sosocrates

I have a 2005 mustang gt with the Shelby 500 system. A couple months ago, I replaced that with the pioneer dmh-2660nex head unit. It worked great. My speakers were stick, and the head unit worked very well with the 8” door subwoofers. A couple weeks ago, I installed the Shelby kicker 8” subs in the doors. I am fairly confident that they were installed correctly. The instructions, specified for my car, were followed to the letter. For a couple weeks, I assumed that the subs needed to break in or something like that. I am very new to audio systems, this was clearly stupid. I’d also read online that they were quite a bit quieter than the booming stock subs, so I thought it was normal. Today I was messing with settings in the pioneer head unit and I realized that nothing at all was coming through the subwoofers. I do not have any idea what the problem is. The head unit worked fine with the stock subs. I’m not sure why they aren’t working with the new ones. Any ideas?

Bert

first guess is a wiring problem; I guess that is pretty obvious but that would be the first thing to double-check . . . could be as simple as the connectors not plugged in all the way

houtex

Something tickles the back of my brain (which is odd, as brains don't typically feel tickles directly, and also that's where the visual cortex is, so why would I feel a tickle, when instead I should see it...?)

...um...

...oh yeah. So there may need to be a pre-amp installed to make the subs in the doors work. Or the head unit has to have sub outputs... IDK. The truth is the Shakers are just plain weird about the subs in general, so trying to make other stuff work with them is a fun chore, I understand.

https://www.crutchfield.com/S-YNwgBZ...ang-coupe.html

Maybe read upon that. It's kinda why I haven't upgraded/changed the one in Awesome, because I just don't wanna mess with it that much.

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The other thing that I'm thinkin' about is that the Kickers are single voice 2 ohm 200/400 watt woofers. Compared to the setup that Ford has, which is a dual voice coil, 1.2 ohm 60 watt per coil woofer. The difference between 1.2 and 2 is a bit, really. And if the Kickers can handle up to 200/400 watts (depending on what, IDK) well... it may be the factory amps might have had it.

Also, I hear you when you say the kickers were done exactly as instructed, but... I still gotta mention that if you put both inputs on that single coil, well, yeah, that's not a good idea. The Kicker is supposed to use only one of the two inputs, and the other is 'discarded'. So... if that happened, both inputs were put in, IDK what'd wind up goin' on.

I might be looking into just putting new amps in there for those Kickers to use and abandon making the original work at all. They're just that kind of weird. In for a penny and all that...

Just thoughts from WAAAY over here. I might put in the old subs to see what happened, but I'm sure that's not the desire. Hope it help anyway. Good luck!

Bert

I thought those GT500 Kickers were supposed to be a direct plug-and-play replacement for the original door subs; apparently that is not the case?

sosocrates

“

I might be looking into just putting new amps in there for those Kickers to use and abandon making the original work at all. They're just that kind of weird. In for a penny and all that...


“

I’m already planning on putting in a new amp as well, so maybe I’ll do that and see if there is still an issue. I definitely did discard the extra inputs. Thanks for the thoughts

sosocrates

I just had an idea. It could be really dumb but it occurred to me that when installing the pioneer head unit, I added a 12 to 5-volt converter to the subwoofer wiring before plugging it into the headunit. This was supposed to eliminate an audible pop upon turning on the car. Maybe the shelby kickers were not designed with this? Could it be the problem?

houtex

They are not. They do not make such a thing, except Ford, and woe be if you wanna get one at 200+ bucks each. And the amp for each door is 230+. For those prices, I'd consider finding a donor wrecked car and getting those outta that. The speakers can be rebuilt if the spider, magnets and coils are good. Of course, those are example links, and you can probably get 'em cheaper elsewhere... but not new, I'm bettin'.

The Kickers are not plug and play as if they were you'd not have to abandon or cut wires, nor would you have to modify the doors, as besides the ohms/watts/voice coil differences they're also 'taller', so they stick out of the door more, and you have to mount standoff rings to make it work on top of it all, which means those speakers stick in the car more, and your leg really likes that a lot, right? Right. Fun getting in and out of the car with those things stickin' out another inch or so...

Matter of fact, so far as I've found, no 8" sub is shallow enough to work in the doors, unless you do the Kicker standoff ring, and again, they're all *wrong* on the ohms/wattage and lots are not dual voice coil either.

So at the end of it, I say this: If you're gonna replace them, don't. Get amps and a sub box and stick all that in the trunk. Run a full system, don't hodgepodge it trying to save the car's current stuff. The regular speakers in the doors/package tray may be ok with the head unit, but the subs are just weird.

Also of note, in case this helps anyone... The stock head units, across the board, do not do bass cutoff in the door/package tray speaker outputs. Full range signal. This means that you can tap the speaker wires directly in the door/package tray (or anywhere you want, really, in those leads) to get sub inputs. Not line inputs, true, but still, it's something if you need it. Apparently the sub part doesn't mess with the door/package tray speakers enough that Ford/whoever didn't bother with limiting that.

houtex

Wait, what? I don't understand this... the amps run at 12V period, so why would you be trying to use 5V at all? I get the pop elimination, but maybe you link us with what you stuck in there so we can understand that better? I need to learn, thanks in advance!

