here we go! lady installing her amp for the 1st time

[lolly]

hey guys! well thought it was time i had a go at installing my amp but firstly just wanna check i've got everything i need. you'll have to forgive my naivetty cos i don't know the names of the leads

amp
red leads(think this is power)
silver and brown leads(think for the sub?)
blue leads with red and black plugs and a really thin wire(think the thin one is the switch?)

now all i know is i connect the red lead to the positive on the battery and then wire to my amp. i plan to have the amp in my boot so i'll run the leads under the carpet by the door. i've been told i should run the blue leads down the other side of my car? i'm guessing this plugs into the bk of my h/u and then into my amp. not too sure bout the thin blue wire tho, do i connect this to my blue/white wire in the bk of my h/u and the other end obviously goes into the amp where it says "remote"? also, what about the silver and brown leads? i think i wire these for my sub so the brown is +ve and silver -ve? i think i then wire this to the speaker output side of the amp. what about grounding? i've got a place to wire something on the amp for grounding. any help will be appreciated

[lolly]

thought i'd add a couple of pics in case i was talking complete nonsense!







you can't see which amp it is clearly and it's not amazing but does the job - it's an alpine 90w x 2 mrp-t130 if that means anythign to anyone!

[Gangsta]

Hi again, excuse the short hand- I'm on my phone.

Red: battery-fuse-amp

Get the fuse as close to the battery as possible, I see cars that have gone on fire due to either no fuse or badly positioned fuse nearly every week.

Black or brown: should be at least as thick as the red, this goes straight to the bodywork of the car, as near to the amp as possible.

Audio leads, these go from your head unit to the amp, the thin wire in the middle goes to the blue/remote/power ariel lead on the head unit and to the remote input on your amp. On the audio connectors red always goes to red, the other goes to white or black depending on your leads/amp.

The wires you have left should be the ones for the subs.

Let me know if you need more info- and make sure you have a fuse, its not an optional extra!!!

[lolly]

thx for the reply! i have a black flippy thing on the red leads that looks like a fuse should go in it, have no idea which one tho? and should i put the fuse in before i wire things up or after? there's already a 20A fuse in the amp so i dont know whether that affects things.

with regards to the remote wire, should i just crimp this to the blue/white wire?

also, what about grounding? i'm not too sure about what i should be doing here.

sorry for all the q's!! i did post some pics to make it clearer but they've not come up yet :s

[Gangsta]

The ground wire should be the other heavy duty wire, similar to the red one. It connects straight to the metalwork of your boot floor, pull back some trim and you may find an existing ground connection.

Yes that's sounds like the fuse holder, it MUST be within a few inches of the battery, as its not just to protect your amp.

Imagine this, you have run your power cable through the bulk head to the back of the car, but you have not used a rubber grommet. After a few days the wire rubs through the insulation and makes contact with the bodywork. Your only fuse is in the amp, which is located another 5 foot up the cable.

Assuming 0 gauge wire, we now have cable capable of drawing in excess of 1000 amps connected to earth, there are only 1 result can come from this, as you will have built a 40kW electric heater under your bonnet with no off switch.

Sorry if I'm being dramatic, but as well as attending uni, I own an auto-electrical garage. We warn peepple all the time about this, and many reply about the amp having fuses, and in a few cases the entire car has gone up, the owners having to watch as there car turns into a molten pool of metal and plastic!!!

Its really really important that you have that fuse as close to the battery as possible.

Oh and yes crump the remote lead to the wire on the back of the head unit.

[lolly]

hi gangsta, not sure i've got the correct amount of leads then - here's a link to a pic of all the stuff i have but i'm pretty sure i had these silver/brown leads going from the amp to the sub. i don't remember my ex ever having anything run off the ground connection on the amp to the bodywork...linky

the only thing he did do that was quite odd was that he never wired the little thin blue wire to the remote blue/wire on the h/u. although i'm not sure why he did it this way it still seemed to work fine

[Gangsta]

as i said i was on my phone so i couldnt see pics, but it looks like your ex has used a bit of the red wire for the ground connection, as im sure you know the colours dont make any difference.

your ground from the amp needs connected to either the battery negative or the vehicle body work, but it is best to connect it to the body work close to the amp.

