It is face plate up, you can see the cut out in the foam attached to the pass. side wheel well cover. Also look very closly for the wiring, the terminal looks more like a computer keyboard connector that anything on audio equipment (it gets mistaken all the time). It would be pain to run that cable all the way back. In regards to mounting, you need to make sure that it is "fully suspened" and is only contacting the car via the bracket and not touching the bottom of the wheel well at all, otherwise it will skip over every bump in the road.