So after lurking on these forums for god knows how long I think I found something I couldn't find an answer for.

A few months ago I replaced the shaker 500 HU with a Pioneer AVIC-D3 - used the harness from crutchfield and had no problems. I also replaced the upper door speakers and the rear deck as well as a seperate stealth amp/sub in the trunk.

Because I did this all at the same time I really didn't notice that I wasn't sending anything to the lower door subs - and they were just getting some sympathetic vibrations from the other new speakers.

So my question is and remains after all the reading I have done -

Is that I think I need to find the factory amps(somewhere around the drivers footwell from what I have found) and feed them output from the HU - not a huge problem - except they want high level output I think - and their remote turn on is 5a and not the 12a that the HU is going to push so I need to stick a VR in line to stop the popping.

Is this the case? Has anyone else done this? Before I go tearing part half my interior I was hoping someone had beaten me to the punch.

Thanks in advance!

 

Yes.

* I believe you mean volts (12V, 5V). Very little current (amps) should pass through the remote turn on wire.
* To send a signal to the factory subs, just attach the sub wiring harness that ends in two RCA's to the appropriate plug behind the dash. Then plug one of the RCA's into your new head unit. I believe this second harness should come with any wiring kit (it comes with the one you get for $20 on crutchfield.com, for sure)
* One of the RCA's is for the door subs, the other RCA is for the trunk shaker1000 subs. To find out which is which, just plug them in and find out.
* For now, you can just tap into an existing 12V_acc wire in the other (larger) harness for the remote turn on signal - this was the signal that formerly controlled the power on your shaker 500/1000 head unit.
* It will make a thump every time you turn the car on. To remove the thump, add a 5V voltage regulator ($1.50 at radioshack - search this audio forum for "voltage regulator" or something, the people at radio shack are generally idiots and can't help you with anything other than signing up for a new cell phone plan). There will be 3 pins, one pin goes to the 12Vacc you're currently tapping into, one pin goes to the sub wiring harness where you originally had the 12Vacc connected to. The last pin goes to ground. Use solder and shrink wrap insulation or electrical tape. Which pin is which will become evident when you look at the back of the box the voltage regulator came in.

 

Err yes volts not amps there was probably a reason I decided not being an EE.

Anyway - I think I must not have plugged in those RCAs and just plugged in the rear amp into one of the HU's outs.

So I should be looking for a pair of male RCAs floating somewhere behind the radio if I understand you correctly?

Thanks !

Sean

 

Right. And one of those male RCA's will go to both door subs (its a mono signal that gets split), and the other one should do nothing if you don't have a shaker1000. Plug one of the RCA's into the sub-out or bass-out port on the back of your head unit.

Also, those two purple wires that are dangling out of that same small harness are the amp turn-on wires, one for the door woofers, and one for the shaker1000 trunk sub amp which may or may not exist. To make things easy, you can just tie/crimp/solder/whatever those wires together and connect/splice the tied wires into the 12Vacc on the large harness (I believe it's the red wire that's sitting by the black and yellow wires).

 

Thanks! Thats exactly what I need to know. Now to avoid being sold 4 cell phones while I look for a regulator

 

That took care of the problem - I think soldering in the voltage regulator was the biggest pain in the *** of the entire procedure.

Other than putting everything back together again and realizing I managed to not plug in the HVAC controls correctly - doh

Thanks again for the help

 

Wow, that was fast. Good job, I'm glad everything worked out!