2012 Shogun SG3 Build

[Niks]

I cant stress how labour intensive all this work is, how many hours goes into it and its taking up sooo much of my time. You come to the point where you just want to start driving the bloody car and enjoy it. So after the doors are done, I think I will just do a little bit more when I come to taking some parts of the dashboard out to replace the headunit and leave it at that. Will I be ripping out the whole entire dashboard? Not for now but maybe in the future sometime.

I still need to buy some camping flood lights, spot lights and an LED bar. Then need to install a dual battery and make all the necessary power connection points for any devices that I may want to charge up, an awning and also the tires. At the same time, need to build my expedition kitchen and drawer setup too.

As for the suspension spring upgrade - a possibility down the line once I have everything setup and I know what my total weight will be. I am sure Grizzly can handle that much! My cars name is Grizzly

Rabbit holes and rabbit holes and more rabbit holes. Soon enough I will find myself having tea with Alice in Wonderland myself!

[DeeTee]

Will I be ripping out the whole entire dashboard? Not for now but maybe in the future sometime.

Say it isn't so! I was hoping you'd set the gold standard that I could follow.

I just started making the metal dash brackets (from JohnGavin). I have a few more rabbits to chase...

[Niks]

***YOU WANT TO HEAR THIS***

I managed to take the car out today to visit my local car audio place and buy some little goodies and I have something really positive to say!

What I have done so far with the sound deadening and absorbing.. IT HAS MADE A BIG DIFFERENCE!!! I can't tell you how pleased I am with the results. The noise coming from the back end of the car has dropped significantly! MUCH LESS road/tire noise coming through from the rear, I can't even hear any noise coming from the roof even with the Front Runner roof rack on (60mph) and all of those rattles that used to come from the boot door have literally disappeared! I am saying this right now with no trim panels in the boot apart from the boot door and no front door cards, so I can only imagine how much better it will be once everything is back in the car. All the rattles are now coming from the centre console and dashboard. I can actually speak softly and hear myself perfectly when driving. So, a thumbs up and it really is working.

As I was driving I noticed a few things with the dashboard. Yes there is some flex going on with the main dashboard piece when I drive over big bumps, this is due to the material its made out of. Where the rattles and creaks really are coming from is the actual parts in the middle of the dash like the air vents, stereo facia, climate control unit, the small trim panels on the sides of the dashboard and a little from the dashboard dials housing. Apart from those bits, its held on pretty well and not too bad so I don't think there is any need to completely remove the dash for now. When I remove the MMCS, I will tackle all those bits and pieces.

As far as the MMCS is concerned, its just absolutely a piece of garbage system. When I bought the car, I knew the drivers side door speaker wasnt working, so I just suspected it would either be the connector or a blown speaker. Well it turns out the Rockford amp is screwed up. I removed both speakers from the front doors and tested them on my hi-fi at home, they both work fine. All the music I had been listening to so far was from the centre dash speaker, passenger side speaker, rear boot door surround speakers and the sub - NO rear door speakers or drivers side. Just as well I am installing another system hey?

I managed to install the Joying 1080p AHD reverse camera. I found an old scraper blade in the shed that I wedged in between the mounting of the camera and the main bracket plate to act as a support for that square hole, then just screwed down the bracket tightly and it holds the camera very solid! Saved me heaps of time trying to fabricate a new bracket or mount...

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Good news, the installer managed to get the speaker wires through both the grommets on the front doors in 30 mins! A very friendly bunch, great customer service and offered any help I may need when installing my system if need be...

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16 gauge wire is more than enough for my build since its an SQ system and not an SPL one. Now I can really go to town with my system install!

[RyanPJ]

Way to go, man!

[DeeTee]

Hey Niks - I'm glad to hear all that hard work has paid off for you. A quiet car is a joy forever. I had a similar "it was worth the effort" experience tonight driving home in the rain (after doing my front doors). My Paj was ... quiet. It actually felt refined and more "solid". I like it a lot.

Although I don't believe your dashboard rattles (I reckon you'll get a second wind and do behind your dash... Go on...)

That speaker wire doesn't look like it grew there - but it's in. Did the installer reveal their secret as to how they fished it through the boot?

[4ndy]

You not finished that little job yet?

