Hey guys, I absolutely love this forum and I dig being a part of the Dodge Ram community. I recently bought a 2009 Quadcab TRX4 and absolutely love this truck! MUCH improvement over my previous 2006 Ram. I must admit that I am primarily a lurker in the forum and I don't post anything unless I really think its worthwhile. Hopefully this write up falls into this category.



Yes, my neighbours are Hoosiers and have all kinds of crap all over their yard.

I did not get the MyGig system because, well, I like having my own options. Besides, when I traded in my 2006 Ram, I pulled my Pioneer navigation unit out. I asked the dealership after I bought the truck what the likelihood of coming across parts that would make the Nav unit fit my new truck. I was told by the parts & Service department the only stereo & speakers that fit that truck are made by Dodge and that a replacement option will likely never exist. I beg to differ.

First, the nav unit: The Pioneer AVIC F700BT. I bought it on Amazon about a year ago. It is an excellent unit with tons of options. Just make sure you have the 3.0 firmware and the updated maps. At first glance I figured it would fit quite nicely. Boy was I wrong! You will need the following to install this and most other aftermarket double-din stereos in the 2009 Dodge Ram:

-METRA Chrysler kit 95-6511 - $20
-PAC C2R-CHY4 Wiring Adapter - $80
-Scosche VWA-4B Antenna Adapter - $20

All of those items were purchased at my local Audio Express. The Metra Kit is actually a 2007 Chrysler Sebring radio adapter. The PAC unit allows your factory wiring to be used for a switched radio line, whereas the RAM does not come standard with a readily accessable one like I am used to. The antenna adapter is an amplified one and I am not sure if it helped with reception or not. It was what was available. Its actually much like a Volkswagon antenna adapter. There is a small piece of plastic on the end that must be trimmed off for proper fit but its very easy to figure out. Now, on to the Surgery!

I first removed the rubber pad that covered two hex head screws. Take those out and you are more or less able to use a trim removal tool to pop the dash forward. I wrapped the bottom of the trim with an old t-shirt so that it didn't get scratched.



Once the dash was off, four screws removed with a nut driver revealed the stereo and allowed me to peek inside my dash at the work that lie ahead.



A quick comparison of my old stereo on the right and my Pioneer F700BT on the left revealed the aftermarket stereo was a deal fatter then the factory head unit.



DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert at anything in life other then driving my wife crazy so if you choose to emulate my project, understand that you are doing so at your own risk, possibly voiding a small portion of your warranty if the dealership can prove you did something to screw it up. If you mess anything up, you are doing so on your own accord so don't blame me or DodgeForum as I'm sure we will both ignore whiny lamentation. I know enough not to cross a critical threshold so I trimmed only what was necessary.

I was going to have to trim my dash in places that would not be visible after my project was finished. So out came the dremmel tool along with my nervousness. Beer helped that so I set to work.



Aaaah, thats nice. If you look at the metal bracing located within my dash, you will notice slots on the sides. The bottom two slots are where I made my cuts. It took less then 10 minutes to make it through the metal. There are a few wires that are close to the cut locations so go very slow and take your time.



You will then end up with a piece of metal similar to the one you see here. Throw that away as you will not need it anymore. Or you could always loop a chain through it and wear it all gangsta style. Werd to your Mother.

Next up I installed the PAC wiring harness which gave me a switched accessory line of power.



Groovy.

After installing the antenna adapter and the Sebring Metra trim kit, I was ready to button everything up.



Smashing. Once the PAC unit has been installed it is important to note that it must be powered for at least 30 seconds for it to initialize the first time and provide circuit protection. So if it doesn't turn on right away, just wait 30 seconds, turn off your ignition, and then turn it back on. Bam, works. I the Dodge Ram Splash screen . Looks very OEM in my opinion.



Okay, so stereo works and I'm getting sound through all four channels. Before cracking open the door panels, its best to do some research in my opinion. I don't know how anyone might feel about linking to another site but I found the wiring diagrams at this site: http://www.ramforumz.com/showthread.php?p=72625 Please accept my apologies if that is not allowed. I will remove that link if asked. Anyhow, I read the wire lineup and decided I had enough information to continue. On to disassembling the doors!



There are 5 or 6 of these pull pins on each door as well as a screw hidden behind a plastic door that will release the door panel. If you have a trim popper tool, it will be easy to remove the trim around the door handle as it makes it a lot easier to remove the door panel. If not I suppose you could use am oversized flathead screw driver but I would exercise extreme caution.



Once the panel is off, there are only 4 hex head screws holding each speaker in place. The 6x9 speaker will come off quite neatly and reveal the problems that lie ahead with replacing the front speakers. The mounting depth is quite shallow with the bit of plastic sitting in my way. What do you say we remove that unecessary crap while retaining the use of the riveted support piece? Sure. It should look a little something like this when you are done.



