12 Volt Amp Installation - Door Speaker Installation - Head Unit Installation -  Capacitor Installation - Noise Reducers
Subwoofer Care - Building a Subwoofer Box -Recommended Enclosures -  PA DJ System Setup & Matchup - Alarms & Remote Starters

12 Volt Amp Installation

This may be a bit of reading but I'm sure you will find it very informative and helpful in getting the job done right and safely. So please read on, you may learn a thing or two. Suggested tools needed to do the job correctly:

1. Test light

2. Drill with Philips head bit and drill bit the size of your power wire or larger.

3. Crimping tool/wire splitters

4. Various sizes of sockets and a socket wrench

5. Speaker popper (explained in the tips section below)

6. Whatever tools needed to uninstall your head unit and dash parts to get to your head unit.

First the basics and most important issues when installing an amplifier:

* ALWAYS unhook your positive battery cable before doing anything and don't hook it back up until you have an inline fuse holder in place approx. 6" to 18" away from the battery.

* 4 channel amplifiers or amplifiers that are running coax or component speakers will deliver engine noise through your speakers. No mater how good your amp, no mater how large and quality of cable you buy and no mater how you install it, you will get engine noise in almost 99 out of 100 cases. First and foremost you must know that the gains on the amplifier must be set at 1/4 volume or less. This DOES NOT take power away from the amplifier, you may simply compensate with extra volume at the dash through you head unit's fade or volume. Listed below are ideas on how to reduce engine noise even further:

1. Run your RCA cables and speaker wires down the opposite side of the car from the power wires.

2. Use a short ground wire of the same gauge as your power wire and try to keep it under 24". Personally I like mine at 12" or less. See figure 3

3. Use high quality shielded RCA cables like the AHQ or ABM series Audiopipe RCA cables.

4. Try not to have much bare wire showing.

5. Use the NR-16 inline RCA noise reducer as a last resort.

Keep in mind that the most important factor in reducing engine noise through your system is by turning down the gains on the amplifier to about 1/4 of the way up from zero.

Figure 1	Figure 2

Figure 3	Figure 4

Figure 5	Figure 6

The following description should be followed in this exact order as a professional would do it, for the best and safest results.

1. Unhook your positive battery terminal.

2. Remove your head unit Figure 5

3. Pull your RCA cables up under the dash and to the head unit along with the remote turn on wire if the RCA cable does not have this cable attached to it already.

4. Plug in the RCA cables

5. Hook up your remote turn on wire to the BLUE or BLUE/WHITE wire of your head unit ONLY if I is an after market head unit (not the one that comes with the car from the factory). You can use a butt connector or crimp cap to do this.  If you are installing the amplifier to a head unit that came with the car, brand new from the factory, you can use a "T-Tap" to tap into the ACC. wire of the head unit. Basically you need to find a wire that only works when the head unit is turned on. If this is not available, you can hook up to the head unit's ACC wire. This wire only turns on when the car is turned on or if the key is in the ACC. position. You can find this wire by using a $3 test light you can buy from K-Mart or Wal-Mart or any parts store. Put the alligator clip to any ground point on the car and then stick the test light onto any wire at your head unit to find out which is which. If you are running the amp off of a stock head unit, you will probably also need an RCA converter like the Audiopipe NR-200. To hook up this unit you will need to "T-Tap" into your speaker wires at the head unit so you can get a signal to the converter and in turn, to your RCA cables. The NR-200 or any other RCA converter you buy, will have a diagram on how to install it on the back of the package in most cases.

6. Zip tie up all the RCA cables and remote turn on wires to the head unit's wires for a secure install. Figure 5

7. Run your RCA cables and remote turn on wire under your dash and zip tie them to a secure location away from the steering wheel and any other moving parts. These wires should come out of your passenger side kick panel. Figure 4. These wires will run along the passenger side of the car under the door trim and any other panels in the way. Figure 6. Make sure that if you are bringing speaker wires to the back of the car to hook up to the amplifier/s, you include them with the RCA cables and remote turn on wire on the passenger side of the car. When screwing the door trim panels or any other panels down, make sure you don't shoot the screw through one of the wires. This is a very common problem and will cause the head unit to not put out any sound at all in some cases. Run your RCA cables, speaker wire if you have it and remote turn on wire to the back of the car or where ever you are installing your amp/s.

