Mercure said:
I am slightly terrified by the apparent complexity of this procedure. I want to be sure that I have a pretty good plan of action before I start hacking away. Here's what I know.
1. Disconnect the negative terminal from the battery to avoid shorts.
2. The amp needs power. So a small length of wire needs to run from the battery to the fuse holder through a ring terminal and a short length of wire. The power wire needs to run from the other end of the fuseholder through a hole (e.g., space in a grommet) to the passenger compartment. Actually I'll run it from the passenger compartment to the engine compartment. Then the power wire needs to run down one side to where the amp is, under the seat. The preferred path seems to be under the floor carpeting, at the edge.
3. Ditto for the remote (= turn on?) lead, which runs from HU, on the same side as power, to the amp.
4. The amp needs to ground to the chassis. So I connect the ground wire to some unpainted metal surface of the chassis (like a nice bolt), so that it can reach the amp.
5. Signal needs to run from the HU to the LOC and out from the LOC through RCA to the amp, from the opposite side of the power wire. I am not sure how to do this in a way which will look clean. When do the wires cross the vehicle - right after coming into the passenger compartment? Obviously this also entails removing the HU and messing with the LOC, which I am content to leave figuring out to later.
6. In some way which I have not yet seen described, the signal HAS to get from the amp to the speakers. I don't really have a clue how this is supposed to be accomplished. Perhaps an audio cable runs up to where the HU used to output to the speakers. Perhaps audio cables run directly from amp to the doors somehow. This sounds complicated but I haven't seen it treated anywhere. So I assume it is actually something simple but I'm not sure what.
7. Run wires to amp location. Plug in ground, power, and turn on leads. Hook up RCA to amp. Turn on radio to start amp. Start the car, rev the engine and listen for whine through speakers.
8. If it works I'll disconnect stuff from the amp again, put the HU back, mount the amplifier under the seat in some way - its own topic. (At this point Crutchfield's instructions very confusingly say to connect speaker wire to speakers, suggesting that it wasn't connected when I was listening for whine through the speakers - ???) Anyway, at this point I might actually just stop and
9. Amp tuning etc.
10. Panel replacement etc.
1. I REALLY wouldn't worry about the whole disconnecting power inconvenience. Basically you'll have a fuseholder mounted within a foot of the battery, (most of us seem to have mounted the fuse ont he front side of the battery box then ran it under and back) Anyway, basically hook everything up, but leave the fuse out from here and you'll be fine.
2. THere is a VERY convenient grommet for this just above your clutch pedal it's kind of a Horizontal oval shaped rubber-plug. I'd first shove a screwdriver through it (carefully of course and check the other side once you've started) and then feed your wire from there. Routing the rest of the way depends on which seat you're putting it under and if you plan to put another amp under the other in the future or not. I'd personally pull up the trim on the driver-side door, and run it down the corner under the carpet.
3. Remote wire is a VERY low amount of power and is neglideable realyl so it's fine to run it with your signal wire (RCA jacks coming from your LOC)
4. Many ground from under a seat bolt, I personally found a better ground underneath the center console at the piece that holds it's mounting bracket on in the rear. It's 2 threaded posts that stick upward, and the mounting bracket sits on top of them, then bolts down. Make sure to scrape/sand away paint soasto get a very good contact.
5. I'm not sure how large LOC's generally are, but I'd imagine there's room to stuff them inside the dash, or atleast under the center console. I would get 2 6' or so lengths of speaker wire, and run it from the back of the H/U (you'll need to cut into the factory Front L&R speaker wires, 4 in all "Pin 5: White - Front Right (-) Pin 6: Red - Front Right (+) Pin 7: Black / White - Front left (-) Pin 8: Black / Brown - Front Left (+)") Run those wires then to the LOC and find a spot under the center console for it (there should be plenty of room) There's a pretty good HU removal note in the general info at thetop of the forum. You'll need the tool or a coathanger (I used a coathanger and had no problems) After your LOC's wired, then you simply need to get a 2ch RCA wire to run from it to your amp, depending on it's exact location it should be fairly short...
6. I actually wrote up a how-to for pulling speaker wire through your doors, it's stickied at the top of this section, you might want to do this if you're running upwards of 60W, but you could get away with the stock and avoid the hassle as long as you're not getting too crazy. THis you would hook up right on the remaining part of the wire where you cut the stock hu outputs.
7/8/10 I'll address this with a plan of attack in a moment, but I'd basically dedicate a good solid evening or part of a day to this, and just do it all at once, makes getting to things MUCH easier. SO basically get all of your wiring in place, and hookup your amp, fire it up, and hope it works. If it does, then start buttoning thigns down, and making it all look pretty again.
9. for tuning, that can hopefully be done when thigns are back in place, try to orient your amp controls (gain, crossover, etc) in a way that you can still get to them once your seat's back in place.
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Nowthen, here's my plan of attack for you:
1. Pull out your center console, trim panels etc. Nice part about this is theese pieces aren't vital to operating your car. so while it may look ghetto, if you need to dive somewhere while they're out, it's nto a problem. This is easy enough, most everythign kind of snaps into place. You'll need to atleast pull your driver's side sill. (just tug on it hard, it'll pop up), then the "fuse" panel in front of it needs to come off, thee's a nifty connecter up near the firewall on it that you pull the center ring out from and it'll come out and the panel shoudl pull out after that. Then for your center console. First pull your cupholders sort of up and back to remove that part. then pull up the e-break surround. YOU'll see 2 screws behind the shifter securing the console, remove those, as with the pair that's under "buttons" on the front sides (sorta where your knee would rest) and then the pair that're on the back sides right where your seatbacks normally cover (fold your seats forward for this) Then you'll need to unscrew your shift know and pull the whole thing up and back. This will make your life MUCH easier. For convenience and keeping them form getting beat up, I reccomend you put the pieces of your car out of the way. inside your house or garage or whatnot.
2. After you've got those pieces out, if you wish to do this in steps, I'd first figure out getting your LOC wired in properly. Find a place to hide it, and get RCA jacks form there to somewhere close to where you want your amp to be. I would also hook into your speaker wires at this point, and run the speaker wire right to the amp (along with the RCA's shoul be alright) Don't forget to tap into your acc wire at this time. it should be connected to the pink/black switched power wire at the backof your deck (t'd into, not cut) You can also figure out a place to ground to. the palce I reccommend is right there exposed, holding down the "U" bracket that your center console mounted to at the back)
3. Start pulling your power wire. Make sure you can get it through that grommet (It's easy with these cars it's like it was meant to be) Id' run it under the carpet from up front, and sort of leave it hanging out by the seat if you must stop.
4. Here's the scary part. Pull your seat out. THere's a snap-over plastic cover on each of the 4 bolts at the 4 corners. It should be farly straightforward. and I believe it's a metric 13mm??? somewhere between 10 and 15... Pull these all out (It'll take sliding your seat back and fourth to gain access) Make sure to re-center your seat before pulling it out so you don't damage anything with the rails.
5. Now everything should be REALLY easy to get to. The RCA wires should tuck under the carpet from the center tunnel, and the power wire should be able to be ran under the carpet on the side. you might need to cut a hole where it will come through the carpet. As with the RCA's actually. If you do so make sure you know what you're cutting into (there's most noteably a big bunch of wires for your fuel pump and taillights that runs along the driver's side of the central tunnel I know because I hit this at one point)
6. Situate your amp in it's ideal resting place. I'd recommend with the gain and crossover controlsfacing either towards the back or the side of the car where they can be adjusted lateron) With your rear-floor ducts, I'd run them over the top of your amp. be careful not to bend them up, they'll crack. I secured my amps in place with the "hook" side of some velcro tape on the bottom side of them. From here, hook everythign up, nad if all's right, you should hear music. Refer to your amp's manual for setting, but start out with the gain set to the highest voltage, Turn you music up to the loudest you ever will, and dial the gain down until you hear distortion. This will likely be pretty loud, hence my reasoning for leaving them reachable once your seat's back in so you can drive to a big empty parkinglot or something.
7. IF you're happy with the sounds, etc. you get to button everything back up. This part's easy,but tedious 'cause all you'll want to do is drive and listen.
*whew* that was more than I thought,and I evne leftout the mandatory beer breaks... Honestly it's not all that hard to do, but it is a good idea to know what you're up against. Most importantly, I tried to break it down into steps and have your seat out for the least amount of time because some steps will inevitably take FOREVER, it's hard to predict why or how, but just know that it does happen. Do NOT half-ass thing for th intrest of saving time. Because hopefully if done right the first time you won't have to mess with it again. And, really what's an extra couple hours compare to the life of your car, and satisfaction of knowing that you did it yourself, and you did it right?
If I managed to leave something out, or something's kind of fuzzy, by all means, ask away.