[Niks]

Dee Tee - Unfortunately no, he didn’t even let me watch him do it (due to safety policies in their workshop) so I had to hang around in their display shop, wouldn’t even say how he did it or what tools he used. Just said that they have done way more complicated/awkward builds in cars like Ferrari’s, McLaren’s and Lamborghinis so this way pretty straight forward for him. In a way, he is right as installers don’t really tend to reveal much.

Andy - Lol, wait till I bring it to you for the main build!

[Niks]

Update: 12/5/22

I was doing some calculations and realised that the 16 gauge speaker cable going into the front doors for the mid bass drivers isn't enough for the length of run, and be able to properly deliver upto 150W of power at 4 ohms. So I popped down to the car audio place and bought all new speaker cables (they couldn't install it for me as they had other cars being built), but said it should be straight forward to get through the grommets.

So I bought proper high quality 12 gauge cables for the mid bass drivers and 16 gauge for the midrange and tweeters - not the usual cheap cables I had before. Then spent the day installing them properly...




Passenger side...






Driver's side...

Don't you just hate seeing dirt and muck when you lift the panels off? I make it good practice to properly clean and vacuum up wherever I can when doing things like this...



All clean...



Back to the wiring...





Speaker wiring all done!...

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The Joying headunit has a SPDIF output so I need to buy one of those cables so I can run that straight into my Mosconi DSP. Then run the Joying back up camera RCA wire from the back to the front and a few other cables I want to install too. Once those are done, I will tackle the subwoofer situation, I don't really want to use the exising Rockford subwoofer as I know my amp will blow it, so I will need to modify the wiring and connections on that box to take banana plugs or something. I want to keep that existing box because its actually pretty good and trying to make one another one to fit in that space will be a royal headache. I know of 3 10" sub's: JL Audio, Gladen and Focal that will work very well in that box according to their Thiele & Small parameters. I am not one of those huge SPL bass heads, more of an SQ guy where it fills the low end nicely and realistically.

Getting there!

Still need to sound deaden the rear passenger doors! Man this is never ending.

[Mark RSA2AU]

Hey Niks,

Seems like a big project but should be worth it in the end. I did not go to the lengths you are and my sound system is a huge upgrade so yours should almost blow your doors off..... Is your amp pushing 150w RMS... that's some serious power for the Pajero but "too much power it just about enough".

My amp is an older Alpine 4 x100w RMS running Infinity Reference speakers and I think I used about a 16 gauge speaker cable from a local electronics store (Jaycar) for front and rear doors as this cable was rated to 150w. Have had no issues with sound quality/distortion/clipping/volume levels and from my (internet) research at the time I think a 16 gauge cable was good for about 200w over 15 meters and it seemed like a good choice for me.

My regret is using a simple under-seat sub, but it just does not have enough punch. We use our full boot space and 7 seats regularly so a sub enclosure in the boot will not work. My wifes Lancer came factory spec with the same Rockford system as the Pajero and the sub really makes a big difference compared to mine. So I am on the hunt for a wrecked Pajero with the Sub enclosure and black plastic paneling that I can transplant into my Paj ( anyone in Melbourne, let me know?). Do you know the specs of the Rockford sub, as I am debating weather I run this with a factory amp from the same donor vehicle or if I ditch the sub and run a new sub and amp combo? The amp will need to be mounted off the floor as there is a possibility of water in the boot ( 4x4 touring and boat ramps...) and also why the higher mounted factory sub appeals to me.

PS, enjoying your updates and would love to hear your opinion of the newer version of the Joying Head Unit.

Cheers

[Niks]

Hi Mark,

***Edit*** - sorry I forgot to answer your question! I’d personally buy the Rockford box and sub from a wrecked car. Ditch the actual sub and buy one of those 10” shallow mount subs and buy a Mono amp with a minimum 300W to power it, or 2 channel amp that you can bridge to power the sub. Most of these amps have a low pass filter that you can set from 120Hz or lower 👍🏻

Yep, the 16 gauge cables would be just fine for the mid bass, but it depends on the type of set up you run. 90% of the people running amps usually have their setups in Passive mode (out of the amp into a crossover, then into the speakers) and thats it. For the most part, those amps are usually your typical modern Class-D amps which are a certain type of topolgy that draws less power (Amperes) to produce bigger output watts - but it has its limitations and effects its dynamic range, transient peaks, slew rate and damping factor (like how heavily compressed music sounds), therefore a 16 gauge speaker cable is more than enough even at around 150-200w. These are your typical Alpine, Pioneer, Kenwood, Rockford Fosgate, JBL and the likes. Also, if you have speakers with a high sensitivity rating, you dont need big power to produce big sound - hence again 16 gauge cable is fine.

