Audio upgrade Yamaha AR250

[MillsyMO]

I’m not going to lie, these cuts made me sick to my stomach. I just used the cardboard cutout that came with the subs and measured center and shot a screw through it into the fiberglass where I wanted the sub and then traced around it. I used my jigsaw very slowly bc I don’t have steady artist hands, lol. Turned out great. I got a little too far out with my drill bit pilot hole on the second one but the rest went smooth.

 

[MillsyMO]

I’m not sure if I’m going to cut 3/4” plywood back for it and sink screws all the way through or if I’m going to use small bolts and washers straight to the fiberglass. Any thoughts?

 

[adrianp89]

I’m not sure if I’m going to cut 3/4” plywood back for it and sink screws all the way through or if I’m going to use small bolts and washers straight to the fiberglass. Any thoughts?

I used starboard/pvc board and made a ring for the backside for support. Highly recommend getting a router or a dremel with circle attachment.

 

[jacoviii]

@MillsyMO yes use a backer for sure. It will sound much better.

 

[Farny]

I got the boat back last weekend and finally got some time to run some more wires. I fished the wires through the wake tower using neodymium magnets. Pretty straight forward and a lot easier than I thought. I taped 1 magnet to some fishing line and poked them through the holes I drilled and then used the stack of unused magnets to slide them along the aluminum tube down to the bottom and then taped the stack to a clothes hanger and stuck them in the factory hole at the bottom of the tower and snagged the original two and pulled them right out. Only took about 10 mins.

I don’t have a photo after I added the second pod to each bracket but this is where I mounted them. There will be 2 pods on each bracket for a total of 4 8” kickers. I ran 1 speaker wire and 1 RGB wire for each brack. I’ll daisy chain the RGB wires inside the pods together and ran a separate speaker wire to pair the two speakers together parallel for a 2 ohm load.

Same tower setup I used . 2 in Parallel each side Ktxm8s. They perform great with enough power.

 

[MillsyMO]

I went with a 1/2” marine grade plywood backer. Worked perfect.

 

[MillsyMO]

I finished the install yesterday. I’ve been worried that the 10” subs wouldn’t thump as hard being free air vs in an enclosure. I was wrong. These Polks slam hard. A lot better sound than in enclosure locked away in the engine compartment. ?

 

[MillsyMO]

Reading back through the posts I realized I never included photos of the 2 batteries installed on the starboard side. I wired them together parallel together and over to factory house battery.

 

[OB WI]

Reading back through the posts I realized I never included photos of the 2 batteries installed on the starboard side. I wired them together parallel together and over to factory house battery.

I have been thinking about adding additional on that side as well. As I know nothing about battery cabling what size is needed and how long of run did you need to make it to the starboard side? Thanks!

 

[MillsyMO]

I have been thinking about adding additional on that side as well. As I know nothing about battery cabling what size is needed and how long of run did you need to make it to the starboard side? Thanks!

The jumper cables between the two batteries I purchased premade from Walmart are 6 gauge and a set of them were less than $10. I purchased 20’ of 8 gauge wiring for my amp (40 total feet for positive run and neg) bc that’s what the amp is rated for but only needed roughly 3’ from battery to amp. I cut 10’ of the 8 gauge wiring and crimped battery connectors on and ran that from the the new batteries to connect it to the factory house battery. I zip tied it along the fire wall to existing wiring and tubing over to the factory house battery. I’m running 1 amp (tower speakers) directly to factory battery. 2 amps (boat speakers and subwoofers) are ran directly to one of the new batteries.
***disclosure I am NOT a professional electrician***. This is just my opinion from reading online and talking to electrician at work. He is the one who crimped my fittings to my 8 gauge wire bc I didn’t have large enough crimpers for 8 gauge wiring.

 

[adrianp89]

I would personally run 4 gauge for that battery distance, but 8 gauge will be fine. If I was running stereo off switch, I would be using 0 gauge.

 

[MillsyMO]

I was told the 8 gauge wire bridging the 2 batteries won’t have a large load on it. They’re just equalizing the battery voltage. I’m running 3 separate sets of 8 gauge wires to the 3 amps and those are the ones carrying the load. That’s the largest gauge wire that the amps will take and is recommended by the amp manufacture.

 

[jacoviii]

Can't wait to hear this in person.

 

[MillsyMO]

I wanted to give an update since I have had the boat out a few times since install. The battery situation is working perfect. The old battery I had I think was bad. The two new batteries run the stereo system just fine and the alternator/stator charges them great and doesn’t effect the starter battery by bleeding it when the onboard charger switches over to charge the house batteries.
Only issue I was having with the system was that I was getting a low volume hiss out of the speakers bc I was running too many RCA splitters. I resolved this issue by installing a powered hi output to rca 4 way jack off the stereo instead of a basic 2 way jack. The power wire gives it higher voltage to maintain quality signal when split several different times.

 

[jacoviii]

Sounds good. I had a setback with my audio upgrades. With my cavitation issue. I ruined the impellers. And that cost with new pump cones too. So maybe just a sub for me.

 

[MillsyMO]

Sounds good. I had a setback with my audio upgrades. With my cavitation issue. I ruined the impellers. And that cost with new pump cones too. So maybe just a sub for me.

How the heck did that happen?

 

[jacoviii]

Yamaha did a crap job on 2022 pump alignment, sealing and blending the edges in the pump tunnel. The 255 likes to over power the impellers at WO take off. Also some 252 owners have had issues.

 

[adrianp89]

Yamaha did a crap job on 2022 pump alignment, sealing and blending the edges in the pump tunnel. The 255 likes to over power the impellers at WO take off. Also some 252 owners have had issues.

Was it not covered under warranty?

 

[jacoviii]

It may have been but there is a bunch of wording on impellers not being covered. The dealer would have not smooth the tunnel. They may have moved the transom plate but it was only about 1/16" out. But my dealer is 3hrs away and I was without a boat for 2 months for steering system last year. It was just faster for me to do it.

 

[adrianp89]

It may have been but there is a bunch of wording on impellers not being covered. The dealer would have not smooth the tunnel. They may have moved the transom plate but it was only about 1/16" out. But my dealer is 3hrs away and I was without a boat for 2 months for steering system last year. It was just faster for me to do it.

I get it, my boat has been at the dealer for 3 weeks and they are just now looking at it. If I wasn’t getting electronic errors I would have fixed all the small shit my self…. So they got about 20 things on my list.