I picked up my A4 Avant 1.8T 5-speed on 7/10/03. By 7/19/03 it has been taken apart and put back together by me after it went through an extensive and expensive sound system overhaul.

This is what went into the car:

- Clarion DXZ835MP Head Unit
- Clarion DSH920S Sirius Tuner
- Terk TRK-SR20S roof mount Sirius Antenna
- Focal Polykevlar 165K components (2 pairs)
- Memphis 16-MC2004 (4x50W RMS) amp to run the front and back stage.
- Memphis 16-MC500D (1x500W RMS into 2 ohms) mono amp.
- Infinity Perfect 10.1d sub in a 0.65 cu ft SubZone sealed box for now.
- Lightning Audio 4AWG power and ground wires, power and ground distribution block and AGU fuse holder.
- Lightning Audio 15AWG speaker wire
- Lightning Audio Strike RCA interconnects (3 pairs)
- Ericsson HCA-20 advanced full duplex hands free adapter.

Wiring Install

First I routed the 4AWG wire from the engine compartment into the main cabin. It was a tough task since our cars are insulated like they're supposed to fly at 30,000 ft. It was very hard to fish the cable through the firewall but I found a hole that had to be enlarged a bit under the pollen filter. It was also covered with black protective split loom tubing.



Here the pollen filter is reattached, and the AGU fuse holder is bolted onto its rim. I have made an aluminum plate so the screw does not sit against the plastic, the alu plate works as a big washer in essence distributing the force so the rim of the pollen filter would not get torn.



I connected the cable to the 150A main fuse's hot side so it is not fused through the 150A fuse since the stereo has its own 60 Amp fuse. The black cover of the original fuse holder needed some trimming to make the cable fit, but it was not too complicated, a little dremel can do wonders.



The glove comparment had to be removed to fish the wire from the engine bay into the cabin.



The rest of the power wire was going to run under the bottom door sills, under the trim. However to remove the lower B pillar trim, the upper B pillar trim had to be removed. For the upper B pillar trim to come lose, both upper A and C pillar trims had to be removed from the vehicle. The C pillar trim removal also required the removal of the D pillar trim, which needed the rear trim to be removed.

Removing all the trim pieces was a major challenge! The problem is that the factory clips are so strong that they tend to be ripped out of the plastic trim before they actually pull from the metal hole. Here is a picture of a clip that stayed behind instead of being pulled with the plastic trim.



Rear upper trim removed, you can also see the satellite radio antenna cable in the picture.



All upper trim pieces removed, exposing the side curtain airbags.



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