ok ok^^...i searched but didnt really help on alot of things...i never seen anyones amplifier setup besides mounting it on the back seat in the trunk...i am also super low on cash soo im trying to do it myself since audio and alarm shops charge 70$ which is alot to me...now too the questions>>>soo where do you route the power wires, ground wire, rca cables and speaker wires from the amplifier??????.....i heard the ground wire goes from the negative terminal on the battery to the chassis...and i dont kno what a chassis is....i then heard the power wires and rca cables go inside the kick panel...and i dont even kno for sure what the kick panel is... and how do i take out that kick panel??....also the speaker wires...how do i route the speaker wires going to my front door speakers?? if possible can someone do a DETAILED write up of how to install an amplifier...and IF possible does anyone have PICTURES of the routing of the power wires?? this would all be greatttttttttttttttttttttt

 

Okay ill do a small wirite up. Sorry never took any pics of me installing a amp but i hope you get what I mean.

tools:
# screwdrivers
# drill (with screwdriver and drill bits)
# assortment of self-tapping screws and dry-wall screws
# crimping tool and connectors
# soldering iron and solder
# snake (a wiring tool available at most hardware or auto parts stores) or a coat hanger
# socket wrench set
# exacto knife
# wire stripper
# electrical tape
# wire loom
# a set of radio removal tools (not always needed, but good to have around).

Installing an amp:
1. Dissconnect your neg. battery cable
2. Remove you head unit to get access to your rca outputs and remote cable
3. Remove your floor moldings and kick panel on one side
4. Connect the power cable to your pos. battery term.
5. Run the other end through the firlwall(If there is no hole your going to have to drill one)
6. You may want to cover the wire in the engine compartment with wire loom.
7. Connect the rca cables and remote wire in back of your head unit
8. Run the wires (power,rca,remote) to the location of your amp under the carpet/moldings
9. Connect the wires to your amp ( read the mannual)
10. Connect your sub/speakers
11. Install all your panles, moldings, Head unit, etc.....
12. Connect the neg. wire
13. Turn on the car and check if it works. If so your done! If not come back to the forum.


Oh after that then do this:
Level Setting for Beginners

Level setting, done by ear, is more art than science. It can be done using an oscilloscope but since few people have one of those laying around we'll cover doing it by ear. Basically you want to start with the first component in the chain (head unit) and work your way to the last component (amplifier).

1. Start by turning all of the input level adjustment ***** (gain controls) on your components fully counter-clockwise (to their minimum setting). Set the tone controls (bass, treble, loudness) on your head unit to no boost (bass and treble level = 0 and loudness is off). Make sure your fader and balance controls are set to the middle position. If you have more than one RCA pair you will want to set each gain adjustment separately.
2. Next set all of your equalizers settings (if you have an equalizer) to the center (detent) position so they produce no boost or cut. What we want is as pure a signal as possible.
3. Put in some good quality source material, preferably a CD with strong output and a clean recording. Hard rock would be a bad choice here. Try something cleaner, maybe acoustic, that you're familiar with.
4. Turn the deck's volume up slowly until you begin to hear distortion. When you hear it, stop and back off slightly until you no longer hear it. If you don't hear distortion, even when the volume is all of the way up then you have a quality head unit. That's what we're looking for.
5. Now with your head unit at maximum undistorted volume move on to the next component. Adjust it's input gain until you begin to hear distortion. Back off slightly.
6. Continue this process until you have all of the components in the chain at their maximum undistorted level.
7. When you reach the amplifiers you may need to wear earplugs to adjust them to their maximum level. As before, turn up the gain until you hear audible distortion.

