F80 M3 Base audio system upgrade

[Neal 544]

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. 

[Twistee 454]

It took me a while to work out wtf I was looking at when I first looked at the images of them, all ass about face. I'll try and test them this weekend. 

[Neal 544]

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.

 

 

[Neal 544]

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.

 

 

 

[Neal 544]

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

 

 

[Neal 544]

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.

 

 

Edited July 31, 2023 by Neal

[Neal 544]

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.

[Cement 871]

So much work going into this !!! Respect.

[Neal 544]

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.

 

Edited July 16, 2023 by Neal

[Neal 544]

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.

 

 

 

Edited July 22, 2023 by Neal

[Neal 544]

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.

 

Edited July 30, 2023 by Neal

[Neal 544]

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. 
 

 

[Neal 544]

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.

 

 

[Neal 544]

Had to drop the levels for the sub bass by about 6db from the 10 inch one I’ve been running for the past month. This old Boston still holds up will to the higher output 12s available. It shakes the car so now have a new list of rattles to sort.I think the larger boot area with the subfloor storage area is the cause. E46 M3 was better in this regard. Number plate rattle is to the point of being halirious. 

Treating the boot with sound deadening is a must now. Or go back to 10 inch sub. Been using dynamat in the interior and it works well , but thinking secondskins  which has foam as well( via The Warehouse ) could be the product for boot floor and dynamat on the underside of boot lid.

 

[Neal 544]

Been working on a Speaker time alignment spreadsheet. I’d done tuning to date by ear with mono pink noise. Had what I thorough was a reasonably centred sound stage.I was wrong.

The principle of time alignment of speakers in a car is to pick the speaker that is furthest away and delay the sound slightly for the closer speakers. When done correctly the stage becomes better defined and it will sound like your more centred rather than offset.

So basically the process is to measure from where the middle of your head is to the middle of each speaker grill.

I’m doing two dsp maps. One for single drivers seat tune and one for front passengers.Tried the single seat settings and the results were excellent. Nice upfront soundstage with the image sitting above the dash and more centred for driver position.

For the measurements I’m around 173 cm and have the seat in a high position. Measurements will differ for taller and shorter people depending on seat position. But these values are a good starting point.

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by Neal
Grabbing photos of phone and adding

[Cement 871]

I suspect I'm not alone in being amazed at the depth you are going to here !! Respect 👍

[Neal 544]

On 8/29/2023 at 9:47 PM, Cement said:

I suspect I'm not alone in being amazed at the depth you are going to here !! Respect 👍

Thank you, 😀. I’m not sure if diy car audio is a hobby or obsession for me.

Love the learning that goes on with doing these projects.

[Neal 544]

Boot lid sound treatment.

Found the boot lid was a major contributor to unwanted resonance caused by the sub. On good old kiwi Reggae Dub certainly bass lines would shake the lid and the number plate resonating badly. Ended up being straightforward to sort. Double sided tape sorted rear number plate and dynamat was added to the inside panels on the boot lid.The deadening worked well and the boot lid feels solid when closed now.  A large portion of the rattles sorted but a bit more to do.

 

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by Neal

[Neal 544]

Have ordered more sound deadening. This time a mix of butyl and foam to line boot floor. Dynamat has some products but work out to thick when combining butyl foil with foam. Will use Soundskins as roughly 5 mm thick.

When measuring the bass with a microphone and Rew software I’m seeing couple of spikes showing up on the group delay so at certain frequencies the bass notes are taking up to 170 milliseconds to dissipate. Ideally you want this between 20 - 40 milliseconds for accurate Bass. Something is still resonating and causing the spikes. Will line the boot floor to see if it’s a contributing factor.

Could also be sub interactions with back seats so may need to rethink sub enclosure beyond this. It worked well in an e46 with a ski pass firing through rear armrest. Doesn’t work so well in an F80 m3 which doesn’t have one.

Group delay verse frequency response , work to do

 

Edited October 9, 2023 by Neal

[Neal 544]

Well, the sound skins was a no go, but managed to deal to the resonance so group delay is running below 50 MS now and low bass is clearer.

Dynamat  has a new take on its product called Dynamat squared. I’ll use it on the boot floor and storage area under the boot board. What I like about the product is that it’s not creased and folded like the door products. Should look a less bodged.

[Neal 544]

IDrive 6 hardware retrofit.

One thing in this day and age is having a more native control of iPhone apps I.E carplay. The M3 is a December 2015 build so came with IDrive 4 which doesn’t have CarPlay or enough ram to run BMW Nav and CarPlay at the same time. 
 

