Ok, so here's my long-ass Hogtunes system installation story. I'll include my overall experience of Hogtunes and the installation, along with some tips and tricks I learned along the way.
It all started when I decided that I wanted to do a mod to my 2017 SGS where I could have a detachable King Tour Pak along with the speaker pods, so that required getting some kind of 4-channel amp/speaker system. There's obviously lots to choose out there and my initial thought was to stay OEM and go with the Boom stage I. Overall I was looking for a system that would be better than stock, but not cost an arm and a leg and also be relatively plug and play if I was going to install myself. OEM was probably not a self-install since I'd need to flash the system. There's also some very high quality aftermarket amps and speakers out there, but they are generally not plug and play and generally pretty expensive.
I kept coming back to the Hogtunes system as I continued my search, it was mid-level upgrade from all the reviews I read, and also mid-level price. Some reviews I read said Hogtunes was junk, others said it was fine for a mid-level system and support was great. After I found a 4-channel system on ebay for $699 (included the amp, 4 speakers, and all wiring harnesses), with a 15% ebay coupon which took the price to $599 (no tax, no ship), and finding some nice Hogtunes installation videos online, I ended up pulling the trigger on that system. The system was called the Big Ultra Kit, NCA 450 U (for 2014+ Harleys), which seemed to be the best match for my setup, I was basically creating a 4-channel system like on the Ultra, which this kit was designed for (although the instructions included installation options for my SGS + tour pak setup, which helped seal the deal).
Received the kit in about 5 days, and all the contents looked good quality, and with the installation video didn't seem too hard to install. Step 1 ended up being about the hardest part of the install, and almost shut down the project completely, and that was to take off the front speaker pods and replace the speakers. I had never taken off the fairing before, but that actually was very simple and I'm impressed with how Harley has designed it to be so easy to do (much easier than my Victory XCT).
The hard part came when trying to remove the three speaker pod side bolts under the fairing bracket for each pod that are in very difficult to get to locations (the other pod bolts are easy to remove). The videos I found online showed the best way to remove the pod side bolts was to use a socket extension with pivot joint on the end with hex bit, so you could angle the tool into place to remove the bolts. Funny how all the online videos I found on this didn't actually show the bolts being removed, just the before and after with comments about how difficult it was to do. For me it wasn't just difficult, I just couldn't actually do it with that method, tried for a couple of hours and couldn't get it done. Then I went back to the install videos and saw a comment on one in the comments section, which said that one trick if people were having a hard time with those bolts was that instead of the socket extension with pivot head and hex bit, use a 11mm pivot-head box wrench. I found an inexpensive set of pivot head box wrenches on Amazon, and after I received them I tried the 11mm one, and sure enough, I had all the bolts out in about 10 mins. This one tip saved my project from cancellation for sure. I then removed the front speaker pods and installed the hogtunes speakers, then re-installed the pods on the fairing, pretty easy to do.
Next step was to install amp and hook up plug and play connections to front speakers, this was pretty easy with the included amp bracket and molex harness connectors, not much to say here. You can watch the online videos to see which colors to which speaker pods, but it's pretty evident given the length of the wires, so it's hard to get it wrong.
Next step was running the power cable to the battery and speaker cable for the rear speakers. Hogtunes recommends both cables to be run over the gas tank and under the tank cover, which works out pretty well with no major issues, just have to remove the front and back tank cover bolts, loosen the gas cap, and run one cable on each side of the tank cover, not too many issues there. Then connect the power to the battery, not as bad as I thought although you have to move a few wires above the battery, move the ECM out of the way and then detach the battery cover. Overall not too bad, and I think much easier than other installs that recommend removing the tank and running the wires underneath.
