Ford Raptor Stereo System Upgrade

The Ford Raptor is an awesome bit of engineering. Take one of the most popular Ford Trunks and pump it full of steroids and you have a Raptor! It is unfortunate, however, that the team at Ford didn’t design an audio system that was as awesome as the truck itself. Luckily, this is where Pinnacle Autosound comes in! A local client contacted us about upgrading her son’s Ford Raptor stereo system. She was very knowledgeable on mobile electronics, so it was a pleasure to work with her to design the perfect system for her son’s truck.

Speaker Upgrade

The front door speaker adapters were cut on our laser.

The speaker were installed behind the factory door panels.

The JL Audio C3 speaker was mounted as a coaxial speaker in the rear doors.

The client is a long-time fan of JL Audio, so we leaned heavily on that brand for this stereo system. For the front and rear doors, we used the JL Audio C3 speakers to form the foundation for great sound in this Raptor. The C3 speaker is unique in that it can be installed as either a component set or a coaxial speaker. This is fortunate for this Raptor, because we needed a component set for the front doors and a coaxial for the rear doors.  The JL Audio C3 speakers were the perfect fit for each set of doors! To adapt the factory 5×7′ speaker to the JL Audio 6.5″ we used our laser to cut acrylic adapter plates.  In the rear doors we used an aftermarket speaker adapter and topped it off with a bit of sound deadening material.

Amplifiers and Integration Processor Installation

We pre-wired much of the wiring on the amplifier mounting plate.

We carefully laid out the gear on the amp board to make sure they all fit.

We made a custom plate for the remote bass knob.

To power the speakers and subwoofers in the truck we used two different JL Audio amplifiers.  The amplifiers and additional electronics were mounted to a custom board that we constructed to go behind the rear seats.  The board mounts using factory mounting points on the back wall of the truck. Powering the speakers is an RD400/4 amplifier. The JL Audio RD amplifiers provide the client with incredible value and great sound. Providing the 1000 watts we needed for the subwoofers is a JL Audio JD1000/1 amplifier. This amp provides plenty of clean power in a small footprint chassis.
Because the client wanted to keep the factory source unit, we used a NAV-TV Zen interface to obtain a clean audio signal. The Zen interface takes the factory digital signal and provides a clean analog output that we used to feed signal to the amplifiers.
The final piece of electronics that are mounted to the board are the passive crossovers for the JL Audio C3 speakers.  To make future servicing easier we custom lasered plastic labels to designate the front and rear, left and right crossovers. To give the client’s son complete control over the subwoofer amplifier, we mounted a JL Audio remote bass knob to the left of the steering wheel. We added a custom lasered labeling plate beneath the knob.

Custom Subwoofer Enclosure

The enclosure was loaded with the subwoofers and ready to be installed.

The enclosure lighting and speaker wiring was wired with a quick release plug, in case the enclosure needed to be removed.

The enclosure was finished with a combination of carpet, vinyl and acrylic trim pieces.

Laser-etched accent panels flank the center Raptor logo.

The laser etched piece of acrylic was also lit with LED RGB lighting.

The Raptor logo was lit and accent lighting was added at the bottom of the enclosure.

Bass for this system is a pair of JL Audio 10Tw3 subwoofers. These are some of JL Audio’s best “thin” subwoofers. We have used many of these subwoofers over the years to fit in the tight spaces that modern trucks present us with. In addition to being a shallow-mount subwoofers, these winners also take very little airspace for their enclosure.  A home run for trucks! The client didn’t want just a plain carpeted enclosure for her son, and that was music to our ears! We used a combination of laser cut acrylic pieces and LED lighting to really set this enclosure apart.

Ford Raptor Stereo Upgrade Success

As with all our installations, after the equipment was installed and the vehicle cleaned, we set the controls on the amplifiers to maximize the output of the stereo system. This truck was designed to sound incredible, and it didn’t disappoint. The client loved the way the truck sounded, and enjoyed the impressive amount of bass it had, she couldn’t wait to share it with her son. We have worked on hundreds of trucks, so we know how to make them sound great. If you have a truck and are interested in upgrading the sound in it, stop by or contact us online.