Neal

I recovered the subwoofer enclosure from my e46 build. Used pro audio Penn heavy duty speaker carpet. A bit thicker to work with, but very durable. The enclosure width was good. Just added a 6mm mdf sheet to the bottom to reduce the chance of submarining through the back seat in an accident. I also added metal plates to the inside of the enclosure. Used m8 Rivnuts and modded the rear tie down brackets so it bolts through the wood into the metal brackets. I’ve made it so I can take the enclosure out as fuse box is below. Also used a 4 pole Soeakon pro audio connector. Mobridge amp runs 4 wires for sub to spread the current through its connector. Used 30 amp x4 inside enclosure and 20 amp x 4 from amp. So cable loss is minimal at 400 -500 rms that the Amp can deliver to the sub.

I ran one Morel and one HK underseat woofer for a week so I could flip between the two for A / B comparison. Over all the Morel is a good improvement over Harman. I set the two so they ran the same volume around 90 hz. Lower than 90 hz the Morels a 2 - 3 db louder . There is a peak around 70 hz where I think cabin gain is coming into play. But looking like it will follow target curve quite well. Currently have them cutting off from 45hz at 24 db / octave so getting excellent up front bass. Put second woofer in and knocked back the gain a couple of db. With volume towards maximum power rating they stay composed. Wasn’t able to achieve this with the Harmans installed which I ran for the last month or so. Musically the Morels are excellent covering 50 -150hz range. Have the sub running 20 -60 hz with a 12 db rolloff.

Just want to do hillclimbs again after watching this 😀

Have been tuning system by ear but also have to finish tidying up the box on my intended subwoofer. At this stage it’s been about getting to know at what point to set crossover points and relatively volume from one speaker to the next. The Focal door speaker and tweeter where straight forward and testing indicated that Focal values work well. The front pair run active so have dedicated amp channels. EG , Tweeter 3500hz crossover point , running 24db / octave. Amp gain with slight cut Door midbass 150hz to 3500hz , running 24db / octave . Zero amp gain. Underseat Harman Kardon 8 inch woofers a bit harder to tune. With a boot sub I’ve found diminishing returns with getting the HK to go low for up front bass. Crossing them at 60hz to 150hz seems about right. Amp channel at +6db. But I’ve always intend to swap these out. However , I’m impressed with there power handling for an oem woofer. Have roughly 140 watts rms at 8 ohms and in the frequency range above the will go beyond the volume I’d listen too without issue. My backup Sub has been interesting ( small box 10 inch with passive radiator) , normally I would n’t overlap frequency ranges but Faser from Mobridge sent his tune file. So I tried his settings which worked really well. So 20-70hz @ 12db slope. I’ve also decided to replace the Harman Kardon subwoofers ( woofers really ) I’d tried modelling some higher end replacements conventional drivers but getting them to fit and operate between enclosure and seat rails problematic. There are plenty of aftermarket options , some will go lower , others are more accurate, and some excel in Mid bass and others aren’t as good as Harman Kardon. My shortlist with primary goal of mid bass performance of getting down to 50hz . BMW B&W option underseat woofer second had as high end option in M5 / X5 / 7 series., Focal BMW ISub ( very power efficient but highish QTS of 0.93 , 11mm Cone travel ) ESB BMW Sub 1 ( high powered, high efficiency and low QTS 0.36 18mm cone travel ) and Morel , BMWsubip82 high powered , QTS 0.57 but lowish efficiency , Cone travel not disclosed. Focals are very cost effective compared with the other two landed in NZ. ESB are twice the cost of Focals when imported. Went with importing Morels from Australia based on these being in a Mobridge powered car to great effect. If you’re looking to replace underseat woofers be your own judge but more power is required if your after a marked improvement . With QTS ratings in general the lower number is tight dry sounding bass , High values are more boomy. Numbers greater than 1.0 have trouble articulating different bass notes but do have a bass hump. Best avoided if your after bumph rather than boom.

I drove the car for a week with no audio . Mainly to listen for rattles etc . Got a few to sort. On one of the rear doors I forgot to put Tesa tape on the door card clip points and I think that’s I’m getting clip rattle . The other is the light console area in the headliner…. and the garage remote bracket . Easy to sort hopefully. It was then time to code the NBT system to no longer use the ASD module There is a couple of ways to go about it and no flashing of modules required. I brought an MHD universal Wi-Fi to OBDIi dongle as it also uses the Ethernet bus so quite quick to make changes with. For the programming on the F80 audio system there are two choices , Esys for PC or BimmerCode for mobile phone. I went with BimmerCode for iPhone . So just two areas need changing and this is for NBT evo 4.1 hardware. System needs to be told it has the top Harmon Kardon audio and that the amplifier is the Most version. You go into expert mode in BimmerCode and one coded you can either power off the car and let it go into sleep mode or in my case reboot the NBT by pushing down on the volume / on / off knob for 30 seconds. Once done the Mobridge amplifier joined the Most Audio fibre ring and was ready to configure.

Spent some time doing basic audio crossover points and relative loudness settings by ear on the F80's audio system. Hardest area seems to be tuning the understeat woofers for to get them to blend with sub and door midbass. Focal door speakers need running in so will run it for 20 hours of so and then tune with calibrated mic. WIll be interesting t see the difference between tuning by ear verse mic. Hopefully I'm not far off.

Steering Wheel Buttons Addr Description Frame data Comment 50 Next: Press 50 04 68 3B 01 06 50 Previous: Press 50 04 68 3B 08 0F Navigation / GPS Addr Description Frame data Comment 7F City 7F 23 C8 A4 00 01 42 45 52 4C 49 4E 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 2F In this case BERLIN 7F Latitude / Longitude 7F 14 C8 A2 00 00 52 33 19 40 00 13 11 51 70 00 00 00 11 00 00 0B In this case Latitude 52° 33' 19.4'' / Longitude 13° 11' 51.7'' 7F Street 7F 23 C8 A4 00 02 48 4F 48 45 4E 5A 4F 4C 4C 45 52 4E 52 49 4E 47 3B 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 13 In this case HOHENZOLLERNRING Board Monitor Buttons Addr Description Frame data Comment F0 1: Press F0 04 68 48 11 C5 F0 1: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 51 85 F0 1: Release F0 04 68 48 91 45 F0 2: Press F0 04 68 48 01 D5 F0 2: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 41 95 F0 2: Release F0 04 68 48 81 55 F0 3: Press F0 04 68 48 12 C6 F0 3: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 52 86 F0 3: Release F0 04 68 48 92 46 F0 4: Press F0 04 68 48 02 D6 F0 4: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 42 96 F0 4: Release F0 04 68 48 82 56 F0 5: Press F0 04 68 48 13 C7 F0 5: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 53 87 F0 5: Release F0 04 68 48 93 47 F0 6: Press F0 04 68 48 03 D7 F0 6: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 43 97 F0 6: Release F0 04 68 48 83 57 F0 AM: Press F0 04 68 48 21 F5 F0 AM: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 61 B5 F0 AM: Release F0 04 68 48 A1 75 F0 Clock switch: Press F0 04 FF 48 07 44 F0 Dolby: Press F0 04 68 48 33 E7 F0 Dolby: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 73 A7 F0 Dolby: Release F0 04 68 48 B3 67 F0 Eject: Press F0 04 68 48 24 F0 F0 Eject: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 64 B0 F0 Eject: Release F0 04 68 48 A4 70 F0 FM: Press F0 04 68 48 31 E5 F0 FM: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 71 A5 F0 FM: Release F0 04 68 48 B1 65 F0 Menu switch: Press F0 04 FF 48 34 77 F0 Menu switch: Press > 1 second F0 04 FF 48 74 37 F0 Menu switch: Release F0 04 FF 48 B4 F7 F0 Menu turnknob: Clockwise F0 04 3B 49 81 07 F0 Menu turnknob: Counterclockwise F0 04 3B 49 01 87 F0 Menu turnknob: Press F0 04 3B 48 05 82 F0 Menu turnknob: Press > 1 second F0 04 3B 48 45 C2 F0 Menu turnknob: Release F0 04 3B 48 85 02 F0 Mode: Press F0 04 68 48 23 F7 F0 Mode: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 63 B7 F0 Mode: Release F0 04 68 48 A3 77 F0 Next: Press F0 04 68 48 00 D4 F0 Next: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 40 94 F0 Next: Release F0 04 68 48 80 54 F0 Previous: Press F0 04 68 48 10 C4 F0 Previous: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 50 84 F0 Previous: Release F0 04 68 48 90 44 F0 Radio / Bord Monitor: Press F0 04 68 48 30 E4 F0 Radio / Bord Monitor: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 70 A4 F0 Radio / Bord Monitor: Release F0 04 68 48 B0 64 F0 Radio Power: Press F0 04 68 48 06 D2 F0 Radio Power: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 46 92 F0 Radio Power: Release F0 04 68 48 86 52 F0 RDS: Press F0 04 68 48 22 F6 F0 RDS: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 62 B6 F0 RDS: Release F0 04 68 48 A2 76 F0 Reverse Play: Press F0 04 68 48 14 C0 F0 Reverse Play: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 54 80 F0 Reverse Play: Release F0 04 68 48 94 40 F0 Select: Press F0 04 68 48 20 F4 F0 Select: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 60 B4 F0 Select: Release F0 04 68 48 A0 74 F0 Telephone: Press F0 04 FF 48 08 4B F0 Telephone: Press > 1 second F0 04 FF 48 48 0B F0 Telephone: Release F0 04 FF 48 88 CB F0 Tone: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 44 90 F0 TP: Press F0 04 68 48 02 E6 F0 TP: Press > 1 second F0 04 68 48 72 A6 F0 TP: Release F0 04 68 48 B2 66

Did you find the hex codes ? I think I’ve got a pdf or doc somewhere for all the button hex codes for ibus based BMWs . Will have a look

One thing that bothered me when I purchased the m3 was rear boot 12volt outlet didn’t work. It had some diy cabling which was a collection of wires that were bodged together. Dual small gauge earth wires and positive wire was two different sections of different sizes. Decided to tidy it up and run correct 2.5mm2 gauge and colour wires using BMW connectors for earth and fusebox. The earth comb point in the boot seemed to be full. But the earth comb behind backseat bloster has a spare position. So ordered BMW terminal connectors via CBMW in Wellington. Earth terminal part no 61131387144 for 1.5mm2 - 2.5mm2 wire Battery box leaf terminal part no 61138377732 for 2.5mm2 wire I disconnect battery for install .Simple task of removing left rear set bloster and undoing earth comb with m10 socket ( yes I did manage to find one 😀) remove cover and push on terminal for earth point. For the positive cable you simply undo 1 m10 bolt and turn the battery box inside down. Dispite having a fuse the rear side connector wasn’t installed. Just popped out the connector out via lifting the small red locking pin. The leaf connector is just pushed in until a click is heard. Then just push main connector back and push in red lock pin. Ran the cable via factory path and used Tesa tape to ensure no rattles. For the boot section I used a couple of BMW cable grommets to secure the cable to the left side of boot.

Need to finish subwoofer box carpet recover and the code Idrive for “top hifi” to enable Most. Then set up crossovers and DSP on Mobridge Amp.

The M3 had base audio underseat woofers. These are 6.5 inch units. I brought some second hand Harman Kardon 8 inch speakers and enclosures. Original intention was to replace these with an aftermarket drop in woofer. But will try these in a mid bass role running 50hz to 200hz. Was straight forward replacement. Undo seat bolts , move seats back. , take off speaker grill and unbolt enclosure. Install was simply add Bmw male 4 pin speaker connector to new speaker wire. Position 2 , woofer — Position 3 woofer ++ And bolt HK enclosure back in after aligning the enclosure with the port into the inner door sill.

Also put a loop back Most plug at amp end to test. Cluster gongs continued to work so Most fibre ring ready.

Next area was extending Most. ( disconnect battery ) Found earlier that my base audio did have Most digital audio bus between the idrive and the Speedo cluster. Needed to tap into Most and complete a Most ring to include the Mobridge amp. Got a Y adaptor which is installed behind the idrive unit. The y adaptor has three plugs , two female and one male The idrive to cluster section as two connectors that are unplugged and y cable is inserted Connections Idrive male to Y cable female Cluster female to Y cable female Mobridge Amp 5 meter extension male to Y cable female Ordered a most cable grommet trying to follow real oem. The grommet and y adaptor needed Tesa tape as didn’t quite clip in. Y adaptor had universal connectors rather than bmw. Not a problem though. Wrapped y cable with Tesa tape to avoid rattling behind dash location.

How did you get on ?

Front door speakers installed over the weekend. Process similar to rear doors. Front door connectors are slightly different allowing for more connections such as mirror radar , side cameras , comfit access etc. Process for taking off the door cards are the same, although, most YouTube videos have the window controls pried out from the armrest side. It’s straight forward to use a pri tool from the inner door card and push them out. Wiring for the front doors slightly different to the rears the front tweeters are running active so have dedicated amp channels. I put a bass blocker capacitor in line to protect the tweeter from getting low frequencies by mistake. Used a foil type which is typically used in higher end crossovers. Used a 18 Microfarad value which will start to drop frequencies below 2800 hz and a 6db rate. In hindsight I should have used 22 uf as will tune tweeter to run from 3500 hz up. 18 uf may interfere a bit at 3500 hz. Will see what happens when I do an RTA. The capacitor is quite large , but there is enough room within the door card. Wrapped it in Tesa tape and used fabric Velcro to mount it. Removed the inner door trim and replaced it the Harman Kardon version. Was quite fiddly for the first one , The focal tweeters a bit deeper than the HK ones so the trim backing and tweeter is up against one of the door mirror bolts. The door trim will fit , but it’s tight. Running new speaker wires a bit easier than rear doors. Easy access via bottom door membrane. Just gently pull away until enough access to get loom in. Repeated the sound deadening install as per rear doors. Also used Tesa tape on door clip mounts to stop door card rattling with loose clips. Added a neoprene seal to speaker ring which will sit against speaker adaptor face. Improves sound from the door mount.

The voice coil on these vents to the top as well which doesn’t help. Although the later speaker grills have a cover portion over the speaker vent. I’d pull the woofer out and connect to home stereo and see if it plays clean as a starting point.

Also thinking with the cic upgrade there are various coding options so you probably want top hifi coding which uses the Most optical digital transport and has a quite flat sound response.

I’m not 100% sure on the E61 , but quite a few of the underseat BMW woofers use the side sill as part of the speaker enclosure which acts a bit like a leaky sealed enclosure of roughly 16 litres of air space. Sealed enclosure will give a gradual rolloff on lower bass frequencies unlike bass reflex style where it creates a peak lower down. I think the issue you may have is your simply running out cone travel or the voice coils are a bit stuffed at maximum excursion. What that means is that you need a combo of a woofer that moves more and has more power to go louder. Many of the aftermarket woofers are less efficient and have similar cone travel to the HK woofers. So drop in options without more power won’t go louder. Option to go lower in bass would be an Earthquake sws 8 inch series as they have twice the cone travel of the HK. But they need considerable amount of power to go 30% louder. Musically they have good 40-50 hz bass , but loose a bit of detail further up the bass range. If chasing some chest thumping bass a boot area subwoofer ( 10 or 12 inch ) is a better way to go so you’d end up doubling bass output ( or more ) Otherwise , focal / Rockford / Morel / ESB etc options in my opinion are good if you want to increase in midbass performance and possible detail, but néed a larger sub to fill in the bottom end.

Next was mounting speaker and sound deadening. With the focal es100k series a speaker adaptor is required. With mounting speakers or speaker rings onto a metal surface you want a form of isolation between speaker and metal otherwise you get a ringing effect or distortion of the music. The 3d printed adaptors came with a weather seal that followed curve nicely. Created a gap for speaker wire and used crimp terminals on wire ends. For the door deadening I used Dynamat which just happened to be on special at Repco. I went with a 5 sheet system so one for each door and half each around the underseat woofers. Nice thing about dynamat is that it’s odourless so the car doesn’t smell like a shoe factory post install. Only covered the metal parts around the speaker mount area and put the majority on the door card. A quick knock test and the door metal was a bit quieter and the door card was really good. Obviously full treatment of inner door and replacement of door membrane would yield better results but not prepared to go that far. One door down , three to go.

Second part was to create hole in door card for oem tweeter mount and grill. Must admit that I was a bit nervous about doing this as getting it wrong could mean new door card. Fortunately BMW have marked the inner door card with an indentation which by my measurement as 51mm in diameter. I also measured the inner side Harman Kardon grill and 51/52 mm is about right for hole size. So by measuring 25.5mm from either side of the circle to create a y axis and then measured up 25.5mm. Checked everything three time and drilled a pilot hole from inner to outer door card. Then flipped the door card as you want to cut through the vinyl first with it supported by the door card material. Stops the risk of the fabric tearing if going other way. Also checked that 51mm hole saw was running true before drilling. Once hole drilled simple case of installing tweeter bracket onto three plastic posts via m6 axial clips. These have a very tight fit so used a 11 mm socket and small hammer to push them on. Also added a Harman Kardon grill to mid bass hole as they are a bit more acoustically transparent.

