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Hi all,
Just want to say this is a nice community of people. For a while I have been reading up on it and I hope this site can help a newbie out. This will be my first attempt at installing a system. The car is a 05 Civic sedan.
Be warned this is a long read but I thank you in adanced for helping out.

Questions:
1. At the time of purchase I got a wiring adapter for the Civic (non metra but I believe they're all the same) along with the new Panasonic head unit. Should I connect the ground/black wire from the Panasonic radio harness to the ground wire of the aftermarket wiring adapter? Or, should I just mount the ground from either the new radio's harness or the adapter harness behind the dash somewhere, leaving the unused ground to hang? Sorry if I don't know how to word it better.

2. In a previous thread someone mentioned not to use the ilumination and dimmer wires from the adapter, but what are they for anyway? Am I going to lose the ability to dim the dash lights at night?

3. The amplifier kit I purchased inluded only one set of RCA, but the back of the head unit are three sets of RCA preouts, one set for the fronts, another for the rear and one more for the subwoofer preout. Does this mean I need to buy two extra sets of RCA cables to run from the amp to the headunit?

4. This may sound contradictory to question #3, but I'm thinking to use a 4 channel amplifier to power the door speakers and a single 10" sub, leaving the rear speakers to get power from the head unit, since she (my girlfriend) don't normally listen to music very loud(this is her car and the system is her x'mas gift). I was told this is possible on a 4 channel amp, but does this mean I won't need to connect the rear RCA to the headunit, and just connect the front preout RCA and the subwoofer preout? I have a feeling this was probably my answer to my own question but needed to confirm this with someone.

5. This is perhaps the most important question of all, where on the firewall do you guys channel through the power wire? I looked and don't see any grommet big enough for 4 gauge wire to fit through, and if I need to drill a hole, where is a safe spot?

6. For the math gurus, the power of the amplifier is 220 watt rms x 2 channel in bridged mode. The subwoofer I got is 330 watt rms, so obviously I"m under-powering the sub. It's normally 55 watt x 4 channel rms @ 4ohms, so do you guys think the amp will hold up when powering only the front speakers and the 10" sub? If the consensus is a no, then I will get another amp dedicated to the sub only, but more wiring and multiple amp placement can potentially be more challenge for a noob like me. For your information, the amp is here:
http://discountave.net/zxhi4chabclc.html


Thanks for all your patience in readin through this and I apologize in adavanced for any mis-spelled words or horrific grammers.

I.F.

 
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Im going to need two things... the Vech vin number and if it has an alarm. Than I can help you







j/k
I'll get back to you on that stuff, meantime bump

 
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first, welcome to the site. next, some of this stuff is probable covered already on the forum, but i will help you out since youre new. i dont know anything about the factory wire harness for the headunit as i still have the stocker. as for your multiple sets of preouts on the back of your deck. the set for the subwoofer out is all you need to run to your amp to get an audio signal to the sub amp. the front and rear preouts are for seperate amps because you dont run the sub and mids off the same amp. for the sub amp youll need to be running a low pass crossover that cuts all all treble and vocals. you wouldnt want to do that to your mids would you? didnt think so. if you dont run a low pass crossover, your sub will sound like ****. if you run a high pass on the sub, you just turned it into a giant tweeter. from what i read, it didnt look like youve gotten any aftermarket mids, so you dont want to amp them anyway. i doubt the stocker mids will hold it, but im not %100 on that. when you get aftermarket mids, then you can purchase a 4 channel amp and run your mids from it. or get 2 2 channel amps and do it that way. as far as the firewall is concerned, there are a few grommets you can run the power wire through. just stay away from the one with the accelerator cables in it. if you cant find one you like, grab a drill and make your own. i find the passenger side is easiest to do. make sure you use a grommet or youll chafe the wire and ground it out. i also like to use a bit of heatshrink when the wire passes through the grommet for a little added protection. i would use the 4 channel amp you have now to power your mids and buy another amp for the sub. a good alpine or JL 300 watt monoblock (1 channel) would be great for your sub. as far as wiring multiple amps, if you can hook up one, you can hook up 10. its fairly simple if you know the basics. ill give you a small diagram to explain. this is for multiple amps.

power from battery -------- power distribution block -------- power wire to both amps

blue wire from the amp kit (remote wire) to both amps. youll have to split it into 2 signals.

ground both amps to a suitable location in the trunk free of paint or anything that will prohibit ground contact to metal

racs from deck preouts to each amp

that should be fairly simple. hope your questions were answered. check out the DIY section in the forum and youll find all sorts of useful threads. let me know if theres anything else i can help with. and congratulations on not getting flamed for such a newb post.

 
Rep Power: 263

1. Grounding the new headunit thru the factory ground is fine for most people and systems. Directly grounding the new headunit by scraping paint and using a screw is a better way to go.

2. Hooking up the positive illumination wire from the factory harness to the panasonic deck means the deck will dim slightly anytime parking lights or head lights are turned on. The dimming control of your gauges will still work, regardless of if illumination is hooked up to the new deck.

