Thanks to all the detailed threads regarding e30 stereo installations I found here(specially from stereoinstaller1), I decided to upgrade my stereo myself. My car, '92 cabrio, came with old alpine HU from PO. CD was not working so I was living with radio only and not really a good signal. I've noticed nothing was coming out of tweeter pods.
First I shoped for HU and found Pioneer Deh-5000UB from CL for $60. Illumination color is blue, so not exactly what I was looking for but I'm just trying to have a decent sound with little money as possible.
Pioneer Deh-5000UB
After I purchased the HU, I've noticed it has rear aux and rear USB. At first, I thought this is bad but I'm kind of liking it now since it looks much cleaner than having usb and aux line sticking out. I'm going to make an custom aux input inside the front ashtray, so that I could keep the lines in the tray and close the top whenever I'm not using it.
Custom Aux Input Plan
As I was connecting the wires to the HU, I've noticed two things.
First, red gry wire which is for illumination(?) was split(twisted) to two before it comes in to the HU. But it was just left cut so I'm not sure where it belongs. My multi func clock does not illuminate, maybe that's why?
Second, HU harness only had blu/wht not the solid blue. So I wasn' sure if I needed to connect both white wires(antenna & remote) to the blu/wht or just connect the remote only and leave the power antenna.
Next I shopped around for an amp. I was into carstereo during high school years which was 90's and since then I know nothing about it. So I wasn't sure which amp to get. I ended up getting an old school amp, PPI PC450, which was considered to be the best amp brand in my days.
Being first timer to all this, I had trouble even bringing in the power line from the front battery to the cabin. I bought 4aug and it just did not want to go in through the existing gromet. So I drilled a hole across end the cable and inserted a wire clothe hanger. Wire hanger was easy enough to get through the gromet and I pulled really hard to get the power cable to come through.
I remember someone saying something about using the OEM speaker wires as RCA cable. So while waiting for my RCA cable to arrive, I tried this optiong to see how it works. But I'm terrible at soldering so I just cut the short cheap RCA cables lying around and used connector.
front
trunk
First I shoped for HU and found Pioneer Deh-5000UB from CL for $60. Illumination color is blue, so not exactly what I was looking for but I'm just trying to have a decent sound with little money as possible.
Pioneer Deh-5000UB
After I purchased the HU, I've noticed it has rear aux and rear USB. At first, I thought this is bad but I'm kind of liking it now since it looks much cleaner than having usb and aux line sticking out. I'm going to make an custom aux input inside the front ashtray, so that I could keep the lines in the tray and close the top whenever I'm not using it.
Custom Aux Input Plan
As I was connecting the wires to the HU, I've noticed two things.
First, red gry wire which is for illumination(?) was split(twisted) to two before it comes in to the HU. But it was just left cut so I'm not sure where it belongs. My multi func clock does not illuminate, maybe that's why?
Second, HU harness only had blu/wht not the solid blue. So I wasn' sure if I needed to connect both white wires(antenna & remote) to the blu/wht or just connect the remote only and leave the power antenna.
Next I shopped around for an amp. I was into carstereo during high school years which was 90's and since then I know nothing about it. So I wasn't sure which amp to get. I ended up getting an old school amp, PPI PC450, which was considered to be the best amp brand in my days.
Being first timer to all this, I had trouble even bringing in the power line from the front battery to the cabin. I bought 4aug and it just did not want to go in through the existing gromet. So I drilled a hole across end the cable and inserted a wire clothe hanger. Wire hanger was easy enough to get through the gromet and I pulled really hard to get the power cable to come through.
I remember someone saying something about using the OEM speaker wires as RCA cable. So while waiting for my RCA cable to arrive, I tried this optiong to see how it works. But I'm terrible at soldering so I just cut the short cheap RCA cables lying around and used connector.
front
trunk
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