8. Now the hard part. Find a grommet or hole to feed the power wire through your car under the drivers side dash and into the engine compartment. Sometimes you may find you have a grommet that is not being used for anything and you can punch a hole through it to feed the wire through. If not, you may have a grommet that has a wire already in it but it may have enough room for your power wire to go through as well. Or you will have to drill a hole though to feed the wire through. If you have to do this, make sure you use a grommet to fill the hole or black tape the power wire so it can not shift over the rough metal and ground out against it at some point in time. After you do this, zip tie up the power wire and run it down to the drivers side kick panel and then run it along the door trim and all the way to the back of the car or where ever your amp will be installed just like you did with the RCA cables on the other side. Again, make sure you don't shoot a screw through the power wire when putting the trim back on as this will blow every fuse you put in the inline fuse holder next to the battery.

9. Run your ground cable. The ground cable should be less than 24" from the amp. You can find ground bolts under the carpet in the trunk or under the seat. Figure 3. They are everywhere, so make sure your ground wire is secure and short. I always check to make sure I have a good ground. You can do this by using your test light. You can temporally hook you positive battery cable back up and turn your head unit on and clip the alligator end of the test light to the remote turn on wire and then touch it to your ground area. If it lights up, you have a good ground. For best results and safety, I always make sure I have a bell cap on the end of the remote wire if I plan to do this test, this way I don't run the risk of touching it to ground and in turn shorting out the wire and/or hurt anything in the head unit.

10. This is when I hook everything up to the amp. Power wire, remote turn on wire, ground and speaker wires. I then screw the amp down to the body of the car or subwoofer box. You may want to run your cables under the carpet and cut small holes in the carpet right where they attach to the amp so they are all hidden. In any case, I zip tie them off real good so nothing can work it's way loose.

11. You should now have everything installed and it is time to install the inline fuse holder Figure 2 and button everything back up. The inline fuse holder will be located in the engine compartment and should be placed on the amp power wire about 6" to 18" away from the battery. Once you have it installed, the very last thing you will do is put a fuse in it. When you do and the fuse does not blow, you are good to go. If it blows, then you have the power wire touching ground somewhere and you need to find it. It will probably be because you shot a screw through it when putting the door trim panels back on.

Installing an amp is very simple if you follow these instructions. Do it right the first time and you won't have to do it again and you won't be blowing up head units and amps.

Tips:

Speaker Popper
Take any household battery and tape a wire onto one terminal or end or the battery and then tape another wire to the other end or terminal of the battery and touch these 2 wires to any speaker and it will pop the speaker, letting you know that the speaker is in fact working or that the speaker wire is good.

Trouble shooting:

1. Head unit has no power now.

Check the fuse in the fuse box that goes to your head unit.

or

check the inline fuse for the deck or fuse on the back of the deck.

2. Amp will not turn on.

Check to make sure you have power running through the remote turn on wire. Use your test light.

or

check the inline fuse for the remote turn on wire at the head unit, maybe it is bad.

or

check your ground wire, maybe you don't have a good ground.

or

check to make sure you have a good connection to the battery with the power wire, use your test light.

or

check your inline fuse for the power wire, maybe there is a bad connection at one end of the inline fuse or the fuse is blown.

3. My amp is on and so is my deck but I have no sound to my subs/speakers running off the amp.

Check to make sure you have a good signal to the amp via the RCA cables. You may need to install another set of RCA cables.

or

check to make sure you don't have a speaker wire touch ground somewhere. Use a "Speaker popper" to make sure the speaker wire is good. If the speakers are good and so is the speaker wire and so is the connection to the amp then you will need to install another set of RCA cables.

or

Your amplifier is bad. (Very unlikely, due to the fact that in today's market, all amplifiers are tested before they are shipped. In my 15 years of doing installs, I have only seen one bad amplifier. )

or

there is the slim possibility that the RCA outputs of your head unit are bad. In this case, you will need to install an RCA converter Audiopipe NR-200. Or buy another head unit.