All three of my amps are Class A/B and I had them modified a few years ago by the guy who made them. I will be running an active 4-way system; a 4 channel amp to power the mids and tweeters, a Dual Mono amp to power the mid bass and another Dual Mono in Bridged mode to power the subwoofer all via a DSP unit where I can set the levels, crossovers, EQ, time alignment and routing. The pre amp boards in all 3 have been upgraded and the bias has been adjusted to get better S/N ratio (but makes them run a little hotter). This means the damping factor and slew rate is much higher, it outputs more transient peaks with a wider dynamic range but it also draws more power (Amps) to do so - so to get all the benefits of thatin terms of SQ (like how 24/48kHz music sounds with a big open soundstage, imaging, separation/layering, detail and accuracy), its better to have a 12 gauge cable because the mid bass driver isn't as sensitive, therefore I would need to push the amp a little more harder. The mids and tweeters are sensitive so I wouldn't need to push those hard at all - so 16 gauge cable is good for them. Just as well I installed a 0 gauge power cable!

I guess its all about what you want out of your system, I just had all this stuff sitting at home which I uninstalled out from one of my previous cars before I sold it - so I am just making use of it rather than it all sitting in the cupboard collecting dust.

I know its a Pajero, but for those long long drives and since I don't have a SWMBO in my life yet...

[Niks]

Update: 15/5/22

Started routing all the cables from the back of the car to the front (RCA's, SPDIF, Remote wire and Mosconi DSP controller), and also installing the bits and pieces for the Joying headunit such as the GPS, 4G antenna's, external mic and reverse camera wire. All this took pretty much the whole day to do as getting the cables out to the front of the dash was a headache...

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Whilst I had the vents and AC unit out, I worked my magic with the cloth tape...

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All the cables out of the centre of the dash, if you look closely you can see where I went round all the edges with cloth tape and also applied some everywhere where the vents, climate unit and headunit facia will touch the bracings...

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I will have to tidy up all that wiring now when I get more time.

Continued...

[Niks]

It ended up pissing down with rain all afternoon so I couldn't get anymore done on the car, so ended up finishing off the trim panels...

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This stuff takes forever to do because of all the curves, contours and all those braces on the upper panels. Also did all the clips so they dont move or rattle. Glad its all done, lets hope it all fits in properly now.

I can put the drivers side rear boot upper and lower panels back in now as that side is all done, but not the passenger side as I still haven't decided what I will be doing with the subwoofer. I really cant be arsed removing the panels again, so might as well do it all in one go.

Looking at the Thiele & Small specs of 10" subs, it seems the JL Audio 10W1v3-4 will work perfectly and gave me a nice flat frequency response down to 30Hz without any spikes or dips in between. I will have to modify the speaker wire connectors on the box, remove the thin crappy ones that are part of the existing wiring loom inside the box itself too.

Lets see how that goes.

[Niks]

Update: 19/5/22

I tackled the crazy job of figuring out what all the wires were on each of the plugs going into the car's MMCS headunit. Using that Russian site, managed to figure out Pin wires, what goes to where and what colour they are too. This is one a bit of a double post but might as well do it here too so it saves anyone from going back and forth (for the ones who actually are interesting in following my build)...

I have figured out some of the pins on the plugs that connect to the MMCS unit only...

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D210 - 17 Pin Grey plug (these are the only wires connected)...

Top view...

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Bottom view...

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Pin 1 - Black + Yellow - Illumination Control Circuit (need some clarification on this as this also shows as an input) <<<
Pin 2 - White + Black - No idea.. can't find what connects to it on any of the diagrams
Pin 3 - White - Goes to Rockford Amp
Pin 6 - Pink - Goes to Rear Display Unit (presumably pre-wiring for it since my car doesnt have rear displays)
Pin 7 - Black - Goes to Rockford Amp
Pin 8 - Pink - No idea.. can't find what connects to it on any of the diagrams
Pin 9 - Black - Ground
Pin 10 - Green + Black - Illumination Control Circuit (Input)
Pin 11 - Brown - (Shows as Pink +
Pin 12 - Red - Goes to Rockford Amp
Pin 13 - White + Blue - VSS (Vehicle Speed Sensor)
Pin 14 - Blue - ACC Vehicle Ignition Switch (Input)
Pin 15 - Green - Goes to Rockford Amp
Pin 16 - Blue - No idea.. can't find what connects to it on any of the diagrams
Pin 17 - Red + Black - Fuse Wire Batt 12V



D206 - 32 Pin Grey plug (these are the only wires connected)...

