NNBS Electrical Upgrade Write Up – BIG 3 and Audio (56k Warning)

[Modded]

NNBS Upgrade Write Up – BIG 3 and Audio System Install

I decided to make a write up that is easy to understand about upgrading the stock electrical system on the NNBS. I did the BIG 3 and Ran some wires for the new Audio system I am in the process of building. I tried to make it as step by step as possible so it VERY LONG.
In the BIG 3 wiring upgrade the positive battery wire to the alternator needs to be upgraded to a thicker gauge. The negative battery terminal should also be grounded directly to the chassis with the same thick gauge. You will also need to upgrade the engine to chassis ground in the same thick gauge. On the NNBS, the negative battery terminal is grounded to the engine block only, not the chassis. In the write up I change that and ground it to the chassis while also adding a separate ground wire from the chassis to engine block.
As for the positive wiring, the factory positive terminal has two wires coming out from it. One goes to somewhere under the engine block. The other is short and goes to the factory fused distribution block. The block then separates this wire into two thinner wires which go to the engine fuse box and alternator.
I felt to do this big 3 correctly it would be good to still utilize the factory distribution block. So I ran a short length of 0 gauge wire from the battery to the fuse box, then a longer cut of 0 gauge from the fused portion of the distribution block to the alternator. I left the dist/ block to engine bay fuse box wire intact. I then ran the other wire that use to go to the stock positive terminal to the bottom unfused potion of the distribution block.
I will not make out a list of parts I used. Instead, I will cover/list the parts as the steps go on.
On to the Write Up:
I gathered all the parts together for the build in the pic below. The retailer I bought the spool (50 feet) of Kicker Hyperflex 0 Gauge wire from through in a set of Kicker headphones for free.


I started with a pic of my engine bay to show the relative locations and stock set up. I also have an 8 gauge wiring kit for my old audio setup in there. Ignore it because if you do not have an aftermarket audio system you will not have a wire like the red one I have running along the top. I also have the power wire for my HIDs the yellow one) showing. Ignore that also if you do not have HIDs. And yeah I know my engine bay is dusty. I have been meaning to wash it off lately but haven’t in about three months.



You will need to remove the battery next. Disconnect the positive and negative terminals with a 10mm deep socket and a ratchet. Then you will have to remove the fender elbow above the battery so that you can get the battery out. You will need a 12mm socket for this. There are four bolts that hold it in.
Then remove the battery base clamp with a 13mm deep socket and an extension. I pointed to beside it with the socket.
This is what the clamp looks like after removal.
Now after the battery is out it will look like this.

For those wondering, the engine cover has two girls airbrushed on it.


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[/COLOR]After I got the battery out I wiped it down and reinstalled it in a flipped position. So now the terminals face in, not out. You will have to do this if you have the stock battery (or an aftermarket replacement battery with the same casing as the stock one) because the terminals are recessed. It is impossible to install aftermarket battery terminals (which you need for such a build) while the battery is in the stock position due to these recessed terminals. This is what it looks like flipped and cleaned up.
Next, you need to locate the stock fused distribution block. It is pictured in the last step to the immediate top right of the battery. Remove the cover by squeezing the sides of the cover. After removal it looks like this.
Again, ignore my amp connection to the distribution block. BTW, if you are ever installing a minor system (500w RMS and under) get your power before the dist. block fuse, not after. This prevents a possible electrical cripple if something shorts out. Also fuse your amp wire right before it gets to the front portion of the distribution block like I did to mine.
Next, remove the red plastic OE positive battery terminal wiring cover. You can use a flat screw driver to do this. Just slip it in the sides and pop them up.
It will look like this when you get the top of the cover off.
It will then look like this with the whole thing off.
Now you will need to follow the two positive terminal wires. One goes to the fused distribution block. The other goes to the underside of the engine bay. Cut the wire that goes to under the engine bay from the factory terminal. It is crimped so well from the factory it cannot be pulled from the terminal. It looks like this after being cut with a metal snip. Exercise caution when using these snips because they are sharp enough to seriously injure you.
I then removed the other positive terminal wire from the distribution block with a 13mm deep socket. Then you can completely remove the stock positive terminal wiring.
The terminal looks like this after removing the wire from the above pic.
Again, ignore the red aftermarket wire. Now, use the last pic to remove the connector that goes from the distribution block to the alternator. It is on the bottom part of the fused block and you will need a 13mm deep socket for removal.
The two positive wires after the distribution block fuse go to the engine bay fuse box and alternator. The wire at the back of the alt. that goes to the distribution block looks like this.
After removing the wire connector from the dist. block, remove the stock engine cover by pulling the front up gently, then out. It will look like this after it is out.