Going through the options for CarPlay I came up with the following 

1, Update id4 software to id6 image , places on the web do this and can be done locally , but price for doing this seems to be $1k more than others charge internationally. Down side is that idrive will reboot if factory Nav and CarPlay is used. Price wise between $500 - $1600 depending on vendor

2, Replace idrive unit with version 4 or 6, optionally change screen to touch screen and replace controller for correct menu buttons. Price wise $1500 - $3000 +

3, get an MMI module , this is typical an Android box that plugs between idrive and screen and has CarPlay. Works via a double press on the bmw controller. With MMi modules there are tradeoffs such as not being able to use factory car microphones or use Aux input on idrive for sound ( not so good ) . I did find a unit called MR12volt that used MOST digital audio , but at this stage no support for native bmw mics. $450 - $800

4, Android replacement screen , so you can get an 8.8 or 10.25 inch touch screen with CarPlay built in . I didn’t look into this in detail as all used aux audio input.

I went with replacing the hardware with the later BMW ID6 unit , screen and controller. I looked for an ECE version with DAB tuner which is what is used in NZ New BMW M3, but apparently any version can be recoded to work in NZ.

There is a gotcha with ID6 units though, after a certain date BMW dropped  the GPS module and for the G series BMW dropped the Most digital audio. So the unit I sourced was for an F3x F8x platform and GPS is covered by the M3s ATM telephony module.

 

 

[Neal 544]

Install.

 

Disconnect battery , I read a story of someone that didn’t and managed to short a quad lock connector on the back of the idrive unit main connector. Needed a new unit.

When disconnecting battery make sure you tie a rag around the boot latch. Becomes problematic if some closes boot in this state.

This is quite straight forward in the F3x / F8x.
Tools needed

• Plastic trim removal tool
• Torx T20 driver 
• Pick tool for Pushing lock tabs on some of the connectors
• Towel to cover lower console area to avoid scratching area from idrive unit

Screen install

Pop vent trim off gently , it just clips into place

• Remove 2x t20 screen screws from screen,  gently lift screen on one side up, unit will then come out easily 
• Remove cable by pressing in connector lock tab , firmly pull connector away , may need a wiggle
• Push connector into new screen and push screen down, add Torx screws and careful that you don’t drop them

 

 

 

 

Edited December 23, 2023 by Neal

[Neal 544]

Controller install ( note that old controller will work , but menu buttons different 

• With pry tool pop up one corner of the idrive controller console trim
• Then gently pull trim up , it’s just held by clips
• Undo controller connector by pushing in lock pin , it’s a firm fit , careful with the amount of force
• Remove 3x t20 Torx screws
• Put new controller in trim , tighten screws , put on connector, clip trim back into place
•  

[Neal 544]

Idrive unit

The console control pannel needs to removed and is held in place with 4x t20 Torx screws

• Undo top screws
• Pull out bottom console trim , it’s fiddly but clips out
• Undo bottom screws and remove ambient light connector. There is a second connector that I couldn’t take off so I left the pannel hanging and moved it to the right.
• Then remove idrive unit by the 2xt20 Torx  screws    
• Gently  pull idrive unit out and place on towelSpend a bit of time to look at the connectors and work out how the locking mechanism function, have seen people use force and break the connectors from the Idrive pcb.
•  Left side Aerial style connectors have a white locking tab that needs lifting before lifting connectors off
• Right side screen and usb connector has a push in lock to release connector
• The big square quad lock comes out by lifting a tab at the top

 

The new idrive 6 requires a wifi antenna to be installed , the factory wifi antenna is connected via a long lead which routes under the console and sits in an area under the right side front seat. I went aftermarket as a wifi antenna is a wifi antenna. Went for a short antenna and Tesla taped it to the top of the idrive so it won’t rattle.

Install of new unit is straight forward, was careful putting the connectors back on and putting unit back into place.

Then just put console controller back into place and clipped trim back. Then reconnected battery .

Car will need a short drive after to reset collision warning system etc.

 

 

[Neal 544]

Still need to work through a few items so a bit more coding of the idrive unit required and also a bit of learning

still to code

• Unit was coded to my BMW vin and I forget to advise that I’d coded original top hifi and MOST digital audio ( no audio as it’s coded to base audio )
• Reverse camera is coming up with failure message, I thing it’s because Idrive 6 expects that later icam camera module, need to code it for trscv
• Telephone cradle via usb 2 doesn’t show on idrive , apparently idrive 6 only supports USB1 ( more research to do )
• Sport display showing 420 hp max rather than 480 hp , I think 480 is right for LCI and competition model ( more research to do )

Learnings

BMW CarPlay doesn’t support lossless audio over usb , uses AAC-LC over wifi 

Bimmercode iPhone APP isn’t usable for coding retrofitted Idrive 6 , it greys the idrive unit. Needs esys or similar for coding rest of idrive from this point on.

Plan , learning esys coding basics to work through and code upper points. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 23, 2023 by Neal