Next step was to connect the rear speaker pods to the speaker wire harness. I forgot to mention earlier that I was impressed with the Hogtunes speaker clips, they are designed for locking onto the speaker tabs to prevent coming off from all the riding vibration, bumps, etc, nice design. I also forgot to mention that the Hogtunes speakers look very nice as well, the front speakers have huge magnets, much larger than stock, and the back speakers have smaller magnets but still larger than stock Ultra. However later I would find that they don't sound quite as good as they look, more on that below. So the big issue on the wiring harness with this kit is it's designed for the Ultra, with a big 16-pin molex Y-splice cable intended to splice in between the rear wiring harness on an Ultra, which however doesn't exist on an SGS. The kit also comes with an optional rear speaker harness that connects to the speakers with the nice lock pins, but has a female 4-pin molex connection at the other end. So at this point I'm thinking how do I make this connection to marry the 16-pin molex to the 4-pin molex?
So I then contact Hogtunes support, just to make sure I don't do something stupid with the wiring. I explain my setup to them, and the original response is you can't do that with your SGS, this is an Ultra kit. I explained my setup and that the instructions even speak to this kind of a setup as an option. Their response then was to cut and splice the cables together, and they instructed which were left/right, pos/neg. My thought to that is if I splice it then how am I going to have what the original intent of the upgrade is, to have a plug and play detachable tour pak? So before I started cutting wires (so glad I didn't), I hit the internet again to find ideas. I ended up stumbling across some molex connector videos, and realized that if I purchased a male 4-pin molex, I could simply pull out the proper wires/pins from the 16-pin molex connector, and put them into a purchased 4-pin molex, and I would have my detachable connection. Surprisingly enough, this worked perfectly, no splicing required, just had to learn how to remove/add pins to molex connector.
After all that, and putting the rear speakers in place and connecting them, it was time to test the system and then button down all the wires. Turned on the system and everything worked, sound was pretty good, although not great, I'm a bit of an audiophile and I just wasn't that impressed with the sound, although it was clearly better than stock OEM. And it was about what I expected for a mid-level priced system, although I was hoping for a bit better. I then tied all the cables down, one of the keys is getting the power and rear speaker cables tied close to the center of the bike so they don't hit when you turn the front fairing fully left and right. That accomplished, I put the fairing back on and was ready to take it for a test ride down the road. That's when it got interesting....
See part 2 of 2
It all started when I decided that I wanted to do a mod to my 2017 SGS where I could have a detachable King Tour Pak along with the speaker pods, so that required getting some kind of 4-channel amp/speaker system. There's obviously lots to choose out there and my initial thought was to stay OEM and go with the Boom stage I. Overall I was looking for a system that would be better than stock, but not cost an arm and a leg and also be relatively plug and play if I was going to install myself. OEM was probably not a self-install since I'd need to flash the system. There's also some very high quality aftermarket amps and speakers out there, but they are generally not plug and play and generally pretty expensive.
I kept coming back to the Hogtunes system as I continued my search, it was mid-level upgrade from all the reviews I read, and also mid-level price. Some reviews I read said Hogtunes was junk, others said it was fine for a mid-level system and support was great. After I found a 4-channel system on ebay for $699 (included the amp, 4 speakers, and all wiring harnesses), with a 15% ebay coupon which took the price to $599 (no tax, no ship), and finding some nice Hogtunes installation videos online, I ended up pulling the trigger on that system. The system was called the Big Ultra Kit, NCA 450 U (for 2014+ Harleys), which seemed to be the best match for my setup, I was basically creating a 4-channel system like on the Ultra, which this kit was designed for (although the instructions included installation options for my SGS + tour pak setup, which helped seal the deal).
Received the kit in about 5 days, and all the contents looked good quality, and with the installation video didn't seem too hard to install. Step 1 ended up being about the hardest part of the install, and almost shut down the project completely, and that was to take off the front speaker pods and replace the speakers. I had never taken off the fairing before, but that actually was very simple and I'm impressed with how Harley has designed it to be so easy to do (much easier than my Victory XCT).