3 - 4. It sounds like you will want one more set of RCAs. The fronts for running the door speakers and the sub for the sub. Don't worry about the rears if you want to run them off deck power.

5. If the vehicle is an auto you might be able to get thru where the clutch would be. Otherwise, I went on the passenger side down low, have to pull back quite a bit of carpet to access the spot. You will almost certainly have to drill for 4 AWG.

6. That amplifier will work ok, a separate one dedicated to the sub would be better.

Hope that helps!

 
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Wow, I posted before taking lunch break and there are already most of the answers I desparately need. You gusy ROCK!

The ground wire attached to the RCA snapped, so I went to the store where I bought the kit and exchanged for a new one.
Question:
Why would my RCA cable have grounds attached to both ends? I have never seen them that way.!
Will I create a ground loop if I use those grounds in addition to grounding the other equipments?
I mean, I'm grounding the deck and the amp already right? so why ground the RCA?

So are there anything in the engine compartment to watch out for when drilling from the passenger side? I can't really see what's down below the battery and don't want to puncture anything.

I'm really hesitating about using 4 awg, in my own car the installer used 8 awg to power two amps with combined RMS power of 600 watts, but the store that sold me this amp says it's better to go with 4 awg, well so be it because I'm switching to 4 awg in my Z soon anyway.

Oh, by the way I forgot to mention yes I got some 3 way coaxial speakers for the car, but just a set for the doors only, like I said I'm only powering the front speakers with the amp.

vel vin #? sure: V1Z645764682357 and yes the Civic is equipped with the annoying Honda factory alarm that would constantly lock it self even with the key in the iginition.

Thanks for not flamming the newbie, when I get done with the system I'll be sure to post the result for everyone who helped.

I really want to do something like this for the Civic, this was a awesome set up.
http://www.7thgencivic.com/forums/ar.../t-234555.html

 
Rep Power: 278

You should rep them, they put some time n' effort into those responses

 
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if youre talking about the black plug on each end of the rcas, thats the left audio signal. the red is the right audio signal. anyway, grab a monoblock amp for the sub and use your 4 channel for the doors.

 
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Actually I know about the left/right channel of RCAs. What I"m talking about is this weird little ground cable protruding between the black/red cables that actually has a ring terminal. I'll try to take picture when I get home later.
It's not on any other RCA I've seen.

Thanks

 
Rep Power: 256

if its just a wire exposed on both ends, i would ignore it. only think i could think of is it grounds out road noise???

 
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It's a ground wire, I don't think I've ever had to hook one up in a car before. That's usually a home audio thing, between your pre-amp and amplifier for example.

 
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i havent had any rca's with one. never even seen it in a kit.

 
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i have seen that with some types of rca's before..i used it as remote wire for the amp ..cuz its attached and going to the same place..lol

 
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I haven't seen one before too, here it is. One of the ground wire chaffed open so I had to go back to the store to ask for a new one.

Thanks christmaspie.

Should I use electrical tape over the ring terminal if I'm not going to use it, to avoid unnecessary grounding?

 
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Absolutely, and I don't like to use that wire as remote turn on myself. I run everything (speaker, power, remote turn on) on the opposite side of the RCAs when doing full range speakers.

 
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Tips well taken

Now one more dumb question, and I should start paying you guys for all your replies

On the amp, my RCA terminal goes by channel 1, 2, 3, 4 and so as the speaker terminals, ch 1 + -, ch 2 + - etc etc on the Hifonics. On my Phoenix Gold amp, it goes by Left front, Right front, Left rear, Right rear on both RCA and speaker terminals, which makes identifying speakers much easier. Can I assume channel 1= Left front and channel 2 = Right front, channel 3 = Right rear, channel 4 left rear??
And does the subwoofer connect to channel 2/3? remember I'm bridging 2 of the channels for sub.

Thanks again.

 
Rep Power: 263

Most likely, you'll want 3+4 bridged for the sub, 1 as front left, 2 as front right. Use the 1 and 2 speaker outputs normally and use the 3+ and 4- bridged for the sub. If there are markings on the amp contrary to what this says I would go with that, this is what I would expect to see though.

 
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looks like you got ur answers! welcome to the site bro

 
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Thanks christmaspie and thanks guys.

You helped tremendously in this project. Now I'm hoping I won't mess things up when it comes time to install tommorow.

 
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howd the install go?

 
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Hehe, the aftermarket speakers I bought didn't come with any brackets to clear the windows, so had to order them from crutchfield, plus, the speaker harness too so I won't have to cut into the factory speaker wires incase going back stock. Should receive the parts this Friday.

I'm also researching on how to take off the back seat of a 05 Sedan so I can get the power cable through to the trunk where the amp will be. The DIY on the forums shows a coupe's rear seat. Can someone tell me are they just as easy to remove as the coupe? Or, how about placing the amp under the passenger seat but I wonder if it will clear the height?

Will definitely keep y'all posted with pics as soon as it's done.


Thanks

I.F.