February 6, 2006:

Another way to replace the HK

A while ago on NorthAmericanMotoring was another interesting discussion about upgrading an HK equipped MINI - the basic problem is that the HK amp requires to “talk” to the stock head unit (unless you fool it with an HKenabler); also the speakers are tailored to the HK amp, with no crossover (filtering is done inside the amp) and dual-voice-coil rear speakers.

However, there’s always a way if you work at it, and magic mini successfully replaced the HK amp while keeping the HK speakers - you can read his post on NAM here and see pictures of the install here.

With permission, I copied a couple of the most interesting pictures …

Here magic mini has the original HK amp removed, exposing the wiring and a space!

Now magic mini has the car interior stripped down, and is ready to connect the new amp to the origjnal wiring:

Here all the wires have been connected:

magic mini had hoped to fit the new Alpine in the original HK amp position:

Sadly it did not fit, so eventually the amp is installed on the floor of the trunk:

Great work magic mini, and thanks for permission to run this story. If anyone else is thinking of doing the same, please realize that you need a good understanding of wiring / speaker impedance / crossovers / etc to make it work!