 

[Modded]

Next, remove the wire connector from the back of the alternator. You will need a 10mm deep socket to remove this connector. After removing it thread the bolt back on so you do not lose it.
The stock positive terminal wires from the terminal to the distribution block, and from the terminal to under the engine, appear to be a 4 Gauge/AWG setup. Every other positive wire after the distribution block appears to be 8 Gauge/AWG.
Back to the steps, in the last pic you can see the route the alternator battery charging wire takes back to the distribution block. It uses split loom to route it to the block. It also goes through a connector by the engine oil cover that look like this.
It is the top wire with split loom in the last pic. Use a flat head to pop the clip connector off and remove the wire from it.
After removing it from the clip it looks like this after it is out of the engine bay.
Comparison pic of the stock alternator to distribution block wire with the Kicker Hyperflex 0 gauge wire.
Now another comparison pic of the stock wiring that goes from the positive battery terminal to somewhere under the engine block with the Kicker 0 gauge. Keep in mind this stock wire, and the one that goes from the battery to the dist. block, are thicker than the wires after the dist. block.
Now you will need to locate where the negative terminal wiring goes. It goes to an area on the engine block pictured here.
This is right behind the factory e fans to the left side of the engine towards the coolant tank. Remove this battery to engine ground with a 15mm wrench or socket.
After removing the bolt it looks like this. It turned out being a two sided threaded bolt. The other two nuts beside it in the pic are from the distribution block.
Next, near the area where the battery base clamp is where the negative terminal wire is ran with split loom through a clip to the engine block.
This clip is not removable so you will need to just pull the negative battery terminal wire out through the top of it. Do not do this yet because there is another small ground wire that is ran in this split loom that goes towards the e-fan area.
In the above pic I slid the split loom up to reveal the smaller ground wire. Here is another pic of the wire at the top right where it enter the negative battery terminal with the bigger wire that goes to the engine block.

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Use some snips to cut the smaller wire near the terminal entrance area. Then you will be able to remove the bigger negative wire from the clip.
At this point, all the stock wiring should be out. They look like this laying on the floor.
Now on to replacing the removed wires.
First, locate the stock strut mount on the passenger side (left side of engine bay) and remove one of the three bolts holding the factory front shock/strut in with an 18mm deep socket. I chose the one closest to the engine. I pointed to it with this deep socket and extension.
Then I used a wire oxidation terminal brush to remove the chassis rubberized paint where this strut bolt holds down to the chassis. Vey coarse grit sand paper will also work.
It looked like this after I sanded it a bit and before I cleaned it up.
Now get out the 0 gauge wire you will be using.
Now, use a set of metal snips to cut out the distribution block to alternator wiring from the 0 gauge spool. You will need a 51” cut of it. There will be lug terminals installed at each end of this wire.

Next, cut a 24.5” cut of 0 gauge wire for the negative terminal to chassis ground wire. There will only be one lug terminal installed to one of the ends of this wire.
While I was measuring the wire out the spool fell and broke. As you can see, the wire is pretty heavy.
Next, cut the positive terminal wire that runs from the positive aftermarket battery terminal to the factory distribution block. You will need 17” of this. It will need a lug terminal at one end.