That's it. Play some music and verify that everything sounds right. Congratulations! You've just learned to properly adjust the settings on your car audio system.

http://www.crutchfieldadvisor.....html
http://www.caraudiohelp.com/ho...p.htm

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by cilvia &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">ok ok^^...i searched but didnt really help on alot of things...i never seen anyones amplifier setup besides mounting it on the back seat in the trunk...i am also super low on cash soo im trying to do it myself since audio and alarm shops charge 70$ which is alot to me...now too the questions&gt;&gt;&gt;soo where do you route the power wires, ground wire, rca cables and speaker wires from the amplifier??????.....i heard the ground wire goes from the negative terminal on the battery to the chassis...and i dont kno what a chassis is....i then heard the power wires and rca cables go inside the kick panel...and i dont even kno for sure what the kick panel is... and how do i take out that kick panel??....also the speaker wires...how do i route the speaker wires going to my front door speakers?? if possible can someone do a DETAILED write up of how to install an amplifier...and IF possible does anyone have PICTURES of the routing of the power wires?? this would all be greatttttttttttttttttttttt </TD></TR></TABLE>That's a big "small write up" by romoracing I would ask you a few things first, like what year and model of car is it going into, what amp are you installing, what is the amp going to run, what front speakers, what kind of HU, [head unit] do you have, will the amp fit under the front pass. seat?
Answer the above questions, and a better more detailed to your application "write up" can be done 94

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by fcm &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">That's a big "small write up" by romoracing I would ask you a few things first, like what year and model of car is it going into, what amp are you installing, what is the amp going to run, what front speakers, what kind of HU, [head unit] do you have, will the amp fit under the front pass. seat?
Answer the above questions, and a better more detailed to your application "write up" can be done 94</TD></TR></TABLE>

well the concept is all the same. run the wires, connect them, check the system

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by fcm &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">That's a big "small write up" by romoracing I would ask you a few things first, like what year and model of car is it going into, what amp are you installing, what is the amp going to run, what front speakers, what kind of HU, [head unit] do you have, will the amp fit under the front pass. seat?
Answer the above questions, and a better more detailed to your application "write up" can be done 94</TD></TR></TABLE>

sorry..ok its a 98 4dr civic, running infinity 111rms x 4 watt amp, its going to run my two front speakers and tweeters and rear speakers, i got infinity references in the front, seperate kappa tweeters, and references in the rear, i got an ok looking and sounding pioneer deck that came in my car, and no the amp wont fit under my seat cause the amp is friggin huge....

oh and i was reading anonymous write ups on google on how to install an amp, and when it talks about ground wire, does the ground wire just attach to the metal under the car from the amp and another ground wire touches the metal on the other side near the battery?? is that how it works correct??

 

All you do with the ground is attach it to a clean metal surface.

 

OK, run the RCAs and the speaker leads, under the console and carpet down the center of the car, use some duct tape to hold it nice and flat, no criss x crossing the RCAs with each other or the speaker wire.
Run the power wire down the same side of the car as the batt. is on, you can run the amp control lead with the power wire as romoracing showed you.
As you are no longer going to use the HUs internal amp, you should disconnect all the speaker connections and cap them off so they can't short out, or better yet, remove them altogether from the HUs plug, they are just going to be in the way anyway.
Make sure when you run the power wire into the car from the engine bay, that you use a grommet, there may be some unused holes in the firewall with rubber "dummy" grommets in them, if there is use one of them, remove the dummy grommet, if you don't have a hole punch, place it on a metal or very hard surface and use a socket the same size as the power wire and use it as a hole punch. A round hole will be more waterproof then just slicing an opening with a knife.
If you can't find an unused hole, you will have to drill one, or use one with wiring already going through it, if you are going to drill, make sure you know whats on the other side, if you are going to use an excising grommet with wires in it already, be very careful not to damage the wires when you run the power wire through it, repairing them would be hell.
Make sure that the RCAs you get are long enough to run from the HU to the amp without putting any sharp bends in them, and there is enough so that plugging them into the HU isn't going to be a big pain in the ***, but not so long that you have to bundle it up someplace, the same goes for all the rest of the wiring, the advantage with all the other wire is you can cut it to length, better that you got speaker wire that is 3' to long then 1" to short.
Grounding is very important, use the same gage wire for ground as you use for power, now if the amp is 111W x 4 RMS that's 444W, [I would question that though] but if it is, then you need to run 4ga power and ground wire, ground the amp as close to the amp as you can, when you remove the back seat you can access the seat belt bolts, and there are other bolts back there, the main thing is you want to ground to the floor pan of the car, you will also need to "beef up the ground at the batt., from the batt. neg. (-) to the chassis, [body of car], you can go to the same place as the stock ground, [do not remove stock ground] or you can use one of the studs on the shock tower, you will also want to "beef" up the ground from the motor/transmission to the chassis.
Hint.... solder all the connections, all the ring term. on your power and grounds should be soldered on to the wires.
There is more to it then the above, if you have a specific question about something feel free to IM me, take it slow and easy and you should have no problems.
Here is a link with lots of good info http://www.the12volt.com 94

