Motorcycle Audio

Side-by-sides and golf carts are a big part of the work we do at Pinnacle Autosound. A type of vehicle we are capable of working on, but don’t see as much of are 4-wheeler ATV’s. One of our Pinnacle team members recently purchased a Polaris Sportsman, so we were excited to get to outfit it with some of our products. Our plan was to upgrade the 4-wheeler stereo system and add some awesome lighting, so the ATV would look and sound good, day and night.

Rockford Fosgate Moto-Can Speakers

The rear of the pods feature Rockford logos that can be rotated.

The pod speakers were bolted to the front frame.

We used our laser to make some custom badges for the speakers.

Adding speakers on a 4-wheeler can be a pretty challenging task. There are not a lot of places to install traditional speakers. We had to look somewhat outside the box to come up with a solution on this bike. The answer for this 4-wheeler stereo speaker upgrade was to look to the Rockford Fosgate lineup of powersports speakers. Rockford Fosgate has a line of smaller tower speakers, called Moto-Cans. These speaker pods feature the great-sounding marine audio speakers we love, in a small, rugged plastic housing. In addition to offering great sound, the pods also include front AND rear lighting, something unique to this type of product.

Mounting the speakers took a bit of ingenuity. The speakers are designed to be clamped to a thicker bar, such as those found on a roll cage or wake tower. This 4-wheeler, however, only had thin metal tubes. We found that if we took apart the clamp assembly, that the bolt holes for it lined up perfectly with the thinner bars on the front storage rack. This allowed us to through-bolt the pod speakers securely to the front rack.

Clarion, JL Audio and Rockford Fosgate Electronics

Now that we had some speakers on the Polaris, it was time to send some audio to them. We accomplished this through the use of a JL Audio Bluetooth receiver. The Bluetooth controller was mounted between the handlebars, for easy access while riding. The output of the controller was sent to a Clarion four-channel amplifier. The Clarion amplifier is marine rated, so it can handle any punishment it may take on off-road excursions. The final piece of the electronics puzzle was to add in a controller for the lighting we were installing. The Rockford Fosgate lighting controller we chose offers the user many different color, and pattern settings via a smartphone interface. The lighting controller and the Clarion amplifier were mounted on a Starboard (HDPE) plastic board that we custom cut to fit the front storage area in the Polaris.

4-Wheeler Stereo Setup and Lighting

The lighting pods give great lighting coverage on this Polaris ATV.

The rear of the Rockford Fosgate pods feature a lit logo.

The front of the speaker pods have RGB lighting.

With the electronics secured, it was time to add the rest of the lighting to the ATV. The lighting source we chose were small lighting pods by LEDGlow. These little circular pods are designed for use on motorcycles and powersports vehicles. They put off quite a bit of light and have a very small footprint. The pods were mounted and then the wiring neatly routed to the lighting controller.

The final step of the stereo and lighting package for this Polaris Sportsman was to set the amplifier gain controls and crossovers and test out the lighting. The result of all of the hard work was a 4-wheeler stereo system that was loud and clear enough to be heard, even at wide open throttle. In addition to great sound, the 4-wheeler lighting additions would ensure the ATV looked great, and was even safer, when the sun went down.

We loved the challenge of fitting a full audio system and custom lighting on this 4-wheeler, if you have a similar ATV and would like to know what we could do to help it look and sound better, stop by with it sometime. We will take a look at it and go over with you options to fit your goals and budget.