 

[Modded]

Next, cut the engine ground wire to chassis wire for your system. It is 15”. It will use lug terminals on both ends. This step can be skipped for those not installing an aftermarket audio system.
Next, cut 11” of the 0 gauge wire that will be used for the positive aftermarket battery terminal to the audio system circuit breaker. Now lug terminals will be installed on this one.
The wire is pretty flexible for such a thick wire.
You will need to snip off some plastic from the factory dist. block to be able to fit the lug terminals to be installed on the 0 gauge wire. The metal snips do this nicely. Don’t trim too much and try the lug terminals on as you trim.
Now the lug terminal fits nicely.
Now, you will need a dremel to trim some plastic from the dist. block cover so that it can still go back on after adding three thick aftermarket lug terminals. Again don’t trim too much. Here is how mine looked before I started trimming. Keep in mind I have already trimmed some in this pic to accommodate my old 8 gauge amp kit.
After trimming off all the area where lugs will be installed the cover looks like this.
You will only need to trim the area where the top left and bottom right lugs are in this pic. The bottom left area does not need trimming. Now it fits on like a charm with the lugs.
Now I whipped out the crimping tools. Here I used ¾ heat shrink, a Cobalt lug terminal crimp tool, a big hammer, butane lighter, and some 1/0-3/0 tinned lug terminals with 5/8 mount holes. I chose tinned terminals because they do not oxidize over time and lose conductibility. Neither will they start to look like a nasty penny over time. This, along with the tinned OFC Kicker 0 gauge wire, ensure a very long time of service.
Now, that wire that ran from the stock positive terminal to under the engine will be fitted with a lug terminal first. You will need to remove it from the engine bay by undoing the clip on the A/C lines and pulling it out from under the passenger side tire. This is the only way to crimp it because the crimp tool has to be on a strong solid surface when in use. Insert it in the crimp tool.

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Now hammer down with the hammer three times. It is now crimped.
Now use the butane lighter and shrink the heat shrink. I then zip tied the bottom end because this wire will be in an open side down position after being reinstalled. This was done just to ensure extra protection.
Here are the Rockford Fosgate battery terminal and circuit breakers I used. You can see the part numbers.
These terminals have little adapters in them from the factory that allow for 0 and 4 gauge wires to be used. I removed all the adapters so that I can fit my 0 gauge wires.
SIDE STEP: I also upgraded my stock speakers with some entry level Pioneer speakers. They sound a lot clearer but lack bass. I also used the Scosche SHGM03B wiring adapter and Scosche SAGMHR634B speaker adapter to install these. With these adapters all you need to do is screw the speaker to the Scosche speaker adaters and then remove the door panel and unscrew/unplug the factory speaker. Then plug the Scochse wiring adapter output to the aftermarket speakers and the input to the factory speaker harness.

While installing 0 gauge wire you will need to trim a few strands to allow the wires to fit in the necessary install hardware.
This is exactly what your new 0 gauge wires should look like with all the necessary hardware right before re-installation. From top to bottom it is the:
• Distribution block to alternator wire
• Negative terminal to chassis wire
• Engine block to chassis ground wire
• Positive terminal to audio circuit breaker wire
• Positive terminal to distribution block wire

Does my wiring above or the stock one below look better haha?

 

[Modded]

Pics of reinstalled wire

Engine block connection.
This is the ground for the engine block and negative battery terminal.
This is the factory dist. block with the installed wire. The bottom left one is the factory wire that runs to under the engine block that I crimped first. I ran this wire through the clip that the stock negative battery terminal to engine block wire used to run through before I ran it to the distribution block. The bottom right goes to the alternator. The top left goes to the positive battery terminal.
Dist. block cover replaced
Alternator wire replaced.
NOW YOU’RE DONE IF YOU ARE ONLY DOING THE BIG 3.
READ ON IF YOU ARE INSTALLING AN AUDIO SYSTEM.
These steps will not be as step to step as the BIG 3 part.
First I measured out a generous amount of 0 gauge that can run to the gas tank area.

Then I ran the wire from the engine bay to behind the factory wheel liner alongside a factory split loomed harness that runs to the exact same area I plan on going to.

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Now just follow this factory harness to the rear with the 0 gauge wire and zip tire the wire to the harness.

This is where the harness runs to buy the back side of the gas door.
This is the triangular stamped area that I used to reference my drilled hole. Does it look familiar?
That stamped area is where the factory cargo area driver side hook bolts to. I used it because I planned to drill the center of my wire hole 3” to the immediate left of the area so that I will be behind the interior quarter panel trim.


This is the back side of the interior quarter panel trim where my hole will be.
Now I measured the 3” under the car and put an x mark where I wanted the hole. The center (intersection) of the x should be the center of your hole.

