday I attempted this center channel speaker cable install. You will need to remove the lower glove box which is pretty easy. Just open and squeeze the two tabs on the sides and it drops down and off. Now the hard part, where to run the speaker wire. This took me almost 2.5 hours to figure out. Theres really no direct line to the center channel. Using a flashlight in the open space with the center removed, you could barely perceive any light shining out. I ended up finding one hole underneath on the passenger side(see picture with arrow). I used a thick gauge speaker wire I had laying around to stick through and fish around for a way down to the glovebox area. I put some blue painters tape at the end to see it better. After some fussing around, I did end up getting it to poke through an area I could see it from below(see another picture). Luckily I was able to reach up and grab it and pull it through. I did have to remove the speaker connection on the center channel wire. I see absolutely no way to pull it through with that on there. I clipped the wires about 5" away so I could resolder them when I pulled it back through. I used not only a tight zip tie, but also duct tape to attach to the speaker wire so I didnt lose it if it snagged when pulling back up through the top. Luckily it worked. Resoldered the connection and reinstalled the center channel.
Time to start it all up......and womp womp. The center channel was still not playing. Reached out to mObridge and within minutes they responded that it might need a retune. Sent them a copy of the last tune we worked on and about 20 minutes later I had a new tune to install. Center was working!!! Yayyyy.
Everything sounds absolutely amazing and Im extremely happy I attempted this on my own instead of paying a shop to do it. I know the truck so much better and feel confident trying anything. I want to thank mObridge again for their absolute unrelenting support in getting this all figured out. Now it should be good to go for anyone else wanting to install this product in the US.
The one thing I will say, I wish I had tried the amp alone with just the factory speakers and the sub to see what a difference that would have made. For what its worth, this truck has a very forward soundstage. While Im not disappointed with that, the rear door speakers, front tweeters and center channel are barely audible. The front door speakers, for me at least, are carrying about 80% of the weight when it comes to the sound. So for anyone reading this, I absolutely recommend upgrading the amp and possibly the sub first and foremost. If you still want better sound, then decide if its worth investing in new speakers.
I do have an extra ccwr250 center channel speaker as they came in a pair. If anyone is interested in purchasing it, feel free to PM me.
Hope you enjoyed, thank you for sticking around for the whole post.
Sponsored
Last edited:
