MD: Looking for a stereo/wiring guru

[kts]

My E30 was prepped for the track by my previous owner. He removed the head unit, speakers, antenna, etc from the car. While this is good weight savings I'm looking to add a stereo back into the car for long drives to/from the track.

I've picked up just about everything I need to put a stereo back into the car, now I just need some help wiring up the head unit since I know jack when it comes to stereos and wiring.

I still need to pick up a head unit for the car, I'm not going with anything fancy. I really just want to be able to listen to the radio, play CDs, and have an aux input.

Probably going to end up with something like this: http://www.crutchfield.com/p_105KDR520/JVC-KD-R520.html?tp=5684&nvpair=FFBrand|JVC+Mobile

One little thing... there is a mess of wire where the head unit used to be. I see what looks like original wire harnesses, random butt splices, and raw exposed wire.











Based on the fact it had a factory amp in there, it has tweeters installed and the larger space for the Premium Sound speakers in the rear deck I believe it originally had Premium Sound if that matters at all.

Any one want to help me with getting a stereo back into this car? Payment in whatever combination of cash, beer, help working on your car, etc. you want. I'm located around Arundel Mills/BWI. We can do the install at my place, your place/shop, etc. Whatever works best for you.

[evil_twin]

While you're in there, go cut the wire harness out of an e36 and wire it in there so you can do 1 connection.

[nrubenstein]

Go to the car audio forum and pull up one of the wiring threads. It'll have everything you need.

[Kershaw]

you have a pm.

[dkbmxer002]

i'm no guru but i do installs at best buy. i'm up in leesburg, i can help ya out if needed.


also i had to do an entire wiring setup on mine because one of the previous owners fucked it all up.

[kts]

Thanks for the PM Kershaw and the offer to help dkbmxer002. I'm planning to stop by the College Park meet this week and Kershaw is going to help me look over everything.

I did some work on the car Friday night and discovered what looks to be 3 different vintages of stereo wiring in the car. None of the wires appear to go into the dash though so it's just extra weight in the car, unless they are hiding in the dash somewhere.

[dkbmxer002]

I said fuck it with mine and wired all the speakers myself lol.

[kts]

The rear interior of the car is currently out as is a decent amount of the rest of the interior so it may just be easier to do that.

I only have the premium speakers in the rear which are set up for common ground but I have a cheap set of speakers that can be used to test things out to make sure it all works. I can replace them with better speakers later on.

[dkbmxer002]

yea i bypassed the factory amp. with the interior out it is really easy.

[StereoInstaller1]

The rear interior of the car is currently out as is a decent amount of the rest of the interior so it may just be easier to do that.

I only have the premium speakers in the rear which are set up for common ground but I have a cheap set of speakers that can be used to test things out to make sure it all works. I can replace them with better speakers later on.

They are NOT common ground in any way. The front and rear speaker wires run from the amp. The signal wires from the deck run to the amp, and they do share a ground. Some cars have a single amp ground, some have 2 signal grounds...and late (after '90) have 4 signal ground wires that combine just before the amp...hell, I even worked on an '89 Touring that has an E36 style radio plug...but none of the cars have a single common speaker ground, ever.

If you want an easy way to deal with the mess, revert completely to stock speaker wires, then run 4 pairs of speaker wire back to the amp and connect them to the speakers. That way, should you decide to run amp power to your speakers, it is as simple as wiring from the stock speaker wires to your amp.

GL!

Luke

[kts]

Thanks for the correction all the info Luke! I had misunderstood some stuff about this whole common ground thing and only seeing 1 wire terminal per speaker in the rear premium speaker setup I thought that meant this whole common ground this.

Anyway this is why I'm looking for a local guru since I know nothing about any of this stuff other than it's over my head and I'll just screw it up. :)

Car is a 91. I'll have to dig the amp I have out of the box o' parts that came with the car and take a look at it as well.

[StereoInstaller1]

Oh hell, if the car is a '91, use the bypass guide stickied at the top of this section.