 

[Modded]

This is the 0 gauge wire slowly moving towards the rear. This is a view from the rear wheel liner before I squeezed under and zip tied the wire to the factory harness I was following. The factory harness is behind the wheel liner in this pic.
Next, you will need a bi metal hole saw with an arbor, pilot bit and a drill.
Connected up and about to drill.

Hole has successfully been drilled.
Next, I used my Stinger 0 gauge wire firewall grommet to run my 0 gauge wires through. I added a piece of customized rubber to further prevent water entrance through the grommet.
I then popped off the rear cargo area sill panel along with the quarter panel interior trim.
I then assembled the grommet and mounted it. Then I ran the wire through.
You can kind of see the wire here again.

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This is the wire ran though the bottom and zip tied.
Now this is my ground wire for the amp. It is 40” long. I know it supposed to be 3 feet but it will be alright. Note the Stinger SPT521 gauge reducer on the right side of the wire. I will be using a Rockford T1500-bdCP amplifier that has 4 gauge terminals so I need a reducer. These reducers are just about as nice as they get. They are real heavy and of high quality. They also come with rings that can be interchanged to show which wire they are installed on as you can tell by my positive red one at the side. They are also the screw down type not crimp so all you need is an allen key.
Engine bay all wrapped up. My red 8 gauge wire is still installed because I will be installing a train horn soon.
Then tumble up the factory seats and remove the beauty trim cover under the seats to expose their mounts. I grounded my amplifier under the beauty cover and ran the wire under the carpet to the quarter trim area. I also ran 12 gauge speaker wires from the quarter trim area under the carpet to under the beauty cover for my amp to sub box connections.
Remove the rear driver side seat belt lower mount with a ¼ allen key.
I then popped off trim from the driver side front all the way to the rear to run my remote amp turn on and RCA cable. My RCA cable exits my Pioneer AVHP4300DVD head unit via a 3 foot shielded Monster cable and goes to a Pure AV RCA coupler. You can also see the red fuse holder for my remote turn on lead. It is a good idea to fuse this wire to avoid your audio system messing up factory electronics.

 

[Modded]

Here is my new 12 foot Pure AV RCA cable
I then ran the new RCA from the coupler under my steering kick panel alongside the factory wire harness under the door sills all the way to the rear quarter panel area. In this pic it is almost two the rear.
Now the wire is in the quarter panel car jack compartment area. It is zip tied to the harnees it ran alongside of in this pic. I also have the remote wire ran alongside the RCA cord. In this pic all the wires needed by the amp have reached the compartment.

In this pic all the panels have been reinstalled.
BTW, in case you are wondering, all my wires are ran to the quarter panel area because I will be building an amp rack on that panel. I will upload pics of that soon.
NOW THIS WRITE UP IS DONE FINALLY

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EXTRAS:
I wired in some rocker switches to control my train horn and sub amplifier. With these switches I can turn off the subwoofer amplifier completely when I want/need to. I can also turn on and off my soon to be installed train horn. In the off position only my stock horn will function. In the on position both the train horn and stock horn will function. The switches also have LEDs installed on them. I decided to mod them in to a location where they are not visible. I used a drill to make a hole that I could dremel out into a bigger hole to fit the switches. I also had to mount the switches in a way that would allow for the headlight control trim piece to reinstall with no issues. I then ran the train horn switch wires through the factory firewall grommet to the engine bay fuse box where I used an “add-a-fuse” tap to get the signal from the factory horn.

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If there are any mistakes or confusions in this write up let me know. I was too lazy to proof read it haha. Also, please do not quote this post because it will make this thread a dread to read.

 

[Denali0229]

Nice work Neo. I like your seats! It's going to be a shame when you get a new truck and have to take all this out and do it over again! Very informative thread.

 

[mattah]

great write up! Nice job man, you make it look easy

 

[Modded]

Nice work Neo. I like your seats! It's going to be a shame when you get a new truck and have to take all this out and do it over again! Very informative thread.

I refuse to take anything out. I am going to have to find someone that wants it as is because it will take too long to part out. The only thing I will agree to remove is the train horn. I even want to leave the audio system in it too.

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great write up! Nice job man, you make it look easy

Thanks!

 

[mikey42_69]

The instrument cluster looks to be glowing Blue. RPM and MPH and etc. How do you do that? Mines glows green.