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Often times you will be replacing stock door speakers and these speakers will be connected by a stock plug. You can do one of 2 things. You can cut the plug off and hard wire it or you can "T-Tap" the wires before the plug and then connect new wires to the speaker. They say that by cutting the plug off, you will void your factory warranty so it is totally up to you. I usually T-Tap them just to be safe.

Most important thing to remember is to take your time. The plastic clips that hold the panel in place are fragile. If you break some, you can get more at most parts stores for cheap.

If you are running new wires to the speakers for a power amp, there are a few ways you can do this. The easiest way is explained below:

Run new speaker wire from the amp and up to the head unit. You can t-tap into the head unit speaker wires and then keep the head unit speaker wires going out to the door speakers. This is the easiest way so you don't have to fight with getting new wire through the door jam. If you do this, just make sure you disconnect the speaker wires from the head unit.

The only other way to run speaker wires when using a power amp is to run new wire through the door jam. You will need to take off the kick panels and work the wire up to the inside part of the door jam and through the body and then through the rubber flex tubing going from the car side of the door jam to the inside of the door. This can be a ton of work and one hell of a fight.

Often times I see people wanting to use 12 gauge wire for their door speakers. This is NOT needed. It is over kill and a waste of your time and money. 16 or 18 gauge is plenty and most cars come with 16 gauge anyway. I don't think I have ever seen a car with anything smaller than 16 or 18 gauge.

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This can be pretty deep so I will break in down in to types of cars and and situations to reference. First the basics: Every after market deck will have a memory wire (yellow) and an ACC wire (RED) and a ground wire (black) and speaker wires (left fronts are white, right fronts are gray, left rears are purple and right rears are green). Some off name brands may have different color wires, if so, consult the manual that came with the deck. The memory wire should be hooked up to a wire that has 12 volt power even with the car is off. The ACC wire should be hooked up to a wire that only has 12 volt when the car is in the ACC position or the car is running. The ground wire should have a good ground at the body at all times. I like to have the memory and ACC wires fuses right at the deck and most decks already have this option included.  Choose your car or situation and go to work.

1	2	3

4	5

Stock deck in a newer car or car that is less than 10 years old or there about.

Make sure you are using a kit and harness for your car. You can get these things at some car audio stores and at any parts store. Follow the instructions that come with your dash kit. It is as simple as that. Use crimp caps or butt connectors to attach the wires together. The first thing to do is read the instructions that come with the dash kit and then take whatever pieces you need to take off the dash to get to the head unit. DISCONNECT the hardness from the stock head unit. Wire up your new harness to the harness of the new after market deck and then plug it into the stock harness that was connected to your stock head unit. Make sure you zip tie the new harness really good so you don't have wires hanging all over the place. In some cases you may need an antenna adapter. In all GMC, Chevy and GM cars you will need one for sure. Now connect the new harness to the one that was plugged into your stock deck and make sure everything works. If you wired it the way the instructions said, you should be good to go. Sorry we don't have much to offer for this install but the instructions are included with the dash kit, wire harness and manual that came with your new deck and I suggest you read the instructions.

These cars SUCK! The best way to tackle this car is to run all new speaker wire to every speaker and use a test light to find a good memory wire, ACC wire and ground wire. Basically you are going to have to start from scratch. Some of these cars can be done with a wire harness you can buy from a parts store or car audio store but some can not. My advice is to buy the harness and try it and if some speakers are not working or the deck will not power up. Save time and frustration and start from scratch. Some head units will not run a common ground system. Common ground means that all the speaker wires run off the same ground wire. So if you have 4 speakers, you will have 4 positive wires and 1 ground wire split 4 times. In some cases this will short out the after market head unit and it will not put out any sound. It will probably just thump a little when you turn it on and then you will have nothing.

