I've been lurking on here for almost a year now and finally joined back in September because I liked the community. I have a couple questions as far as installing an aftermarket amp.

I'm totally new and in the infancy stages of car audio and I'm trying to read everything I can get ahold of to try and better understand things. I've read through a bunch of threads on here and some other forums as well. The most helpful being Zeroflux's removal of the OEM amp.

I've got the RF system and (I'm assuming at least) my amp is bad. I've tried replacing the head unit and still have the same problem although not to the same degree so it might have helped a little. However, at random intervals my sound will cut out on my radio and then come back after a little while. I'm assuming the amp is overheating and I've started running my AC under my seat and this seems to help but its still only a matter of time before the amp cuts out again. So I've decided to just go ahead and swap out the amp for an aftermarket unit. I plan on running a new power wire and depending on how hard it is I want to run new speaker wires as well. I'm not going to worry about sound deadening at this time as I'm kind of trying to do this on a budget. This is where my questions come in:

1. Judging by my read on this picture I would splice a RCA connector to the Line In wires and connect those to the RCA hook ups on the amp , or are those my AUX wires? Then run the respective speaker wires to the amp?

2.Looking at this picture I have 2 wires for each set of speakers, I'm assuming they are 1 each for each pair of speakers F/B L/R.
Credit to Zeroflux for this picture.

3. I'm looking at various amps to use for this purpose. Would you guys reccommend a 4-channel or 5-channel amp? I was looking at 5 channel amps because they have a dedicated sub channel and that would make hooking that up easier and seemed a little more intuitive (to me at least.) However, from the looks of it all these aftermarket amps have multiple inputs and from what I can tell our sound systems only have one output.

 

Get a five channel amp such as JL Audio and you are golden..

 

So the Line In wires are what I splice to RCA plugs and then just wire the speakers to the output of the amp?

Seems almost too easy.

 

Will I still need a cross over or can I just wire everything up as is?

 

^^ Think the factory amp had built-in crossovers that split the signal for every speaker, even the front midbass and tweeter. So if you're swapping in an aftermarket amp, you'll need one with built in crossovers.. and maybe even 2 additional outboard crossovers that splits the signal for the stock fronts (unless you're upgrading those to aftermarket as well).

 

no.

You can't just splice in like that for a few reasons. One, the speakers are all 1 OHM. Two, they do not have a crossover box, it's built into the amp.

Can we get some more information on your setup? Are you running the factory headunit? Here's why I ask: if you have an aftermarket head unit, then someone is using a Metra MT01 or MT02 to get the signal to the factory amplication setup. This box is a piece of crap and has a tendency to cut out all, or one side of, the audio at random. Also, the box sometimes melts itself. I've figured out bypasses for this but lets determine your setup first.

There's no easy way to sway audio parts on the X. You either need to do an aftermarket head and the Metra MT box, or, a complete rewire.

 

I have the RF system with the amp, I'm assuming its the SSS package because I have the sunroof as well. I'm trying to leave the stock head unit and wire in an aftermarket amp, my OEM amp is in the process of taking a dump on me and I want to swap it for something thats not going to crap out in a year or so.

I would prefer to go the cheapest route because I'm only an underpaid airman and the less I have to replace the better. But if it comes down to it I'll replace the head unit as well. I imagine that I'll have to run new wiring if I do end up replacing the head unit.

 

if you have the RF setup then it says RF on it, has the 6 disc changer and a sub in the trunk

here are your options:
1. replace factory amp w/another factory amp
2. replace head unit, bypass factory amp and replace all door speakers with 4 ohm speakers and direct wire them to the head unit.
3. replaced head unit and factory amp with another factory amp AND get an inline converter that's $100 and sucks

The reason you can't just replace the OEM amp with an aftermarket is thus: the head unit itself has no speaker leads or RCA leads, so it's impossible to connect it to another amp. Mits used a proprietary harness for the whole car, none of it is standard.

 

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sa...oofer-amp.html

that guy is selling his amp for $50, that's dirt cheap

 

Well I was thinking about doing the conversion that Zeroflux did on his, he replaced the stock amp with an aftermarket amp and kept the stock wiring harness.

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ev...d-oem-amp.html

I'm hesistant to replace the amp I have with another OEM amp because I don't know if the problem is the amp i currently have or the wiring. What I do know is that the sound in my car will just randomly cut out and after an undetermined amount of time it will come back on. The length of time that it will produce sound varies as well. Sometimes at random intervals when I start the car it will have a buzzing/crackling noise that will come and go. I'm really at a loss and I've already replaced the head unit already so logically its either the wiring or the amp.

 

almost sounds like a lose ground wire, honestly. That's a lot of effort, I'd rather spend the $50 and replace the amp! They're aren't known the fail, its rather unusual.

 

Where does our ground wire run to for the radio? Would that cause the issue of it cutting out at random intervals? Sometimes I will get a high pitched squeal when I start the car as well.

 

Ground wire is in the harness, check all your connections and pins inside the harness. I doubt it would cause a squeal, but it would cause it to shut off or cutout randomly

 

Hmm... I'll have to look into that, I'm hoping that's what the problem is because if not then I'm going to at least replace the amp with an after market one if not the head unit and amp.

 

So after looking around a bit I'm thinking of doing a complete reground of the car. The major source of distortion seems to come from the alternator. Whenever I speed up the static sound increases frequency, thank god it doesn't increase volume as well.

So my plan as it sits right now is I'm going to reground the engine bay and cut the wiring harness for the stereo and run that into the grounding that I do in the engine bay or ground it to something else inside the cabin.

If that doesn't fix my problem I'm going to then just do the aftermarket amp swap.

Thoughts?