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Ok so first time installing aftermarket speakers and what not in my car. I got a 5 channel amp 2 pairs of speakers a sub and a new head unit.

I have ran new speaker lines from the front speakers and rear speaker to the amp (thanks to this sites DIY threads )

I have run 3 sets of RCAs from the amp the the head unit. I have run 1 blue wire from the amp to the head unit as well ( I believe that wire is to tell the amp to turn on or something am I right?)

Now where I am at now is actually getting things hooked up. My head unit came with a harness that has 13 wires coming out of it.

I assume 8 of them are for the speakers but I also assume I will not be using those since I ran new wires from the speaker to the amp. ( Is this correct?)

The other 5 one is Red ( Ignition 12v ) Yellow ( Constant 12v ) Black ( Ground ) Blue/white ( System Remote ) Orange/white ( Lighting Switch )

When I pulled out the old stereo which was also aftermarket probably from the original owner it had another harness attached to that that clips into the male harness the car has.

So on this harness it has only 12 wires. Again I assume 8 are for speakers and I wont be using them.

So the other 4 are Red (Ignition/Acc) Black (chassis ground) Yellow (battery/memory) Blue (Power Antenna)

Right now I have hooked up Red to Red Yellow to Yellow and Black to Black.

I am not sure what to do with the orange and blue wires from the HU harness or the Blue wire from the second harness.

Do I need to take all three blue wires(HU Harness, Other Harness, Amp Remote) and crimp them all together do I even need the orange/white wire on the HU harness hooked up?

Or just the blue wire from the HU Harness to the Amp's remote wire?

The RCA's are pretty self explanatory to me so I doubt I will have problems there.

Tell me if you need pictures lol. I know im getting confused just re-reading what I wrote. Sorry its so long as well.

 
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http://images.the12volt.com/images/headunitwh.gif

there is a chart at that link that will tell you which wire does what. and yes the blue wire is called a remote wire. it tells the amp to turn on only when the headunit is on. and you wont be using the leads off the harness to the door speakers since you will be using the amp to power the speakers rather than the headunit.

 
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I think my harness is messed up lol I have been looking at it and it looks like the guy that had it before me pulled two wires out of it. I assume they were not required for his headunit and he didnt want them dangling back there.... idiot... but whatever I took a picture of it.



Is that orange/white wire from my headunits harness required for it to work?

In the manual it says connect to lighting switch terminal. If I dont connect it will it not light up or is that wire for dimming it and if I do not connect it will it not auto dim when I turn the headlights on?

I dont much care if the HU dims or not to be honest. I have no idea how to fix the harness nor do I want to go buy another one really...

Oh and my head unit harness doesnt have a blue wire for power antenna it only has a remote line. Do I take all three blues Remote( from harness ), Power Antenna, and Remote line from amp and crimp them all together? Will that work? Or what do I do with the power antenna line if not that?

Or do I just need to buy another harness.......

 
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buying a new harness will save you some headache. You dont need to connect the orange wire unless your head unit has one on its harness. (my apline head unit doesnt dim when the headlights are on so it doesnt have an orange lead on its harness). I wouldnt crimp the remote wire with the power antenna cable. Just connect the remote cable to the one running to the amp and cap the power antenna wire with a wire nut or electrical tape.

 
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The orange/white wire is for the dimmer, dont connect that because it could blow the lights in your dash. The radio will still light up if you dont connect this wire, but it wont dim with the rest of the interior lights when you turn the headlights on

You can crimp them all together, the remote wire doesnt really power anything, just sends a 12v signal for the amp/antenna to power on/rise *Edit* If you crimp all three together, the power antenna will be up any time the radio is on regardless of input. If you want to fix that you can wire in a switch to control the antenna.

 
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Is having the power antenna on all the time a problem? Long term issues or anything? I guess I dont see why it would matter....

Right now I am thinking I will just not connect the dimmer wire at all then. I just dont think I am going to care. Ill check on how much a new harness is tomorrow though.

edit: Wouldn't not connecting the power antenna wire at all be a bad thing? I listen to quite a bit of radio I would assume that the power to the antenna gives it much better reception....

 
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Alright got a new harness and am just going to redo it. This one has all the wires it is suppose to have.

Still need a answer on the should I hook the all three of the blue wires connected?

Since my HU harness does not have a power antenna line it only has a remote line it seems to me like I would crimp the power antenna from the car harness the remote from HU harness and the remote line from the amp all together.

But seem people say to do that some dont....Any does it matter if the power antenna is always activated?

 
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I would hook your amp remote wire to the ignition, and the power att to the hu remote turn on. Your headunit harness should have included a attn wire. Technically you could hook them all up together but you could blow a fuse or something. I don't know how much current is required for the attn, or amp turn on but it could overload it. You could also do hu remote turn on to amp (since that's probably what that wire is for) then hook your attn to the ignition so that it only sends power to the attn when the ignition is on.

 
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Ya I called a local shop about my car and he said that he usually just hooks all three together.... IDK.... I am hoping it works just fine cause I just wired it all and got it in there today. And tomorrow I need to put all the pieces back in the car and wire the amp and sub....

edit: Can I put a 4ga cable into a 1ga hole on the battery terminal? I am thinking about doing the "Big 3" and my battery terminal has 1 4ga and a 1ga hole on it.

edit2: Alright one more note on a completely different subject. So I am doing only 1 sub in the back and I got a Polk MM1040 DVC. I got the DVC for more wiring options and being able to drop it to 2ohms for more power. I am looking at the spec sheet for the DVC and the SVC sub though and it appears that the SVC has a sensitivity rating of 91db compared to the DVC's 86db. Thinking about it now it seems like the loss of db going to DVC is more then the gain in power I get from switching to 2ohm's.... lol....

Are most subs this way? Lose sensitivity when they go to DVC?

 
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Yes you can put a 4 gauge cable into a 1 gauge hole. As long as the screw tightens down on the wire. The dB rating does go down slightly but that is not necessarily bad. If DVC matches your amp better then it would benefit from the DVC. The higher the dB rating the louder the sub but there are more factors that go into matching a sub/amp/inclosure combo. I don't know if most subs are like that, I have only ever owned SVC subs.

 
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Got it all done....finally lol now I have to wait for the speakers to break in...20-30 hours it says.... Would yall recommend just using the headunits volume control during break in and leaving the amps levels and everything down at the bottom? Then once they have some hours on them whats the best way to tune them?

My amp has so many switches and ***** on the back to tweak lol. High and Low pass filters and what not. If someone wants to look at my Amp and give me some suggestions its the Polk PA5000.5

 
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I have never "broken" an amp in, doesn't mean you shouldn't I have just never heard of it. As soon as its hooked up, it's tuned.

Read this, very informative on tuning an amp:

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-qzdv52B...rs/tuning.html

 
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Ah yes the break in was for the speakers I put in actually not the amp.... And thanks for that it was quite helpful. My amp seems to be a bit different then that one cause mine doesn't say gain on it. But a couple of mine say Level on it and I think that one raises the volume so its probably the same.

What I was asking is should I break in the speakers before tuning the amp and sub or just leave the gain/level at 0 for the first while until they have loosened up.

 
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A lot of people argue if speaker break in is real. In either case the difference is subtle so if you adjust the levels now you probably won't notice a change.