Some Dumb Questions I couldn't Find thru Search, '94

[Gina]

Hello! I just installed my new Pioneer Premere CD Player the other day and I came across a few strange things I wanted to ask about...

Do I have an Amp in my car??? 1994 XLT with the better Cassette player, the one with Dolby, NO Sub in back.
-- When I installed my HU, the door speakers would not work until I connected the "Amp On" (blue/white) wires. I didn't think I needed these until I added an Amp for a Sub. I connected an extra speaker up and it worked WITHOUT the "Amp On" wires being connected. The stock door speakers needed this wire to be connected. (I also bought the only Ford wiring harness I saw, and it was the wrong one, that's why I had to chop off the speaker wire harness and connect them all manually.)

In with the speaker wires, there was another wire group, not plastic coated, silvery. What is this?? I just kinda left it hanging there... Am I going to explode?

Thanks for helping clueless Gina!!

 

[JTang]

Yes you probably have an amp. If you connected a speaker directly to your head unit, and it played, it's cause it's getting power from the head unit. When you connected it to the Ford system, the powered signal was sent, but the dead amp didn't let the signal through. Once you connected the remote line lead, it was powered on and amped the signal.

Depending on how powerful your head unit is, you could leave it as is, with the powered signal going into the stock amp (provided the sound isn't bad or distorting) or go the preferable way and just bypass the amp altogether. A lot of people prefer to use the amp bypass harness, but then you have to go behind the panel and reach over to disconnect the amp and reinstall the wires. For all that mess, it's just easier to run new wire plain and simple in my opinion.

The extra wires I'm not sure about. Are these from the head unit, the adapter harness, or from the speakers? Either way, if you're radio is on, that's good. My advice would be just to take some electical tape and cover up the ends of bare wires.

Good luck!

Jon

 

[TheMattDaddy]

quick question.. what did you connect the amp turn on wire to?

I'm in the same boat as you right now, and I think I'm gonna do what Jtang says as soon as I get back in town - just run a new wiring plan instead of getting the amp bypass, etc, etc.

 

[TheMattDaddy]

got another question.. what guage wires do you normally run to a speaker? Any special type of wires, or can I just go get them at the hardware store down the street?

 

[Mike 92 XLT]

Hey Matt

The remote turn-on lead should be a blue wire.

Speaker wire gauge: at the very least, run 16-gauge wire. At the very least. I would personally recommend 14 gauge or 12 gauge. That way, if you ever upgrade to a more powerful amp in the future, you won't have to run new wire again. I'd get it at a car audio store, or Radio Shack usually has huge spools of speaker wire and you can just cut off as much as you need.

peace

Mike

 

[Brian's98XLT]

If you are using a bypass kit and not running new wire to each speaker then 16 gauge is fine. For wiring up just a radio 16 gauge is fine. If you add a amp and run new wires to the speaker then 14 gauge would be the min I would use.
I see alot of guys run 12 gauge from the bypass plug to there amp, why bother because it is still only 16 gauge from the plug to the speaker.
Do the bypass, do not play your hi-power radio directly into the factory amp. You will after time either damage your radio or the factory amp.

 

[Gina]

Stupid Factory Amp

Originally posted by Brian's98XLT
Do the bypass, do not play your hi-power radio directly into the factory amp. You will after time either damage your radio or the factory amp.

Uh oh, do I need to do a bunch of new wiring? My HU is 50x4W, and I guess I'm having it go through my factory amp that I didn't know I had. Would the amp be behind by my glovebox somewheres or over my rear passenger side wheel well (no factory sub)? Wire strippers and electrical tape hate me, so I don't really want to re-wire everything. Is it hard to bypass the factory amp? I don't want to ruin my new shwanky radio though. grump

 

[leenjen]

Re: Stupid Factory Amp

Originally posted by GinaGem


Uh oh, do I need to do a bunch of new wiring? My HU is 50x4W, and I guess I'm having it go through my factory amp that I didn't know I had. Would the amp be behind by my glovebox somewheres or over my rear passenger side wheel well (no factory sub)? Wire strippers and electrical tape hate me, so I don't really want to re-wire everything. Is it hard to bypass the factory amp? I don't want to ruin my new shwanky radio though. grump

you can buy a bypass harness at Circuit City or through Crutchfield. it's just plug and play, no cutting or splicing. the amp is over the rear passenger wheel well.

 

[JTang]

Gina-

You're really looking at the RMS or continuous power of your head unit, not the max power. If it's not on the box, it will say in the manual. I used to have my head unit connected right into the stock amp, and NEVER had any problems with it, but then my head unit put out a wimpy 7 watts, which the stock amp might have been able to tolerate as a low level signal. It's not recommended, but it was okay in my circumstance. It won't ruin the new radio, more the stock amp, if it does.

Your two options are either to bypass the amp, or just rewire the speakers, you can choose based on the work:

To bypass the amp, you'll need the amp bypass harness (unless you want to splice together yourself). You'll need to remove the rear passenger side panel (which usually requires you to remove the rear seat belt thing too). Once you get behind there, just plug it in.

Your other route, rewiring the speaker wire would be to use new wire from the back of your head unit, run it under the carpet (easy) and to the new speakers where you'll have to remove the doors (not too bad).

 

[Brian's98XLT]

Todays radios that put out 15-20 watts of power will do some damage to the inputs of the amp. We are also seeing alot of the aftermarket Hi-to-low converters melting when put onto these radios that have peak out put numbers above 45x4 onto when interfacing with factory amps.