Radio Wiring and Amp Bypass

[StereoInstaller1]

Thanks Luke... You must be right, and I don't have the stereo manual to see if that "feature" is mentioned. Radio came with the car... I checked and rechecked all the wiring, and its all good. Red/gray is constant power, violet/gray is ignition, and red/green is illumination. It turns off when I turn off the car, so I don't have to worry about it draining the battery... At the end of the day, it sounds a million times better than it did, so I'm satisfied. What do you think about putting the stock rears back in? Will they be better than the newer Alpines?

Stock rears will have more bass...no sub planned?

[ringmeister81]

No sub planned anytime soon... And if I did, I'd probably want to rewire everything anyway, but I just don't have the time at the moment.. Maybe this winter. In the meantime, I think I'll throw those factory rears in this weekend and see how they sound. I'll report back if anyone's curious. Thanks again!

[StereoInstaller1]

No sub planned anytime soon... And if I did, I'd probably want to rewire everything anyway, but I just don't have the time at the moment.. Maybe this winter. In the meantime, I think I'll throw those factory rears in this weekend and see how they sound. I'll report back if anyone's curious. Thanks again!

This only applies to Premiums, BTW.

[ringmeister81]

Just re-installed the premium sound speakers in the rear, and there is a definite difference in bass... the sounds are deep and well defined, although not as punchy as the Alpines. I'm really happy with this setup, and I wish I had bypassed the factory amp much, much earlier. However, I did notice that when I took out the factory amp there was nothing connected from the tab coming off the amp... Maybe there should have been a ground wire, and that was the cause of the horrible alternator whine and fizziness? Either way, I'm very satisfied with the stereo system, and I can now turn my attention elsewhere. Thanks for all the great advice in this post and r3vlimited in general.

[jrockbk]

Ok I've read most of this thread and all of it refers to bypassing amp to use aftermarket head unit. My question is how do I keep stock head unit and get everything to work? B/c currently the rear speakers work sparsely and make a crackling sound head unit powers on and changes station, no sound whatsoever from front speakers, btw I'm in a 91 318is with premium sound

[StereoInstaller1]

Ok I've read most of this thread and all of it refers to bypassing amp to use aftermarket head unit.

Awesome, so the goal of the thread is perfectly clear...good to hear!

Getting that turd of a stock radio out of your car is the goal here!

My question is how do I keep stock head unit and get everything to work? B/c currently the rear speakers work sparsely and make a crackling sound head unit powers on and changes station, no sound whatsoever from front speakers, btw I'm in a 91 318is with premium sound

Most likely, you have a bad amp. Swap it out and most likely you will get back to the glory of shitty sound circa 1981...which is a shame, since the car was made in '91!

LOL...sorry, I can't help it. 4 5" speakers on 12 watts just does not make me happy. You people that are content with stock systems are so lucky, being deaf and all.

Check the antenna grommet too, that is what kills most stock amps...water is not good at all!

GL and if I can help, hit me up

Luke

[parkerbink]

Howdy Luke. Did you see my PM?

Looking for a sub box.

Kind regards,

Stefan

[jrockbk]

Awesome, so the goal of the thread is perfectly clear...good to hear!

Getting that turd of a stock radio out of your car is the goal here!



Most likely, you have a bad amp. Swap it out and most likely you will get back to the glory of shitty sound circa 1981...which is a shame, since the car was made in '91!

LOL...sorry, I can't help it. 4 5" speakers on 12 watts just does not make me happy. You people that are content with stock systems are so lucky, being deaf and all.

Check the antenna grommet too, that is what kills most stock amps...water is not good at all!

GL and if I can help, hit me up

Luke

So I looked into the radio and amp situation, turns out the a previous owner bypassed the amp and tried to reinstall stock radio, the other thing was that the stock radio harness was cut and so was the amp connector so I bought a pioneer HU and rewired the speakers to that using the stock wire from dash to amp, everything is working great and the sound is surprisingly amazing!
The head unit has Bluetooth for hands free calling and was able to install microphone clean in empty slot!

[Shurik]

I can't seem to find the right thread for my setup, could some one point me to the right place? I have premium setup but with 6 wires coming out of the fader instead of 8. How would I wire this into a new hu harness? Am I going to be connecting the back speakers to the front?

[Shurik]

Never mind I think I get it. I just have 4 wires from my fader sending sound to the amp, and there they split into 8 wires running to the speakers? So I wouldn't be able to wire an aftermarket hu without running wires to the back. I will just save up a little bit for the amp + RCA setup.

[StereoInstaller1]

No, you only have to run wires to the front.

You use those 4 to run the rears after connecting them in the trunk.

[FastAndLight]

I'm going to be trying this tomorrow in my '88iX with premium sound and fader switch. I've peaked behind the head unit the PO installed, and it is a disaster back there, so I'm going in armed with Luke's guide, the ETM, and my camera.

I plan to bypass the stock amp and just power all of the speakers with my new headunit. For the new wire runs to the two front speakers, can I just use normal speaker cable, like what I use in my home stereo, or is there some special stuff for use in the car?

From the ETM, it looks like the front tweeters are connected in parallel to the speaker in the kick panel. Will I need to do anything special to make sure they are connected when I replace the wiring? My tweeters have been sounding like complete trash recently and I'm not sure if it is the speakers or the wiring (or the amp?), any ideas?

Thanks to everyone for this thread, it is pretty awesome.

[FastAndLight]

In progress

Good Sunday morning project. '88 325iX premium sound with fader.

I started with removing the rear seats, center console, and front ashtray and everything so that I have a clear path to run wires straight to the trunk. I need to run a new antenna cable too because of the PO.



I removed the headunit installed by the PO. It looked like a horrible wiring mess, until I kept pulling, removed the fader switch, and saw that the PO's destruction was limited to the first 4" or 5" of the harness.



I've decided that I am going to remove the fader and its associated wiring and clean up the PO's mess.

I know Luke says that the factory wiring is awesome and to just re-use that. But, to minimize my own confusion, and since I have to run wire to get the fronts to work anyway, I'm just going to run new wire to the trunk for all 4 channels and then bypass the amp.

I feel like that way I will have a better grasp on exactly which wire goes where for the speakers.

I'm headed out to by speaker cable now. More photos later.

[StereoInstaller1]

Good Sunday morning project. '88 325iX premium sound with fader.

I started with removing the rear seats, center console, and front ashtray and everything so that I have a clear path to run wires straight to the trunk. I need to run a new antenna cable too because of the PO.



I removed the headunit installed by the PO. It looked like a horrible wiring mess, until I kept pulling, removed the fader switch, and saw that the PO's destruction was limited to the first 4" or 5" of the harness.



I've decided that I am going to remove the fader and its associated wiring and clean up the PO's mess.

I know Luke says that the factory wiring is awesome and to just re-use that. But, to minimize my own confusion, and since I have to run wire to get the fronts to work anyway, I'm just going to run new wire to the trunk for all 4 channels and then bypass the amp.

I feel like that way I will have a better grasp on exactly which wire goes where for the speakers.

I'm headed out to by speaker cable now. More photos later.

Nice! Tear it up, you sound 100% ready to kick its ass.

LMK if I can help

[FastAndLight]

Thanks Luke, I'll let you know.

I'm disappointed with myself because I went all cheap and just bought some generic metra wire. Please don't hate me forever

I'm back and about to start snipping. Here we go...

[edit]

Well, I reversed power and illum at first. And have run out of crimp connectors. Should have checked that before the last run. Off to buy more and then run the speaker wires.