91 Factory Amp location and Bypass

[Shane91Explorer]

Is this damn factory amp going to be harder to bypass than doing a heater core? From the looks of the pciture I saw elsewhere on this site, it's in the hatch area (passenger side). What the hell is Ford thinking? Is there any EASY way of doing this? Any info would be useful! thanks

Shane

 

[Byrd91]

Bypassing the amp is not that hard, you are right about the location, but you might not need or want to do it depending on your situation. When I put in my headunit I didn't know anything about the factory amp and was quite pleased with the sound. Then I read about bypassing the amp so I did it and this is what I found. The factory sub no longer worked, which I knew would happen, but also the head unit was working much harder to put out the sound, especially bass to the door speakers. I actually switched it back to the factory setup with the new headunit. The only problem with this is that you start getting distortion from the factory amp before your head unit is maxed out because the factory headunit puts out a low level signal. However I got better and louder sound with the factory amp before distortion than I did with it bypassed. Now if you're amping all of your speakers, which I have done now, then you don't need the factory amp at all and you just want to tap into the speaker wires back at the amp, which isn't hard, I mananged to keep the whole harness intact. Let me know what exactly you are doing and I'll give you some more details.

 

[Shane91Explorer]

What are my options?

I'd like to not even mess with the factory amp. I bought the kit that plugs into the output of the amp, to run directly to the speakers. Of course, at that time, I was expecting the amp to be under the dash, or that there was NO amp. My biggest thing I am trying to get around is wiring the speakers directly from the new head unit. I've dealt with my decision to do that in my Mustang for far too long. I've broken way too many speaker wires in my years. How can I use my factory amp with the new head unit? Does anyone know of anyplace that sells the newer FORD stereos (that will fit in my 91)? I hear they are the same set-up as far as wiring. Thanks a bunch!

 

[Byrd91]

If you are just adding a new headunit all you have to do is put that in. You probably already have a wiring kit to connect it to the factory harness in the dash. If not you can pick on up at wal-mart for like $10, its the one for the Ford/Mazda premium sound. This will run the speaker outputs from your new headunit through the factory amp and to the speakers, no messing with the amp. Just make sure you don't crank your headunit too high (distorting) because then you could mess up your factory amp and speakers. The kit that bypasses the amp (which you already have) just connects the speaker output from the headunit to the speakers instead of the amp. You can try it both ways if you want and see which sounds better. Just take off the back panel and plug in the kit that you have. The panel isn't that hard to take off, I've done it several times. If I were you I would just put in the headunit and see how you like it first. Either way you DO NOT have to run new speaker wire from the head unit to the speakers, so don't worry about that.