 

romoracing and fcm have written up a very thorough explanation (I'm sure it took a while). To answer more of your original questions:

You can either route new wires directly to the speakers (pain in the ***) or you can splice your new speaker wires from the amp into the stock wires. The speaker wire in the diagram (pink line) is kind of confusing. But it's a moot point; you should have no speaker wires hooked up to your head unit.

The chassis (pronounced chassy) is the structural frame of your car. It acts as the negative electrical conduit for all circuits in your car. It is also known as the electrical ground. (In home wiring, the ground is actually the Earth, like it sounds, and it's used as a backup to the negative wire, but in a car you can't really use the Earth as a conductor, so they're the same thing ). So the ground on your amp is the negative lead, and you just have to hook it up securely to the chassis. No more than 18" of wire, less is better. Of course, the battery is already hooked up to the chassis at the negative terminal, but as fcm pointed out, you should take some spare 4g ground wire and reinforce that connection.

A kick panel is an enclosure you can build at your feet to mount speakers, for the purpose of aiming them better (and mounting the tweeter next to the midrange on a component set). They are not necessary, and I've never heard of routing power wires or RCAs through them. As a matter of fact, you should make sure to NOT wire your RCAs in the same place as any other wires, especially the power wire for your amp.
Kick panels have nothing to do with wire routing. You may have read a reference to routing the power wire next to the metal foot panel (which is under the carpet) that is in your car now.

I would recommend spending lots of time on car audio forums and studying owners manuals, learning all you can about car audio and installation. I've spent all summer doing this in order to install my system, and I've learned a huge amount.

Dan

 

Something to add: Did you say you have separate front tweeters in addition to your front speakers? This may not be necessary, and it will definitely make wiring more complicated since you have to do it in such a way that 1) you don't create too little resistance for the amp, and 2) you don't send a bass signal to those tweeters. If I were you I'd hook up the four coaxials first and then work on installing the tweeters if you feel you need to.

Although, if you're splicing into the stock speaker wires and the car already has separate tweeters, this should be taken care of in the stock circuitry.

Also, I would hesitate to mount the amp to a backseat that folds down. You will have to make all your wires slack at the amp in order to allow for the two seat positions, and that means a longer ground wire, and possibly wires that are liable to snag on stuff in the trunk. I'd mount the amp to a place where it will never have to move and the wires are hidden. Like the side of the trunk (if there's room).

Dan

 

ok got the the amp up and running.....BUT I HAVE A SMALL PROBLEM ...please tell me someone knows how to fix this...ok, i caught the problem when i was tryin to adjust the settings.....first i made all settings equal on the amp, then i turned the fader on my pioneer deck down where only my rear speakers would be playing music and the front speakers would silent soo i could figure out when my rear speakers would distort when i raise the volume...i got that done, so i now i was gonna do it to the front speakers....when i put the fader up where my rear speakers would fade to silent and my front speakers would be the only one playing music, the front speakers faded to silent with the rear speakers, so by the time i pressed the fader all the way up where my front speakers are the only ones supposed to be on, all my speakers were silent....soo i couldnt test out how loud my front speakers could go before distorting... ...i then tried messing around with the volume controls on the amp which are seperate for the front speakers and the rear....i set the fading on my pioneer deck equal to all speakers again which is on "0" and started trying to lower down the rear speakers first...i noticed that even when i turn the volume all the way down for the rear speakers on the amp, its still pretty loud...then i tried the same to the volume control for the front speakers..and it turned off the sound all the way where i couldnt hear nothin...i also noticed that my rear speakers play extremely more louder than my fronts when everything is all evened up on my amp volume controls and on the fader on my deck...does ANYONEEEEE KNOWWWWWWWWW WHY ALL THIS IS HAPPENING???.....is it cause i got an infinity amp wit a pioneer deck or just what is it???....cause i also cant even do that FIE (front image enhancer) thing that pioneer decks have...when i do it with the amp, it just cuts off just about all the sound from the speakers and you cant hear nothin but little noises... ...ok enough of my wining...does anyone kno whas going on?????????

