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94' stereo info question

boggs1227

Explorer Addict
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February 19, 2008
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City, State
Flowery Branch , Georgia, 1994 sport 2wd auto
Year, Model & Trim Level
2005 colorado 2wd 5spd
i was wondering does any body have have any stereo info on a 94 explorer. i was thinking about removeing the kenwood head unit from my other truck to put into the explorer but seeing that i would have to bypass the factory amp to do so i remembered that i had this little device in my collection of spare audio parts .
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i had thought about takeing the kenwood cd unit and hook up the speaker leads to the unit then i may have to go buy a harness to hook into the trucks radio wireing and hook that into the scosche converter box so ...

...... it would be from the radio to the coverter box then to the factory amp then last out to the speakers in the truck .( and of course tweek the gains on the converter box to match the factory amp )

i guess what i really need to know is this:

- what is the factory's amp's turn on voltage ? from a regular radio it would the the blue wire ( 12 + )

- is this feasable ? ( i mean i know i could just re-wire all of it but for now it would be a lot simpler and easier to just deal with the radio location wireing in the dash)

-if i turn all the gains down on the box ( of course they will be i don't want to blow out the factory amp if i can help it ) would there still be a chance that the factory amp would not be able to do what i am thinking ?

thanks for any advice :)
 






The thing about bypassing the factory amp (besides the overpriced $20 bypass plug) is that it makes the signal wires from the head unit to the amp carry the wattage from the head unit to the speakers.

The Scosche box is for using an aftermarket head unit with a factory amp, I'm not sure it would be much use when just bypassing the amp. It'll probably work ok for using the amp with the head unit.

The factory amp's turn on voltage is the same ~12V as any other amp, I used aftermarket head units with the factory amp before and the blue wire turns it on just fine.

You can probably get away with it for awhile, but even if it works ok, using speaker inputs with an adapter box to lower the signal level isn't that great of a setup.

If you have aftermarket speakers, I'd suggest just springing for an aftermarket amp to power them, and running the RCA cables from the Kenwood unit to the amp, then using the factory speaker wiring (putting the new amp in the stock location allows this) from the amp to the speakers. You can get nice 4 channel units (or even better, 5 channel for adding a sub) for cheap on ebay. Well worth it for the sound quality.

The factory amp's 10% THD is insane compared to the lower levels of aftermarket amps or even the amp in aftermarket head units. I'd run the speakers off the head unit before using the factory amp. Not the easiest thing to do in the Explorer, though. Messing with factory & aftermarket combos is ok for a temporary setup, but life gets easier and things sound better just going all the way with an aftermarket system.
 






Boggs, check the wiring diagrams I have posted. There is a link to them in my signature. they are all downloadable as PDF files.
 






thanks guys.... yeah it would be easier for me to do all my wireing at the dash/radio location instead of running new speaker wires and seeing that mines a sport that means i got to remove the whole dam wall to get to the rear ones ....headache. i did check out the diagrams and i think that they will help .....and also i found out that the pcm connector is there to and which pins go to what engine sensor / system ...good to know now that if i got a problem that i can't fix i can go right to the correct pin .
 






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