Although it wont make much difference to you just now - its good for when you install your next one, as when you up the power a lot more variable come into play such as wire resistance and voltage drop etc (as i said you dont need to know this stuff, but wiring it as above reduces possible problems)

the remote connection on the amp can be connected to any 12v+ on the car and the amp will power up, the reason you use the one on the head unit, is so that it turns on and off with the radio. When the radio turns on so does the amp, when you take out the keys or switch it off, off goes the amp and prevents your battery dying.

I will draw a pic if i can find any drawing programs on this computer.

[pgarner]

ok you should have

1 long lead - normally red this is your power
1 short lead - normally black - earth
1 thin lead - normally blue - remote
1 pair of rca leads - some kits have a small wire in the middle for the remote


if your ex didnt wire in the remote wire then the amp wouldnt turn on, the only way around this is to run a short with from the positive connection on the amp to the remte on the amp. i wouldnt advise this as it will drain you battery as it wont switch off.

DISCONNECT YOUR BATTERY
power cable run from your battery ( dont connect it yet)to your boot, find a ground point in the boot - seat attachment bolts are good for this, and bolt up the black wire and connect to the amp.
run RCA cable (phono cables) down the other side of the car to your power (my power runs down the drivers side, rca down the centre ) along with the remote wire. connect up at the head unit and amp
Back to the engine.
Cut the red wire and fit the fuse holder ( could have done with a bigger pic but that does look like the little black thing in you red wire, if so make sure this is at the battery side - preferbaly within 15 inches) dont fit the fuse
connect up to your battery conection
connect battery lead up to the amp
insert fuse

jobs a dun un

hope this helps

[pgarner]

ok gangsta beat me to it

a good idea might be to buy a new wiring kit - shouldnt cost much for a 200w

fuse wise 15 -20 amps tops

[lolly]

cool, thx for all the help guys. i really can't remember ever owning a black lead or similar to ground it. when i removed everything from my 206 years ago this is all that came out. (maybe i had a girly moment bk then)

at any case, still a little confuzzled on the ground wiring up - gangsta the red lead is one piece and i'm sure the other end was just wired to the amp. could i get one of these grounding leads from say, from halfords? and are they cheap?

pgarner, really not sure what the ex did with the remote wire, i know one end was never wired to anything in my 206 as that end is still sitting in between the RCA cable. the other end looks as if it's been "peeled" away and wired to something, either the h/u or the amp...my ex said there was a prob with the way it switched on and i remember the sub booming a couple times as i turned the ignition on ??? i don't hav a clue what he did to be honest!!

ok so i think i just need to buy this grounding lead and then wire everything up as per instructions from you guys. perhaps i'll take pics when i'm done? if i get stuck i'll holla again but huge thanks to both of u!!!

[Gangsta]

if you have any spare red wire, you could use a bit of that (just remember which is which)

but yeah you can pick up a bit (1 meter will be plenty) from halfords, maplin, motorworld, or anywhere like that. it needs to be at least as thick as your red wire (which looks like 8guage from the photo) so 8,4, or even 0guage would do (the smaller the number, the thicker the wire)

the booming noise you describe means the amp was either always on or switched with the ignition - not the best way to do it.

i had another look at your photos but i dont see a ground lead, but there must have been one or it wouldn't work.

do you understand about connecting to the bodywork for your ground? whereever you are connecting to on the body, you will need to clean it back to bare metal with a screwdriver or some sandpaper. it is just as important as the power lead!!

[lolly]

i figured it was quite important and i think i saw a tutorial on where's best to put it and sandig the paintwork back, then just using a self tapping screw to keep it in place, hope that'll work.

so u reckon if i have a fair bit of red lead left i could just lop a bit off for grounding?

[Gangsta]

yeah just chop a bit off if you have enough, mabey wrap some black tape around each end of your chopped off bit, just to remind you.

[lolly]

great, will do!

[pgarner]

Originally Posted by Gangsta

yeah just chop a bit off if you have enough, mabey wrap some black tape around each end of your chopped off bit, just to remind you.

thats more or less what ive done
just to back gansta up on it
think you ex must have wired it up like i said " wire going from live terminal to remote " this is what causes the thump, and also drains the battery fast. i found this out the hard way when i was cheap and didnt put connectors on the end of the wire, just screwed the wires into the terminals on the amp. one strand was touching the remote and leaving it on all the time.
dont bother with a self tapping screw, no point drilling into the bodywork. try and find a bolt, i lifted my rear seats and used the fixing bolts for them, scrap the paint and bolt down