Subs to Stock Stereo?!

[jdblax]

Hey, new member. Ive built guitar amps before, but this is cetainly a new field for me. I have just bought two audiobahn subs and am curious as to whether it is possible to wire the amp to the stock stereo, or what the advantages would be of getting a new head unit. Also, what is the easiest way to get the stereo out of the console to work on? Any help is appreciated.

 

[Marchand]

Yep, it's possible to wire an amp to stock headunit. I did mine a few days ago. Only hard part was trying to figure out which wire was which. You'll need a line out converter, the one that has RCA outputs on them. You can find those at any electronic store that has audio equipment for cars. I bought mine at Best Buy for like $12 bucks.

Make sure you have wire cutters, eletrical tape, and patience. It took me about 6 hours trying to hook my amp and speaker up, but only because I had to make frequent trips to the store to buy more supplies that I've broken. Also I would make small breaks to look up wire diagrams on the internet.

There should be two screws just above the climate control area. You need a socket to get it out. Once you get those out, just try to wiggle the face plate out. Don't be scared if you think you might break it, I wasted my time trying to be careful and not seeing it budge.

Edit:
Also, I recommend you take off all door panels and check the wire colors and draw a diagram for the wire harness to your headunit. This makes everything much easier, well for me it did. The wire diagrams I looked at were all different colors than mine.

 

[Explodersport]

yeah bro, get a line level converter. any audio store/wal-mart/circuit city/best buy has em. Splice into any audio line post headunit and hook it up based on the instructions provided, then run RCAs from the line level converter to the amp and there you go. Tuning will be a *****, you got gain on the LLC, gain on the amp, and then the bass output on the deck. good luck with that. my buddy has the same setup on his mustang, he put the LLC at full gain and that way he left the paramiters to be decided by the headunit and amp.

 

[IAmTodd]

With my MTX ThunderForm, I just used the line level inputs. I used the amped lines to pull the signal from. This means you will have to tap off the amped lines on your external amp which is located behind the passanger side trim panel in the rear. Or you can tap off the pre-amp ones and put RCA connectors on there.

You do have an external amp in your truck. Which means you will be working off that and not the actual radio.

 

[TheFox88]

There is ALOT of info on www.crutchfield.com. This is what i use when ever ineed any help with car audio. There customer service is top notch and they don't even require you to purchase anything to acess all the info on their site. Good luck.

 

[Explodersport]

todd brought up a good point. if you have a factory amp, you gotta pull post amp as the signal from the headunit is not strong enough. get someone with a little knowhow to help you if you need it. anyone in an audio shop is quick to give help, just ask.

 

[MattHarrell]

I've just picked up a 99 with what looks like the Premium stereo system (no subwoofer so it can't be the Mach system). Anyway, is this the same procedure I would need to follow to hook up my one channel amp to power a subwoofer? I wasn't sure if the existing amp back on the passenger side would have unused subwoofer hookups I could tap into. If not I can just do the same thing and tap the outputs from that amp through line level converters into my amp.

 

[FexplorerV8]

well just think of how much money u are gonna spend in adaptors and how much time ur gonna burn ur head trying to get the thing to work and then u dont know for sure how its gonna sound.... i think u are better off just getting a nice Pioneer deck and running RCA's from it u will get way better sound on the door speakers if u wire them directly to the HU not to mention it will be a breeze to install/operate ur subs!
just lets us know how u do
good luck!

 

[MattHarrell]

Yeah, I thought about that but I was kind of hoping there might be subwoofer line outputs so I could hook up to it and still maintain all the functionality of the rear stereo controls.

 

[TTG]

99s don't have the external amp unless they come with a stock sub. That was only pre-98. You can easily just get the little line-out converter, and tap the rear channels for your sub.

 

[MattHarrell]

Oh, ok. I forget where I found that info but I haven't actually taken apart the wall yet to look. Guess that makes it easier for me to mount by amp back there anyway since that's where I had it in the '91.

Thanks