2006 Chrysler 300C - Three Ways To Upgrade A 300C

When Chrysler reintroduced the 300 in 2004, the formidable four-door, rear-wheel-drive cruiser was an immediate hit with everyone from hip-hop stars to housewives. With elegant yet brawny styling, musclecar might thanks to a Hemi engine and Mercedes underpinnings, the car quickly became a modern-day icon of Detroit iron.

The stock speaker locations in the front doors would receive a 6.5" midrange and 0.75" tweeter from an MB Quart RVF 216 Reference component speaker set. The speakers would be hidden behind the stock grilles and each door would be treated with a Dynamat Xtreme Speaker Kit to minimize resonances. The factory speaker locations in the rear deck would house a pair of MB Quart DKF 116 Discus 6.5" coaxials, also covered by the stock grilles.

Bass would come from a JL Audio PowerWedge CS112RG-W3v3 with a 10" subwoofer. "For this system, we went with a little higher-end sub box," Cavanaugh says. "We also stepped it up with the amp for a better sound quality, and obviously more power." Getting the nod is a Genesis Profile 4 Ultra amplifier (100 watts x 4 into 4 ohms). "It also has a bass-control knob - can't live without that," Cavanaugh explains.

That's one of the reasons the crew at Sound In Motion in Alston, MA, picked it as the subject for this month's exercise in OEM upgrading. But it's also a vehicle the Boston-area shop is very familiar with. "We're doing one right now for a customer - putting in a high-end system," says Jim Cavanaugh, SIM's general manager. "We also did one for Manny Ramirez," he says, of the car-crazy Boston Red Sox slugger who is a regular customer.

"It's a very popular car," Cavanaugh adds. "But it's also a very difficult car to modify. There are a lot of things going on with this car and there's a lot of Mercedes technology in it. If you want to keep the factory head unit you have to use an interface. Some people shy away from removing the stock head, because if you want to change the radio you need a lot of expensive interfaces. The steering wheel controls for the stock audio system and the speed sensors for the stock navigation use a CAN bus. So you have to use two different interfaces to retain the steering wheel audio controls, and there's also a separate $250 interface for the speed sensor. It's a pricey car to do."

Here's what Cavanaugh says the Sound In Motion crew would do with a 2006 Chrysler 300C given three ascending price points.

Good For a basic upgrade to the stock system, Sound In Motion would just add bass, leaving the factory head unit and speakers wholly intact. For this they'd use a JL Audio PowerWedge CP110G-W1v2 prefab enclosure with a 10" subwoofer mounted in the trunk. "It's portable so you can move it around," Cavanaugh says.

A small mono amplifier would power the subwoofer, and for this Cavanaugh recommends the Alpine MRP-M450 (220 watts x 1 into 4 ohms). "The amp is pretty small so it can be hidden anywhere in the trunk, like underneath the rear deck," Cavanaugh says. "Or it could go under the front seats. There's lots of room in that car and a lot of places to mount it." The amplified signal coming out of the stock system's amplifier would be tapped to feed the speaker-level inputs of the Alpine amp. "To do this you'd have to use an amp like the Alpine that has speaker-level inputs," Cavanaugh notes. A PAC remote subwoofer-level control would be added so that the level of bass can be adjusted to blend with the stock system. The the bass control knob would be mounted on the dash or in center console.

To tie it all together, they'd use a Tsunami signal cable, 4-gauge power and ground wire, a 4-gauge fuseholder and fuse, 12-gauge speaker cable and miscellaneous connectors. "This just upgrades the bass performance of the stock system," Cavanaugh comments. "It would introduce real bass to the system."

Good System JL Audio PowerWedge CP110G-W1v2PAC remote subwoofer controlAlpine MRP-M450Tsunami accessoriesEquipment$660 Materials $160 Labor (5-7 hrs)$600 - $700 Total$1,520