The hard part came when trying to remove the three speaker pod side bolts under the fairing bracket for each pod that are in very difficult to get to locations (the other pod bolts are easy to remove). The videos I found online showed the best way to remove the pod side bolts was to use a socket extension with pivot joint on the end with hex bit, so you could angle the tool into place to remove the bolts. Funny how all the online videos I found on this didn't actually show the bolts being removed, just the before and after with comments about how difficult it was to do. For me it wasn't just difficult, I just couldn't actually do it with that method, tried for a couple of hours and couldn't get it done. Then I went back to the install videos and saw a comment on one in the comments section, which said that one trick if people were having a hard time with those bolts was that instead of the socket extension with pivot head and hex bit, use a 11mm pivot-head box wrench. I found an inexpensive set of pivot head box wrenches on Amazon, and after I received them I tried the 11mm one, and sure enough, I had all the bolts out in about 10 mins. This one tip saved my project from cancellation for sure. I then removed the front speaker pods and installed the hogtunes speakers, then re-installed the pods on the fairing, pretty easy to do.
Next step was to install amp and hook up plug and play connections to front speakers, this was pretty easy with the included amp bracket and molex harness connectors, not much to say here. You can watch the online videos to see which colors to which speaker pods, but it's pretty evident given the length of the wires, so it's hard to get it wrong.
Next step was running the power cable to the battery and speaker cable for the rear speakers. Hogtunes recommends both cables to be run over the gas tank and under the tank cover, which works out pretty well with no major issues, just have to remove the front and back tank cover bolts, loosen the gas cap, and run one cable on each side of the tank cover, not too many issues there. Then connect the power to the battery, not as bad as I thought although you have to move a few wires above the battery, move the ECM out of the way and then detach the battery cover. Overall not too bad, and I think much easier than other installs that recommend removing the tank and running the wires underneath.
Next step was to connect the rear speaker pods to the speaker wire harness. I forgot to mention earlier that I was impressed with the Hogtunes speaker clips, they are designed for locking onto the speaker tabs to prevent coming off from all the riding vibration, bumps, etc, nice design. I also forgot to mention that the Hogtunes speakers look very nice as well, the front speakers have huge magnets, much larger than stock, and the back speakers have smaller magnets but still larger than stock Ultra. However later I would find that they don't sound quite as good as they look, more on that below. So the big issue on the wiring harness with this kit is it's designed for the Ultra, with a big 16-pin molex Y-splice cable intended to splice in between the rear wiring harness on an Ultra, which however doesn't exist on an SGS. The kit also comes with an optional rear speaker harness that connects to the speakers with the nice lock pins, but has a female 4-pin molex connection at the other end. So at this point I'm thinking how do I make this connection to marry the 16-pin molex to the 4-pin molex?
So I then contact Hogtunes support, just to make sure I don't do something stupid with the wiring. I explain my setup to them, and the original response is you can't do that with your SGS, this is an Ultra kit. I explained my setup and that the instructions even speak to this kind of a setup as an option. Their response then was to cut and splice the cables together, and they instructed which were left/right, pos/neg. My thought to that is if I splice it then how am I going to have what the original intent of the upgrade is, to have a plug and play detachable tour pak? So before I started cutting wires (so glad I didn't), I hit the internet again to find ideas. I ended up stumbling across some molex connector videos, and realized that if I purchased a male 4-pin molex, I could simply pull out the proper wires/pins from the 16-pin molex connector, and put them into a purchased 4-pin molex, and I would have my detachable connection. Surprisingly enough, this worked perfectly, no splicing required, just had to learn how to remove/add pins to molex connector.
After all that, and putting the rear speakers in place and connecting them, it was time to test the system and then button down all the wires. Turned on the system and everything worked, sound was pretty good, although not great, I'm a bit of an audiophile and I just wasn't that impressed with the sound, although it was clearly better than stock OEM. And it was about what I expected for a mid-level priced system, although I was hoping for a bit better. I then tied all the cables down, one of the keys is getting the power and rear speaker cables tied close to the center of the bike so they don't hit when you turn the front fairing fully left and right. That accomplished, I put the fairing back on and was ready to take it for a test ride down the road. That's when it got interesting....
See part 2 of 2
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