Top view...

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Bottom View...

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Pin 45 - Red - USB Box
Pin 46 - Teal (Supposed to be Brown according to the diagram) - USB Box
Pin 47 - Green - Audio Video Adapter Box - Video In
Pin 48 - Pink - Audio Video Adapter Box - Audio R
Pin 49 - Brown (Supposed to be Red according to the diagram) - Audio R (split)
Pin 53 - White + Red - Steering Wheel Audio Control Hands free - Signal Out - does this connect to Key 1 or Key 2 on Joying Harness?
Pin 61 - Green - USB Box
Pin 63 - Orange - Audio Video Adapter Box - Video In (split)
Pin 64 - Blue - Audio Video Adapter Box - Audio L (also as Mono)
Pin 65 - Black - Ground
Pin 69 - White + Black - Steering Wheel Audio Control Hands Free - Signal In - does this connect to Key 1 or Key 2 on Joying Harness?



D205 - 12 Pin Grey plug (these are the only wires connected)...

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Pin 81 - Pink - Rear View Camera
Pin 82 - Black + Yellow - Rear View Camera
Pin 83 - White - Rear View Camera
Pin 85 - Yellow - Reverse View Camera
Pin 86 - Pink + Black - Reverse View Camera



D208 - 5 Pin Grey plug (these are the only wires connected)...

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Pin 21 - Red + Black - Fuse wire
Pin 24 - Red + Green - Inhibitor Switch (Automatic Transmission) - what does this wire do??
Pin 25 - Black - Ground



D204 - ***GREEN PLUG*** - 7 Pin Green plug (these are the only wires connected)...

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Pin 101 - Pink - Antenna - is this the Antenna Power?
Pin 102 - Light Green + Red - Hands Free Interface & USB Box
Pin 103 - Light Green - Hands Free Interface & USB Box
Pin 104 - Black + Yellow - Hands Free Interface & USB Box



D207 - 3 Pin Grey plug (these are the only wires connected)...

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Pin 33 - Green - Rear Display Unit
Pin 34 - Light Green - Rear Display Unit

There is one GPS connector which also connects to the MMCS with its own 2 pin grey plug.

So, those are all the wires and connectors for the 12 speaker 860W Rockford Premium MMCS system...

[Niks]

Ok, so then I had a go at cutting into the main harness and soldering them into the Joyings wiring loom...

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Here you can see I have cut only the main wires which I actually need...

Yellow = Main Batt 12V > D210 Plug - Red + Black wire
Black = Ground > D210 Plug - Black wire
Red = ACC > D210 Plug - Blue wire
Blue = Antenna Power > D204 Green Plug - Pink wire
Orange + White = Illumination > D210 Plug - Green + Black wire
Orange = Reverse Signal > Camera wire has its own feed.

Pink = SWC Key 1 > D206 Plug - White + Black cable - not connected yet
Brown = SWC Key 2 > D206 Plug - White + Red cable - not connected yet

There are 2 other wires which are:

Orange = Amp Rem - Signal wire for my external amplifiers
Blue + White = Handbrake - Not going to connect this one.

Soldered and wrapped...

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You can't see it too well as the loom is pretty short and very tight to connect to the back of the headunit.

I did a test run, and it actually worked so I am very pleased about that!!!

Now need to figure out the SWC control wires to solder them up too.

One mistake I did was connect the rear camera positive wire to the 12V socket in the boot, so as soon as the headunit powered up, it brought up the camera on the screen but upside down! Least I know the headunit works! I have no speakers or amps connected yet so can't test the sound. Anyway, disconnected it again and went about tidying the wires up. I wil only put back in properly once I have figured out the wiring for the steering wheel controls. Anyone can help with that?

I sorted the reverse camera out by just disconnecting it from the mount and turning it the other way round - hopefully now I have the orientation the right way.

Finished off putting the final dampening on the front doors and the sound wave guide behind where the mid bass driver will sit...

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Did the fitting for the 0 gauge Ground wire...

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Continued...

[Niks]

Finally, if your glove box rattles over bumps and annoys the crap out of you.. do this with a bit of left over Stage 2 CCF!!! ...

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Now it sits closed properly and it is solid, no movements at all!