There are plenty of pricey speakers out there but I decided to stay within a decent budget and opted to replace my speakers with Kenwood 5-way 6x9s.



The mounting depth after you remove the excess plastic is approximately 3 ¼”.



It might be slightly more but I think I might have been pushing it to use any deeper of a mounting depth. The rear speakers do not have any limit to speaker mounting depth that I would think to affect anything but I made sure when I ordered 2 pairs of the Kenwood KFC-6982IE, that they did not exceed the 3 1/4” threshold. A pair of the Kenwood KFC-6982IE only set me back $60 a pair so I opted to replace all four 6x9s in my RAM with them. Believe me when I say these speakers ROCK!!! Plus they fit rather well.



As I said, it was not a major issue to get them to fit in the rear so I decided to omit the pictures I took of that install as there was nothing really to talk about. All in all, I am impressed with the speakers as they sound great and fit well behind the door panels.



From start to finish this entire install took me approximately 8 hours total as I took a lot of time measuring and I was very careful when I decided what I would do (drank a lot of beer). I am thoroughly impressed with the way my truck sounds now and I am VERY glad that I went the distance to install the aftermarket Navigation unit rather then spending the thousands of dollars on a MyGig unit and knowing I wouldn't really be very happy with it. I encourage anyone debating on trying this to be very careful and take your time. I did and I ended up with good results in my opinion. You can too!

 

Good write up and thanks for sharing.

 

looks great. i just am not a big fan of being able to see the dash kit. arent their any manuf. that fits exactly like stock?

good write up though..

 

I looked everywhere I could and could not find an actual dash kit made specifically for the 2009 Ram as of yet. A lot of my work was going with things that fit as close as possible and worked "best." A lot of Audio Shops I checked with told me that the truck is still very new and like the K&N and other FIPK kits, aftermarket manufactorers are still waiting to get their hands on a 2009 RAM to make parts for. Fortunately these parts fit for the most part. When new things become available I will probably opt for the new parts.

 

Thanks for the great info. I also choose to go aftermarket. Still in the planning stage. Did you loose your free sirius radio? Did you disconnect the 3 1/2" speakers in the dash? If not do you think they are bringing the sound quality down, and do you plan on replacing them. Thanks in advance.

 

The dash kit for the 09 Ram is the same as the 08 Aspen, this is why none have been made

 

Friggin,

I don't think the sound quality was brought down one bit by the replacement of the speakers. Actually I hooked up both the front and rear speakers on the driver side and did an audible sound comparison. I will admit I am not audiophile but the sound is just amazing how different it is like night and day. The factory speakers are 2-way 4 OHM with paper cones and foam surrounds. My Kenwood speakers are also 4 OHM so there is very little to no change in the way of resistance with the new setup. I left the dash 3 1/2s wired in for that very reason and after comparing by covering them up and listening and then uncovering them and listening, I believe in my non-expert opinion that the imaging is quite enhanced by having the dash speakers bounce sound off the windshield. When I spoke to the gentleman in the parts & service department who assured me that my project would meet minimal success, I discovered that the 6x9s are all 4 OHM and according to him, the dash speakers are 2 OHM. All in all, this matters little to me as it sounds great to my ears and I was able to fit my navigation unit in my dash with just a little modification. While the changes are permanent, I don't believe there will be any effect on my 8 year warranty, because if anything broke, the dealership would have to prove that my removal of a minor amount of plastic and metal holding the original stereo in caused damage. And that is rather unlikely. I did in fact lose my original SIRIUS ESN subscription but that is not a big deal to me, as I am utilizing a quick-connect dock hidden in my uppermost glove box to house my SIRIUS tuner. The tuner pops out of the cradle and I can take it with me to work and pop it in my SIRIUS boom box or my Home Dock. I signed up for a new subscription, as SIRIUS informed me that they would not transfer my 1-year trial subscription unless the original stereo was stolen. Not a big deal, I don't mind paying for it because since getting SIRIUS, that is ALL I listen to. I also like the local channels during my drive home here in STL as they play some decent music during rush hour so I opted for the HD tuner. After Thanksgiving I will likely post my whole setup in case anyone is interested. I was surprised how much room is available behind the dash. It all fit tightly but it fit nonetheless. I was initially apprehensive about ripping apart my dash and trying to install all my Gucci Gear but I just received orders back to Iraq in a few months so I suppose the last week or so I have been looking at things a little differently. I'm going to enjoy MY truck the way I want to, not the way DODGE may have designed the stereo setup to possibly squeeze a few bucks out of me for a system I likely would not have been happy with.

 

Again thanks for the good info. I am starting from scratch on this system so I'm thinking all JL speakers, and kenwood nav.
I like the kenwood's because they use Garmin gps. I'm hoping to not need a sub, I don't wont to loose the storage space.

 

awesome post/thread, thx for your hard work and knowledge.

subscribed for future ref.

 

Excellent write up...I plan on doing this in the near future and this really helped!