I have an 89 gxl. I replaced the head unit with a Sony Xplod cd unit. 52w peak x 4. Rear speakers are Infiniti 4", front are shitty pioneer 6 1/2" + 3 1/2". Since the stereo install I lost the dash speakers, and the door speakers come and go as they fell appropriate. i have read alot of threads about rewiring and such, but they say you will lose one set for good. I want to keep all, and am hoping I can just remove the amp and still use the wiring. Hoping somone has some experience here. And hope I didn't **** anyone off by posting this here, I was hoping to get 2gen owners input exclusively. Also my searcg was unable to render a valid answer to my question.

 

well first of all it sounds like you have the wrong size speakers everywhere.

The back speakers are normally a 6" or 6 1/2" speaker

The doors are 6" (150mm)

and the dash speakers are 4 inch.

You must remove or wire past the stock amps. You can not run a high power deck into them. Depending on what came with your car for a head unit from the factory you could have up to four stock amps.

and on a personal note, I don't know if I would add anything called explode into my car :p

 

The rear shock towers in my car were designed from the factory to accept 4" speakers. I have read that some have modded this location to accept 6" speakers, but I did not. As far as the front speakers go, I am pretty sure the dash speakers(the ones pointed downward under the dash), look like 3 1/2's, but they are probably 4" if you say so. But as for the door speakers- I havent removed the door panels, but the previous owner had said that he replaced them with 6 1/2's. I highly recomend the Sony Xplod cd player I have. I have only the rear speakers (hi-fi 3 ways, Infinty) and a bazooka 100w bass tube, and it sounds great. Now if I could just get sound from the front of the car!!!! As for the stock stereo, it was a tape deck, digital receiver, and it had an EQ below with a digital readout as well. It's looking like I'll have to rewire, so my new question is- how would I go about running both sets of front speakers to the front channel one the receiver? I again thank everyone for any input

 

My little 87SE came with the beloved 6 1/2" rear brackets. I believe that the 4 speaker cars, like mine, had 6 1/2 rears and 4 fronts, but the 6 speaker system had 4 front and rear. If you find a junker base model, then you can swipe the rear speaker plates. As for the wiring, I ran new wires to all of my speakers.

 

The rear 4 inch is only if you have left the lame stock enclosure still in. You should remove that enclosure as soon as you can afford to. It limits the sound quality radically.

If you must retain it, make sure thet the amp inside has been bypassed.

 

One more thing... Since you just took the time to install a 52 watt stereo, and the sound is only as good as its weakest link, why are you trying to use the 22 guage factory thread... I mean wire?

Run some 16 and marvel in the better bass response!!!

 

Hey, that makes me wonder, a guy had referred to a noise as " reverb from the rear speaker housing" Is that because of that damn 4" bracket? Yeah I would much prefer 6 1/2's back there so I will pull that crap out. But what I need to know is which way to wire the front speakers so that both sets have fresh wire to them. i.e parrallel, etc. This forum is tha shiznit!!

 

One choice you have if you want to run all four front speakers is to rewire all of them and run them in a series this will increase the Ohms (from 4 Ohms to 8 Ohms)and not over heat the head units amp as in parallel where you go from 4 Ohms to 2 Ohms.

That is if all your speakers are 4 Ohms.

Higher # Ohms are easier on an amp but have less output (volume)

If you want to get tricky you can try to find 2 Ohm speakers wire them in a series and keep a good balance between front and back.

 

To save me frustration later on, do the stock amps really have that much of an effect on the quality/volume levels? I'm thinking of maybe later getting a 4 channel amp for my fronts and tweets, and I'm wondering if the stock amps could take the extra power.

 

The stock amps are about 25 watts RMS, so considering most of the better high power head units put out that much, yes the stock amps are a waste.

You could not use an aftermarket amp with the stock amps... it must be one or the other.

You should also note that most 4 inch speakers can not handle much more than 25 watts or so unless they are properly crossed over, blocking the lower bass freqs that they can not reproduce.

 

OK well here is what I think! Dont waste money on the 4" dash speakers!!! You wont ever hear them!!!
Get a good set of co-axles! Dont get components unless you are getting an amp in the future!

Even though your deck says 52 watts and it runs around 22 RMS that doesnt even come close to an aftermarket amp.
Think about it this way. If you have 2, 9 volt batteries(your deck) and you have a car battery 14 volts(aftermarket amp) which would you rather run your car(stereo) off of?

Also I have been doing this for alot of years now and I dont know where you got your sony from but DEFINITLY go back and get an extended warrenty!!!!! YOU WILL NEED IT!!! Trust me on this one!! I have been putting them in for years now! There are good decks but something is always going wrong on one!!!

As far as re-wiring, I would find the door speaker wires where the come through the boot into the car and connect them to the dash speaker leads. Just dont run dash speakers!

 

Cool, I'm doin it right now lol

 

Not true. The factory amps will accept high power. I have a Blaupunkt 200 watt head unit feeding the factory amps and speakers. This setup works just fine.

 

The wiring harness "plugs into itself" to bypass the OEM external amplifiers.

6.5" in the rear, 6.5" (with spacers) in the doors, 4" under the dash.

You'll need to amplify 6 speakers and yes you can use the head unit to power 4 of them.

 

Uh yeah... what model???(both car and radio). Some FCs only have a front dash amp or no amps at all.

The factory amp system is designed for a 6 watt (RMS) input (or low level depending on what factory amp). They also use a common negitive input signal on the left and right on the mutil-channel stock amps.

The common speaker negitive means that most high power decks will burn up once the volumn is even halfway up, those that don't, generally don't like the load that the high level input stage presents. This is often manifested by the aftermarket head unit distorting any volumn above 1/3 to halfway, and the speakers cutting out.

 

The stock amps suck.
The front dash speakers are oversized 4" but a 4" standard will fit.
In my opinion seperates always sound better than coaxials and with seperates you can mount the tweeter in a better location.

 

Car = 87 GXL factory tape deck with EQ, 4 speakers and 4 amps
New Radio = Blaupunkt Honalulu CD50

Used wireing kit that plugged into the the factory wireing harness. At first I didn't get any sound because wireing kit did not provide a connection for the remote amp turn on. I used a spade connector to plug the amp turn on from the deck to the factory connector.

I have had the volume almost all the way up with no problems. This setup actually plays louder than the Blaupunk with no amp and has very little distortion. Because of the speaker sizes bass is a problem at high volumes, but that was the case with the factory radio.

 

The Honolulu CD50 is only a 15 watt/channel RMS deck (and is only 160 watts total max peak power). It is not by any means a 200watt deck as you suggested.

The system 4 mazda system with am/fm and electronic cassette and EQ, has only 2 amps. One in the front and a drive amp mounted behind the EQ for the rear speakers.

So when you removed the stock deck you removed one of the 2 amps.

So with a medium low power aftermarket radio and only one stock amp left, I suppose it could be possible to wire up that deck to run the system, although it would probably sound considerably better with bypassing that front amp as well.

 

The manual indicated it was 200 watts, but thats not a big deal. I checked and rear pod speakers have a small amp under each one. I will check the fronts later, but a local stereo shop told me front speakers have same amps as rear.

 

ps my Sony is 52 x 4 peak, 25w RMS. Its a nice deck, I just havent been able to get the best sound from it since the amps are still active.

 

Thread ressurrection time:

My '86 GXL has amps at the rear strut towers, a factory tape deck and EQ.

Did they change something between '86 and '87?

 

Could you post pics of the amps that are in the rear strut towers? Thanks.