 

You have a wiring, [RCA] or sig. input switch problem.
I need make and model numbers for the amp and HU. 94

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by fcm &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You have a wiring, [RCA] or sig. input switch problem.
I need make and model numbers for the amp and HU. 94</TD></TR></TABLE>

the amp is an infinity 7541a 4 channel...the head unit is a pioneer deh-p2500...and also i got some professionals from a shop to hook up my amp in the end ...soo iono if they made a mistake or what...

oh and i made a mistake on telling my situation/problem^^^ i tried messing around with my deck and amp this morning and found out that when i put the fader all the way down where its supposed to be the rear speakers playin music only, nothin happens to the front speakers or rear...they both keep playing the same volume if the fader was on "0"...i tried the balance front the right and left speakers and that seems to work fine...its just the fader that i have a problem with which also effects my FIE feature... ...pleeeeease helppppp...thanks

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by cilvia &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">the amp is an infinity 7541a 4 channel...the head unit is a pioneer deh-p2500...and also i got some professionals from a shop to hook up my amp in the end ...soo iono if they made a mistake or what...

oh and i made a mistake on telling my situation/problem^^^ i tried messing around with my deck and amp this morning and found out that when i put the fader all the way down where its supposed to be the rear speakers playin music only, nothin happens to the front speakers or rear...they both keep playing the same volume if the fader was on "0"...i tried the balance front the right and left speakers and that seems to work fine...its just the fader that i have a problem with which also effects my FIE feature... ...pleeeeease helppppp...thanks</TD></TR></TABLE>

Didnt you say that you are using the amp to power all the speakers? Also did you cut/remove the speakers from the hu?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by romoracing &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Didnt you say that you are using the amp to power all the speakers? Also did you cut/remove the speakers from the hu? </TD></TR></TABLE>

yea im using the amp to power all my speakers....and im not the one who installed my amp...i got a shop to do it for me professionally...soo iono if they cut or removed the speakers from the headunit...either way (if they cut or removed the speakers from the headunit), wont i have to wire new speaker wires coming from the amp to going to the speakers?? soo iono how it would effect my fader on my deck...and i thought i would be stress free if i just let a professional do it...anyone more help??

 

Sorry, Pioneer does not supply the install manual for the 2500, but they do have them for all the other DEH-P units and on the 2600, 3100, 3300 there is only one set of RCA outputs on the the units, it's not till you get to the DEH-P3500 before you get two sets of RCA outputs. On your unit the fader should be set to 0 and FIE will not work properly as the RCA output is a rear and FIE cuts all mids and highs from your rear speakers. as for the gain adjustments on the Infinity amp, it has something to do with only one RCA being plugged into it.

BTW is there only one set of RCAs plugged into it?

I am trying to download the manual for the REF2541A but it's not working

Anyway you may have to install RCA splitters and/or adjust a switch on the amp. so both amp input sen. adjusters work. 94

 

yea i think its only one set...soo nothing is wrong with the install though right?? juss my headunit??

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by cilvia &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">yea i think its only one set...soo nothing is wrong with the install though right?? juss my headunit?? </TD></TR></TABLE> If thats the case, there is nothing wrong, everything is working as it is supposed to. As for there being something wrong with the HU, only the fact that it only has one set of pre outs.