But anyway, the Kickers themselves won't care. This would be about the amps, and yes, it might have something to with those not working. Maybe remove them so you can see if things still work, but then, you're just gonna go fix it right and put an amp or two in, yes? Yes.

sosocrates

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_120AFD...s-AFDI-5V.html
It came with the head unit when I bought it on crutchfield. Apparently the ford stuff runs at 5 volts.

houtex

Ok, well, I don't mean to argue, but... no. That's not correct. Here is the info you need:

https://iihs.net/fsm/?d=40&f=Audio%2...gation.pdf&p=2

That shows the two subwoofer amps, and at the top center (if you rotate it to the left to get the orientation correct) you'll see it comes from Fuse F16 (a square little one) on the Bussed Electrical Center (the box under the hood). So how does that get power?

https://iihs.net/fsm/?d=40&f=Power%2...bution-SJB.pdf

The BEC is shown as a big grey box, and at the bottom you'll find the F16 fuse, the sub woofer amps, and then tracing that back it goes directly to... the battery. 12 Volts.


Now, what that thing does is modulate the *signal* to the woofers down to 5 volts, because aftermarket head units are expecting to run aftermarket amps, which use 12V for the on signal. So one of these makes sense for to turn on the Ford amps because of course Ford runs at 5V for that. But the amps themselves run at 12V.

So given what I'm hearing... and maybe I misread... if this has been wired to attempt to run the amps 12V, then there's your problem. These are meant to go on the amp turn on signal (Dark Green/Violet wire coming from the harness at the head unit, pin 4 of the Mustang harness to the head unit, which you can see in the first link). And if the DG/VT wire's not attached to the radio harness, then that'd also cause the amps to not run. Has to have the 'on' switch happen.

Mind, I'm doin' all this from afar, and given your descriptions and such, so I'm not trying to do anything but give help as I can. If it's all correct, a multimeter's next, seems like to me, and tracing and testing of voltages needs to start happening.

I do hope it helps ya out. I'm learnin' all kinds of nifty things too, and this little gem may just be the thing that kicks me into gettin' a nav radio with bluetooth and all the things. Although to be honest I can't say I'm all that needing of it, still... I'm grokking (sp?) how all this works, so this has been a grand thread for me no matter what!

Hope you get it figured out, man.

Bert

great info here, I gotta try to remember this thread if I ever think I might want to upgrade my Shaker system . . . but the main moral to the story for me is: this is a lot more difficult than I would assume, so don't mess with it if I'm not prepared to deal with the complications

houtex

Sounds like my thought process on the timing chain adventure, Bert.

/It worked out overall fantastic, if a loooong process...

J Coles

Yes but your timing chain process was a good read, and because of it I caught mine early enough. few thousand was all it cost me.......

sosocrates

Thanks for the info, I will look into that. Much appreciated

houtex

Do let us know what happens, I'd be real curious to hear what you wound up having to do! Thanks!

sosocrates

Okay so here is what I had going on


Basically from around 1:30 to the end. That's pretty much exactly what I did with the converter. Are you saying I should take the converter out? And just hook up the two blue/white wires coming out of the amp line to the blue/white wire coming out of the head unit harness? Skip the converter completely?

There is also this video which shows connecting the blue/white amp remote turn on wire to the ignition switch wire


Is this another option? It feels different from the first video in that the first video doesnt show the remote turn on wire connected to any source of power at all as far as I can tell, and the second video shows it connected to the 12 volt wire.

houtex

The first one is correct. That's how you do it. But the reason that thing is in there is to prevent the pop. Removing it and 'going direct' should work, or so it seems to say 'round these interwebs.

However, the second one is doing it a different way, and without the wiring harness pulled out to inspect it right, then I don't know if I can say it's good or not. Maybe. Maybe not. It's not a great example, unfortunately.

Don't supposed you checked your fuses on those things...

You might try to figure out what's power and ground and use a 9v to see if you can turn the amps on/off. Maybe even figure out what the inputs are and send something to it directly... but this gets into diagnosing and futzing, and honestly it may be the better part of valor to take it to someone, lest you start pulling hair out of places. Namely your scalp, I'd wager, but what do I know, you do you.

sosocrates

After messing around with the head unit wiring and trying several power sources with the remote start wire and nothing working I decided to take a break from that and double check the subs were installed properly. They were so far as I could tell, but to double check I put the old subs back in (a tedious process) and they were playing . So now I know that there’s a problem with the way I installed the subs. Which is good I guess, I narrowed it down, but I have no clue what is wrong. I found a guide on the internet with pictures and I had it installed exactly the same. The blue and black wire pair taped back, and the black striped wire through the hole on the black terminal, and the grey striped wire through the hole on the red terminal. I also swapped the right and left subs but that didn’t make a difference either. I’m pretty much at a loss.

Also I appreciate the help with the head unit wiring thing. I know that doesn’t appear to be the issue but it wasn’t a waste, I still learned a lot for my eventual amp replacement. So thanks for that.


Edit:

I did get it figured out. I guess I got pretty lucky finding the solution. I tried switching the wire pair that was hooked up to the subwoofer from the black and grey striped wires to the white and blue striped wires. That worked, contrary to the manual and any guides I found online. If I’m actively destroying anything, lmk please 😂. Thanks for the help it’s much appreciated.

Derek Daughetee

I have been looking around for information on the door subs W/aftermarket head unit. And your post is the first one that I’ve seen that is actually useful. Thank for sharing 👍

houtex

sosocrates, fantastic news! Glad you got it figured out. Having the speakers not wired right, but things are working, is probably not going to cause any harm. Not like you were poppin' fuses right? Right!

Derek, glad to be of any help, hope it helps ya out!