[Hack95TA]

Hello everyone,

Now that I have income, I have a desire to get to work on my car audio system in the Trans Am. I am going to get an Alpine CDA-9833 MP3/CD Player and I already have a JL Audio PowerWedge box with 2 10 inch subwoofers in it along with a JL Audio 250 watt amp. I bought the box and amp from my cousin who had it in his 2002 Camaro SS. It came with all the wiring too, including power and others that I can not identify simply because I lack the knowledge.
I know the amp (which powers the subs) will need to be connected to the battery, all it is right now is just a simple and big power wire, so what do I need and how do I safely connect this to my head unit? Also, I have heard something about an adapter for our cars that plugs into the wiring harness that is for aftermarket radios, anyone know anything about this? If possible, I would also like my power antenna to only go up when I am actually listening to the radio and not a CD, is there a way to do this?
Another note, I assume that one of the wires coming from the amp hooks into the back of the headunit so that I may control the levels of the subs, although where I do not know. On Crutchfield they said that the Alpine head unit I am looking at needs to be connected to the battery using 10 gauge wire, is this really necessary? And if so, how do I connect both the subs and the headunit to the battery?

One last thing, my front door speakers are blown. Now I know this is a component setup that my doors has, but for now I was simply going to put in some 6.5 coaxial speakers in the door until I find good components and have money for them. Will this work?

I apologize for the long post, alas, I do not know much about car audio, and wish to do this myself instead of taking it to a shop, and I wish to do it right.

Thanks,

Hack

[badSol]

I know the adapter is called a PAC OEM-1, and it gives you RCA jacks out the back of the head unit.

[Hack95TA]

I think the adapter was actually so you could use the existing wiring harness and plug it into the adapter so you could actually hook it into an aftermarket radio, instead of figuring out which wire goes where.

What advantage would the PAC OEM-1 give me with the RCA jacks?

[badSol]

It allows you to add another amp onto your stock head unit, without messing with all the other speakers, and interfering with the stock amp, but I now that I look at it again, I don't think that's what you're asking for anyway. I've seen OEM adapters that allow you to plug in aftermarket headunits to your stock stuff, but you may not even want to mess with that depending on the system you have stock.

[Flamespike]

I know im a bit late, but at least i can still help

The head unit your looking for will need to different harnesses, and a custom kit to make the install look stock

One of the harness you will need can be purchased at your local Autozone, Walmart, etc. it basically color coordinates which wires go where
but ill give you a brief break down

black= ground
yellow= switched 12 volt power
red= constant 12 volt
all paired wires with a certain pattern are speaker wires exmaple:
white/white with a black stripe down the middle,
black/black with a black stripe,
green/green with a pruple stripe
purple/purple with a green stripe, im sure you can figure it out
(tip, if they are not labeled you can test out your speakers to find out which is which by quickly touching the tips of the paired wires to a 9 volt battery, they should give a pulse noise, that will tell you which is which.)
you should have roughly 2 wires left over both should be blue.

the other harness which is totally optional can be bought at cructhfield is to make your steering wheel controls work for the stereo you put in, i fi remember right i believe it was under 40 bucks, including shipping.

installing the custom kit for the radio is failry simple, just read it twice to be on the safe side.

installing an amp is not hard to do at all, you basically need a head unit with rca outputs, an amp and some type of suitable speakers to be powered by the amp.

to install the amp you need a wiring kit, which ive read you already have.
the diagram goes as follows:

your power wire, usually 10 gauge runs to your positive battery terminal, or in the case of the f-body, the M.A.D.
the ground wire usually 10 guage cant be bolted down anywhere that is grounded into the frame of the car.
and a very thing blue wire, thats the remote wire, it tells the amp when to turn on when the radio turns on and not stay on constantly, to connect that wire you must go to your head unit, and locate the matching color of the wire (usually dark blue) and connect them together, that way the amp knows when to turn on and shut down.
the rca cables connect to the back of your head unit, if you have multiple optputs, may i suggest you connect the rca cables to the REAR OUTPUT of the head unit.

once those connections are complete, go to your amp and connect the appropiate wires to your amp......
battery, 12v and such would be your positive wire (battery)
ground,G that would be your ground wire
remote, thats pretty self explanatory.
Rca, make sure one goes to the matching left and right inputs(just like home audio)

next job would be to hide the wires, allow me to stress this.....DO NOT RUN THE POWER WIRE AND RCA CABLES CLOSE TO EACHOTHER it may cause distortion, hasnt happened to me, but i alays tkae the proper precaution.
your best bet to hide the wires would be in the carpet sills, on the side of your door, best place in my opinion. to connect the power wire thru the firewall, you will have to take out the computer which is located on the passenger side firewall under the hood, 2 10mm bolts and its out, the gromet should be very visable, run your wire and your good to go.

next job would be to connect the speakers....
theres alot of issues that have to go with amp and speaker combinations, but since you already have a setup ill get to the good part.
parellel wiring- you should have at least a left channel and a right channel both should have a positive and negative. parellel wiring is when you make your speakers setup to thier own channels, splitting the wattage between them, so instead of your speakers getting 250 watts, your getting 125 to each speaker.
to wire it this way-
say for instance your going to wire 1 of your woofers to the left channel you would wire it in this way,
LEFT SPEAKER
OOO------------left channel negative
OOOO
OOO -----------left channel positive
then do so with your right channel and the left over woofer that you have, each speaker will now get 125 watts.

bridging or series wiring is when you make your speakers share both channels giving them the full potential that the amp has to offer so instead of your 125 to each woofer you would be getting the full 250 to each woofer. in this case you would wire it like this(example shown will include both speakers)
LEFT SPEAKER
ooo-----------------left channel negtive
oooo
ooo-----------------right channel positive


RIGHT SPEAKER
ooo-----------------left channel positive
oooo
ooo-----------------right channel negative
with this wiring setup both your woofers will have the full force of your amp @ 250 watts.
i believe thats all i can do to help, if you have any questions feel free to look me up

[Hack95TA]

Thanks for your help everyone but last weekend I actually took the car to a professional audio shop and they installed it all for me for $172 and then they showed me how to do some neat things with the head unit.

I, however, haven't been able to experience the system too much because Tuesday night I had to leave my car at work because I could not shift it out of park. I am thinking there is something wrong with the shift-lock mechanism. Anyway, I had AAA tow it to a shop close to my work on Wednesday and I won't know anything until Monday because evidently they were pretty backed up.

All I have to do now is get the windows tinted (20%) because where the box is in the car it is in plain sight and is just asking to be stolen. I may invest in an alarm as well.

Thanks again,

Hack

[Thunder]

I bought an alarm for $40, siren, starter disable, led, impact sensor, and inputs for more sensors, hook one of them ot the curtesy lamp sys, since when any door opens thats sets off, and a hood pin. hasnt failed me yet.

20% isnt going to stop that, I would get the rear darker, I can see in my rear and its 5% (its faded a little) and my fronts have faded from 15% and you can see in them clear. I used a reputable shop, its texas heat adn sun that does it.

[Mena]

Did this end up working out?