No the deck does not go where the radio part is up by your shifter. They make a full dash kit for this install and I suggest using all of it. You will need a deck install dash kit, pocket replacement for the old radio part of your stock deck, wire harness and antenna adapter. LOOK OUT, this stock deck has a built in amplifier and you will need to disconnect it and move the harness from that location to the new location of the after market head unit you will install. Follow the instructions with the dash kit and wire harness.

To get to the stock amplifier that you NEED to disconnect you will need to remove the ash tray. The amplifier is located right behind it.  You will also need to remove the plastic trim panel in the middle of the dash, this is where your new deck will be installed. This is a pretty tricky install because you will use some of the stock harnesses and some you will not. The best way I can tell you in words to do this is to match em up. The after market harness you will be wiring in will only accept certain harnesses from the stock system. One of these harnesses will come from the amplifier and should be redirected to the middle of the dash. The antenna will also need to be redirected over to the middle of the dash.

You can buy an under dash mounting kit so you don't have to destroy your stock dash to fit an after market deck. These are easy to install anywhere under your dash or glove box, if it is big enough. You will probably want to run new speaker wires, you will have to find the fuse box and locate a memory wire with your test light and you may even have to find a new ACC. wire and you will have to tap into a new ground or body point.

Never work on a deck with the harness plugged into the head unit.Use the instructions that come with your after market deck. Sorry not much advice here, just go to work and take your time.

In some Chryslers, Fords, Jeeps and foreign cars you can run across stock amplifiers that power the stock speakers. In many cases you can use this amplifier. You will need to hook up the blue or blue/white wire of the after market wire harness to the Blue or Blue/white wire of the after market head unit. This will turn the amplifier on and run the stock speakers.

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Figure 3

Every cap should come with a resister that will initially charge the cap. Instructions are included with them. As you can see in figure 3. The installer is charging the cap with the resister. You can see that he is holding the resister with a set of insulated pliers. The resister can get very hot so don't hold it with your fingers. One end is attached to the positive terminal of the cap and the other to the positive battery (power cable). Most often it will charge in about 45 seconds and should be charged to about 14 to 15 volts. Digital caps like the one in the picture will tell you when it is fully charged. Others that are not digital, you will need to use a multi meter to test the volts to see if you are fully charged or not.

The cap has a positive and negative wire running from it to a distribution block where the power wire from the battery hooks into. The same goes for the ground cable. It is run from the cap to a distribution block that has the ground wire from the chasis of the car hooked into it and then out to the amplifier. So you will need 2 - 2 position distribution blocks (depending on how many amps you have). One for power and one for ground. So it goes like this: Power wire from your battery to the distribution block, then out of the distribution block and one cable to the cap and one cable to the amp. Then for the ground it would go like this: From the ground point to the distribution block then out from the block to the cap and out to the amp. WARNING!!!! make sure you do not cross the wires between the 2 posts on the cap. This thing is just  like a battery and will react the same way as if you were to cross the posts on a battery.

It provides extra voltage for only a fraction of a second. The cap will do you no good at all for running your system continuously. It only works for a fraction of a second and is only useful when competing. However, they can help with dimming lights. The amp will draw juice from the cap/s before the battery and thus, this is why it is called a "stiffing cap". If you truly need more battery power, the best thing to buy is an extra gel cell battery. If you need even more juice, maybe you should look into a larger alternator or multiple alternators.

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Please view the information provided in the 12 volt amplifier install section before going to the trouble of installing a noise filter. There are 2 types of noise filters or reducers. There is the inline power wire noise reducer and the inline RCA noise reducer. The power wire noise reducer like the NR-12 is mainly used for engine noise coming from the power wire going to the CB or the head unit. The RCA noise reducer is used for engine noise produced through your high frequency drivers (speakers with tweeters) in your car/ This noise reducer, reduces noise through the rca cables that are going to your amplifier. Large amplifiers will amplify more than just speakers. It will amplify high frequencies as well.

