Hello, I have a 1983 GS which I installed an aftermarket Kenwood tape deck in last year. I ran speaker wire to all 4 speakers (all new, og speakers wouldn't make a sound), and have been running great so far.

A while back I took the factory front amp out from underneath the driver's seat while it was out to troubleshoot an electrical problem (needed the room to look at the harness under the driver's bin). Recently I was doing some work behind the radio, and remembered the din connectors behind there. I looked at the amp itself, and looked at the wiring diagrams in my workshop manual, and in theory I think it should be possible to adapt the amp to receive input from the radio. However, I cannot find anything in regards to the pinout of these connectors. Would anyone happen to know what the pinouts are?

I would like to see if this works out of both curiosity, and to maybe help balance the strong rear sound by amplifying the front speakers; without buying additional parts, at least nothing beyond stuff like connectors. I don't know if the factory amp works as my car had a broken aftermarket radio installed when I purchased it; this radio was wired poorly and was only hooked up to the rear speakers via speaker wire. In the event it doesn't work, it should hopefully just be a bit of time and a few butt connectors wasted. I would imagine it works since the car is fairly low miles and the only electrical problems I've had have been crusty fusible links and a corroded pin for the door switches, if not, oh well. Used clarion amps seem to be fairly cheap used, or I could consider an alternative if I deem it necessary.

 

Make sure your radio output is not already amplified. If it is it will blowup the amp. You would need pre-amp outs. General these are RCA plugs so you would need a convertor.

Foxed.ca

http://foxed.ca/rx7manual/manuals/19...g_Diagrams.pdf

50-J

 

You are better off getting a modern amplifier than rewiring that old Clarion....

It will save you a lot of headaches....

 

Finally got some time to look, and it appears that the radio I'm using has 4 rca outputs; so both front and rear.
I can't find anything definitive about them being pre-amps online, or in the manual; but I think I will assume they are.

That makes things a lot easier, assuming I can find an adapter that will plug into the Clarion amp.

 

It's worth checking the output level from those RCA jacks, per the manufacturer of your aftermarket head unit. If it's 2 volts then you are porbably fine. If 4 volts or higher it might be too much for the OEM Clarion amp.

Also, it's short money for a decent 4 channel amp from Amazon, just a basic class D amp will blow away the quality of the old Clarion. And the only advantage of going with the existin DIN plug is to get the line level signals to the amp location.

I suggest you just buy an inexpensive but decent 4 (or 5 channel for a sub someday?) amp, run your aftermarket signals via decent RCA cables to that amp, etc etc. You will ultimately be much happier.

The clarion amps are decently loud, but it's all midrange. They have no real bass and the treble response is meh.

 

why not spend $100 on a receiver that is usb capable, and $100 on front and rear speakers? add a few hours of wiring and you can have a great sounding system. you can download music for free to the usb, and usb's don't skip.

I went ultra cheap ( $20 ? ) on a dual receiver. It hurt my ears, so I returned it for credit towards the pioneer receiver.

 

I can't find specific output voltage of the rca outputs, just "preout level/load" which states 1800mV. I take that as 2v output, with "preout" referring to the rca plugs.
I've been somewhat busy recently, and will continue to be for a while; making the clarion work is likely to be a lot less time consuming than trying to wire in a new amp.

The Kenwood headunit I'm running seems to have good enough bass in the rear, and I'm not really a treble person. I'm not sure how much midrange it even has as the walmart front speakers are pretty bad; I was planning to upgrade them after I got the amp to work, in case it were to blow them out if I did something wrong.

You're probably right in that I should just get a new amp, but again; I don't have a ton of time for modifying my cars right now. I have a Clarion that presumably works, and should be somewhat plug&play; I also really like making use of old/legacy things (see my collection of vintage desktop PCs). If the Clarion blows or doesn't sound as good as I'd hoped, I will definitely get a better amp in the future when I have the time.

 

I really don't like the looks of modern headunits, and a double din wouldn't fit very well in the car anyway; I already had to take a file to the trim piece to make a single din fit. And that's not even mentioning that the single din isn't even mounted, its held in place purely by wedging the faceplate in the gap in the trim. For some context, I am extremely picky with things like this because I want the interior to look and feel perfect; I spend all my time there, so I want it to look nice. When I bought my van, it had a JVC unit from probably around 2006 or 7 (the van is from the mid 90s), and I hated the way it looked so much; bought a Kenwood CD player similar in looks to the tape deck in the RX-7 and all is well.

Not to say I can't pony up for nice speakers though. I've got some 6" JBLs in the back, which sound amazing. I plan to get some 4" JBLs or Kenwoods for the front after I get an amp working, would rather blow up the Walmart speakers than something nice if I wire it wrong on the first go. I've got the same 6" in the back of my 90s Corolla, which sound quite good with the factory tape deck. I'm sure I'm under utilizing the speakers in both cars, but as I mentioned earlier I am super picky and no receiver that would work better would suit my aesthetic needs.

USB means nothing to me. I used a cassette adapter for a while, before fixing the cig lighter and I started using an FM transmitter (can finally charge my phone, and don't have to worry about charging the bluetooth tape). I have Spotify on my phone and any local files I could ever conceive of using can just be loaded to an SD card.

 

That pre out level is fine and should work with the OEM amp. I totally understand the desire to work with what you've got and keep an old thing going (like most on this forum). Have fun!

 

This is what I did.