my setup and wiring

[TheMattDaddy]

Alright guys, here's the setup that I've decided on:

Amp: Rockford Fosgate Punch 800a2

Head Unit: Alpine CDA-7863

Front door speakers (5x7): Dead Link Removed

Rear door speakers (6x8): Dead Link Removed

Subs (Two 12"): Dead Link Removed

Alright, that's what I am planning on getting after research, etc, etc.. Any comments/suggestions?

By the way, I have a question about the wiring for all this. I have NO idea where to start or even think about the wiring I need. Maybe the stock already has the wiring I need? I have no idea, so help me out please.. I've done a search, but never could find posts that related to my situation. Thanks guys, a whole whole lot!!

 

[DarkFox1]

nice.. the JL12w3s should sound pretty good, nice and loud, this is a sealed enclosure right?

I don't like Punch, but thats all opinion.. I like the MTX Thunder series amps

as for speakers, the brand is good, but um, you would get beter qyuality with a 2 way coax. round 5.25" speaker and rear 6.5s instead of those.. if you don't want to fool with custom mounting oyu can get a 5x7 plate and mount components in them.

just my 25 cents

 

[rock883]

Ok, lets see here, we'll start with the head unit. If you buy a harness that will plug into the factory radio harness it will make it easier. Just connect all the wires on the harness to the supplied harness that comes with the had unit. They have the same colors so it is easy. Then plug it intot he HU and the factory radio harness. Now to the door speakers. You can buy little adapters that have a plug on one end going to 2 wires coming out of it. The plug will go right into the stock plug that goes into the stock speaker. You just put the speaker harness plug into the stock speaker plug, and then put the pos. wire to the pos. terminal on the speaker, and the negative wire to the neg. terminal on the speaker. The negative terminal is smaller than the pos. so you won't get them mixed up. Now to the amp. Depends on where you are mounting it. The 800A2 is pretty big, you may be able to fit it under the rear seat, but I am not sure. Anyways, run your power wire on the pass. side, under the trim panels, and then in the pass. floorboard drill a hole big enough for the power wire to run through. Then run it up on top of the inner fender well (the plastic thing) and right up to the battery. You could go on the driver's side, but then you would have to run the power wire across the engine compartment needing more wire. Then run your ground to a good clean metal spot. Then run the rca cable on the driver's side tot he head unit. You will probably need ot remove the HU, and the ash tray to make it easier to get to the back of the head unit and the opening. Now for the subs. Are these subs dual 2 ohm? If they are you can run the voice coils in a series to get a 4 ohm load, and get 200watts to each sub in stereo mode. If you could find a different sub with dual 4 ohm (or if the W3 has a dual 4 ohm version, I owuld go with that) you could run each of the subs Voice coils parallel into their own channel on the amp and get 400 watts to each. Or you could get the 2 subs with the dual 4ohm VC and run each sub in parallel to get a 2 ohm load on each sub, then run the subs together in a series and get a 4ohm load and get 800watts to the subs. Is that too confusing? It probably is, if so get one of the experts on the board to help you (JTang). He will be able to tell you if I was wrong in any way, or help describe the steps a little better.

 

[mrsteve]

Yeah I agree. The round speakers (5.25" or 6.5") would sound better in the bass department. I love my rockford amp it's a little old (1998) but it still pounds on my subs. I've got it wired in mono at 2 ohms and have had no problems with clipping or overheating.

The JL W3's are gonna play really loud. They are JL's SPL series sub so if you are going for Sound Quality like most people on this board you may wanna look around a little more. In my opinion JL is overrated and overpriced. But I don't know exactly what you are going for with you system. Just make sure you listen to everything before you by anything. Just cause something has good specs doesn't mean it's gonna sound good to you.

One last thing, you may wanna consider an amp for you separates. With the Rockford amp beating on the JL's you are putting something like 400 watts of total RMS power to your subs. That's a good amount of power for you subs, they should sound great as long as they are in the right box. But think about it...you Alpine is only gonna put out between 15-20 watts RMS to each of the 4 channels. That's not a lot of power when compared to the subs. I know that in my system each sub is getting around 70 watts and my Pioneer head unit sends somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 watts to each channel and it took me a good 2 weeks of tunning the system to be able to get the sound really even. I am not running my subs anywhere near their full volume cause I wouldn't be able to hear anything else up front. You are gonna be running 130 watts more than me to each sub and you have a much better sub that I do. I would consider a 40-50 watt amp (that's 40-50watts to each speaker) for you separates. The clairity will amaze you. Most headunits have a distortion rating of 1% THD. Most amps are below .07% THD. That's gonna make a huge difference in the quality of the sound coming from you speakers.

Just my opinions

Steve

 

[TheMattDaddy]

First of all, I want to thank all of you on the critique; that really helped and caught a few things I forgot to mention (where I was going to mount the amp, for example). And I've heard all these components in action.. a friend of mine had 2 JL 12W3s that I fell in love with the first time I heard them. He had two Rockford-fosgate 500a2s, one amp to each. So I've heard the rockfords in action, also. Another friend of mine has an Alpine headunit (not exactly the one I chose, but similiar). He also had the Pioneer's in his car running from an amp; not sure what kind.

DarkFox: Yeah, forgot to mention that the JLs are going to be in a sealed enclosure. Thanks for pointing that out. I considered the 5.25s and 6.5s, but didn't really want to fool with the custom mounting.. but I didn't know you could get 5x7 plates (can you send me a link to site that sells those?). So another good point!

Rock: All I can say is a big whopping thanks for the wiring walkthru and the ohm advice! <hits print>

Steve: Yeah, I was planning on putting out 400w per sub from the Rockford and I had thought about them almost drowning the speakers out, but I figured I would ask advice about here. I'll definently look into the seperate amp now that you told me about your system.

Thanks again guys!

 

[mrsteve]

http://www.crutchfield.com

They sell the adapter plates. I don't think they are on the site but if you call them and tell them what you're looking for they will help. They are $10 a pair.

 

[DarkFox1]

glad ta help man take some pics once ya get it worked out, I love to check out other peoples installs

 

[TheMattDaddy]

will do, but I don't think it'll be anytime soon, meaning March or so, but don't worry; I will definently post some pics

 

[rock883]

Hey TheMattDaddy, no problem. Although, someone on the board might want to make sure I am right about the series and parallel things. I get those mixed up every once in a while. I think they are right, but could be wrong. See, one of them makes the ohms double, and the other one "cuts it in half", so make sure someone on here will clarify that I have them right before you wire them and mess up the amp or subs. And about getting a seperate amp, I would do it, it makes a huge difference, although thats a lot more wiring to do.

 

[TheMattDaddy]

Yeah, I found that crutchfield.com has a stereo installation manual on their site (you can download it in .pdf), so I took a look at it and it told me about wiring, including the parallel and series methods. I was just looking for explorer specific wiring information, and you told me pretty much what I needed!

 

[mrsteve]

These two sites should answer any Explorer wiring questions

Dead Link Removed


http://go.to/bcae

Hope these help.

Steve

 

[TheMattDaddy]

yeah, those links are good too. Especially the explorer one; thanks again!