On the other hand, if the amp does not have a switch that allows for one input, but separate front and rear gain adjustments, then that is a problem with the amp that can be fixed with a pr. of RCA "Y" adpt. and that would be an install problem. 94

 

also they didnt even connect the new speaker wire directly to the speakers...they just connected it to the stock speaker wires that allready goes to my speakers...is that necessary to do this?? will it affect my sound quality or speakers?? and with the power wire connected to the positive battery, they didnt put any wire loom on it...is it bad if i dont have any?? or what can happen if i dont have that??

so if i get a newer version like you say the DEH-P3500 headunit...and it has 2 sets of rca outputs...the fader on the hu should work correctly right??


Modified by cilvia at 4:14 PM 8/18/2005

 

Running all new speaker wire is a huge pain in the ***, especially to the doors . I wouldn't expect them to do this without charging more.

Dan

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by LudemanDan &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Running all new speaker wire is a huge pain in the ***, especially to the doors . I wouldn't expect them to do this without charging more.

Dan</TD></TR></TABLE>

well i could understand the fronts...but for the rear speakers....they connected the new speaker wire to the stock rear speaker wires which was only 4 inches long...and they could of just extended the new speaker wires 4 more inches instead of connecting it to the stocks...makes it look a lil messy

 

If your speakers are in your rear deck behind the seats, they probably would need to take out the back seat cushions to route new stuff.

I agree, it would have been cleaner just to lay new wires. But you could do that. Taking out rear seats is simple.

Dan

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by cilvia &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">also they didnt even connect the new speaker wire directly to the speakers...they just connected it to the stock speaker wires that allready goes to my speakers...is that necessary to do this?? will it affect my sound quality or speakers?? and with the power wire connected to the positive battery, they didnt put any wire loom on it...is it bad if i dont have any?? or what can happen if i dont have that??

so if i get a newer version like you say the DEH-P3500 headunit...and it has 2 sets of rca outputs...the fader on the hu should work correctly right??


Modified by cilvia at 4:14 PM 8/18/2005</TD></TR></TABLE> What did you pay for the install?

Although the right way to run speaker wire is from the amp directly to the speaker, most shops will charge extra to do that, we do, but not running speaker wire from the amp to the rear speakers is getto. BTW they didn't sell you or charge you for the speaker wire, did they?

The DEH-P3500 is an older unit, I believe the current closest one is the DEH-P3700MP and if your not going to run sub, it would do the job, if however, you are thinking about adding a sub, I would move up to a HU also has a sub out. 94

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by fcm &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> What did you pay for the install?

Although the right way to run speaker wire is from the amp directly to the speaker, most shops will charge extra to do that, we do, but not running speaker wire from the amp to the rear speakers is getto. BTW they didn't sell you or charge you for the speaker wire, did they?

The DEH-P3500 is an older unit, I believe the current closest one is the DEH-P3700MP and if your not going to run sub, it would do the job, if however, you are thinking about adding a sub, I would move up to a HU also has a sub out. 94</TD></TR></TABLE>

so nothin will happen to the sound quality (or any noticeable difference) if they just wired the new speaker wires to the stock ones?? and i paid 65 for the install, 65 for the amp kit, and 10 dollars for speaker wires....and i doubt they used alot of speaker wire...soo ima go bak and ask for the rest of my 10 dollars worth of speaker wire...

 

Good idea, I think you bought some speaker wire you never received. BTW, what shop did you go to?

Dan

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by cilvia &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

so nothin will happen to the sound quality (or any noticeable difference) if they just wired the new speaker wires to the stock ones?? and i paid 65 for the install, 65 for the amp kit, and 10 dollars for speaker wires....and i doubt they used alot of speaker wire...soo ima go bak and ask for the rest of my 10 dollars worth of speaker wire... </TD></TR></TABLE> Let me put it this way, there is no point in spending money on good speaker wire, if all you are going to do is connect it into the stock speaker wire, the stock wire is still the weak link in that chain also it adds a connection, try this, run a wire directly from the amp to one of the rear speakers and see if it makes any diff.

It's not hard to use $10 worth of good speaker wire in a car, even if all you are wiring is 2 speakers.

$65 is ok for an amp install, but not when you getto the rear speaker wiring. 94