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Subwoofer Care

In almost 15 years of doing car audio I have seen only a handful of defective subwoofers. Most of what I do see are abused speakers. It's real simple, LISTEN TO YOUR MUSIC!!!! You can't just buy an amp that puts out 500 watts and buy a sub that handles 500 watts and expect it to last a lifetime no mater how hard you hit on it. There are a couple things called clipping and distortion that can and WILL cause serious damage to your subwoofer/s. This will happen with $10 woofers all the way up to top of the line $500 woofers.

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Wood Types

MDF is very dense and this makes for a nice tight bass response as well as little to no flex in the box from sound pressure. The only draw back is that it is very, very heavy. Most commonly used is 3/4" MDF.

Particle Board is also pretty dense but not very strong. It will chip apart if the wood is exposed. There are a ton of boxes being made out of 5/8" Particle Board. The sound difference is little but yet still there. Being that most commonly a thinner wood is being used and the fact that the wood is not as strong, you can have flexing issues with high power systems.

Length X Width X Depth divided by 1728. Use all internal measurements and don't forget to add a bit for magnet and structure area taken up. This is usually around .20 cubic feet per woofer (generally)

You NEED to know that T/S Parameters change with altitude. Not just a little bit but a whole bunch. So if you buy a woofer that was tested at sea level and you build a box for it from your box program at 5000 feet, it won't be right. If you don't want to trust the manufacturer on their recommended subwoofer box sizes than maybe you need to step up and buy the equipment needed to test the sub at your elevation. You can buy this part at www.partsexpress.com for $250 and it is a SKILL required tool, not a tool. yes it is a tool but there is more skill and knowledge in testing T/S parameters than there is in equipment or software knowledge. Also keep in mind that most woofers when you buy them brand new are not broken in. After a woofer is broken in, the T/S parameters will change.

This is very easy. Measure from the inside of the gasket on top of the woofer to the inside of the other side of the gasket on top of the woofer and in most cases, this is the same size you will need to cut your hole. If your measurement for example is 11", take any household ruler and drill a hole exactly at 5.5" in the middle of the ruler. Take a screw and screw it through the hole and into the face plate of the box where you want the middle of the hole to be and take a pencil at the end of the ruler and use the ruler as a compass and draw the hole. Or use a router with a circle cutter.

Use liquid nail to seal the joints. Liquid Nail is very strong and will actually help hold the box together. It is also sound and water proof and it lasts forever. Silicone is for those people stuck back in the 80's (get a clue dudes!). Use staples and alot of them. Or use screws.

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10" should be .75 cubic feet sealed

12" should be 1.0 cubic feet sealed

15" should be 1.5 to 2.0 cubic feet sealed.

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It is always best to try to match up power ratings. If you have DJ cabinets that can handle 500 watts rms each than get an amp that will deliver 500 watts rms to each cabinet. Yes you can run a smaller amp and yes you can run a larger amp. Just please read the "care for your subwoofers" section in this tech page first.

They are all much like the Eminence brand speakers in that they are very linear and very efficient. These woofers are made in a very high end factory that prides themselves on quality or sound and construction. These are not some cheap China made woofers. these are top quality and you can expect performance from them.

Tweeters used in the Audiopipe DJ cabinets

Audiopipe uses a high frequency high power piezo driver. These are best used for DJ use. Often time PRO PA cabinets have a midy sound so they can throuw the high frequencies over a large crowd of people and the tones can cut through the bodies in a bar. The high frequency drivers used in the Audiopipe cabinets round off the sound quality of the cabinet quite well and again you can expect performance and a long life from them.

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We do not recommend doing this yourself in any case! These jobs are for trained professionals and you can seriously damage your car if you do even one simple thing wrong. If you think you want to try to do an alarm, go for it but look out for the starter kill section. If you do anything in regards to "starter kill" or remote start, you are in for more than you bargained for. Alarms are not that hard until you get into door locks and starter kills. I don't advise an un-trained person attempting to do this job and to explain how to do it takes hands on training, patience and a good work ethic.

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