Was time to get on with a door so I picked a rear first. Principles for rear door. Leave water membrane intact and cause minimum disruption and create no extra holes Modify door card to allow Fitment of OEM tweeter bracket and speaker grill Keep audio wiring path simple and oem like by mounting crossovers in boot Add some sound deadening to help audio but not to make make M3 quieter Allow tweeter to be disconnected via oem connectors should door card be removed First task was to run 4 wires into the door for tweeter and midbass. The rear door speakers are being run in a passive state and have mounted the crossovers in the boot . Simple task of pulling up tab on door connector and adding socket pins to spare positions on connector. Then routing cable via factory door loom path and feeding into membrane using curtain wire as a trace wire. Bit of Tessa tape to secure to existing harness via mid bass speaker hole. Sometimes smaller hands and lack of biceps is a plus 😀

Used curtain wire as a pilot to pull the power wire through back pannel. Cable was wrapped with a protective outer cable and then Tessa tape so it shouldn’t rattle.

Power wire for the AMP is straightforward. On my e46 install do to running A/B amp and a class d sub amp I needed 2 gauge into 2x4 gauge arrangement. Basically a lot of thick cable that could carry 400 amps. By contrast the Mobridge uses class d tech with variable voltage psu so super efficient. So basically the whole system can be run on either a 6awg cable if cable run is less than 2.3 meters or a part run off 4awg if length from battery is beyond that. Context is keeping voltage drop under 3% for cable run at amplifiers maximum power output. I was undecided on cable run path. Across rear boot panel is short enough and run via rear seat path is more like 3.5m. In the end I decided to go back boot pannel and reuse a section of 4awg from my e46 install which I’d warped in a plastic protective out sheathing. Also used a nylon wrap at either end of the cables to ensure cable insulation has plenty of protection. What to ensure of zero chance of the cable shorting on anything post install or car maintenance items such as battery replacement. Made a mdf mount for the fuse which is held in by the battery hold down bracket and routed cable in a manner to positive terminal that won’t interfere with IBS function that disconnects engine power in the event of a major accident. Routed cable in a manner that replacement of battery is ray and nothing needs moving out of way. Earthing the Amp was straightforward. The factory amp bracket has m10 mounting stud in the same manner as the body earthing points. So just cut the Mobridge earth lead to length and terminated it with a 16mm2 6.4mm hole crimp lug. Used a 4 awg joiner on the positive Mobridge lead and added a Cooper ferrule to ensure maximum contact area with hex screw down style joiner.

I decided to terminate the custom speaker loom directly onto a Mobridge TE / Tyco connector. These are similar to the 32 pin connector connector used in Porche / Audi audio systems. There is nothing wrong with the Mobridge options with either a spice harness or a Mobridge to BMW Harman Kardon 20 pin patch cable. But since I didn’t have HK loom ( mine had an ASD used as a amp ) I’d have to crimp wires anyway.. If doing a Mobridge system the it can alsway be argumented with Technic PNP cable options depending on what’s is needed on a BMW install. Technic have a range of cable options. The connector uses amp / te MCP 1.5k and 2.8k crimp sockets. The majority of the speaker pins will take up to 1.5mm2 cable and obviously the smaller 0.85mm2 cable that is used for door speakers . For the subwoofer output the amp runs two pair of speaker wire. For this run I’m using a 2 ohm sub so elected to run two pairs of 1.5mm2 cable. For the underseat woofers I’d run 2.5mm2 which is what BMW do. But in hindsight I should have run 1.5mm2 cable. For those connections I trimmed back the wire a bit so the would crimp onto the MCP 2.5 crimp connectors. With the new harness connector I decided not to also add the rca and power outputs to my loom. 400 rms is more than enough on bass these days so don’t need to supplement badd any further .

Most of the nav and internal lighting controls are using ibus for communication and your theory about activity on the bus is likely cause. The bus is a very low speed serial asynchronous system that works in a party line style so each element will try transmitting and will back off if something else transmitting and try again. With nav coder watch the activity on the bus and see if any device nodes are continuing transmitting. Also check for devices like aftermarket Bluetooth audio gateways as some of those can cause issues ( often a power reset will help ) . Also need to check that no one before your ownership has tapped it for a power source If your getting corruption a way to check is via navcoder on one of the modules. Bluetooth module is ideal if you have one. You’ll see random characters rather than pairing PIN number. The ibus wire colour is primary white with yellow.