I need help installing an aftermarket radio on my 88 GXL, I got the harness to go from my car to the radio, and spliced it all together. I plugged it up like normal and turned the key on, I had power on the unit, it came on, volume **** would work properly and when i put a CD in it would play the CD but no sound would come out. I know the speakers are good, they worked with the factory tape player, so they should at least make sound. Anyone else have problems with something like this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Sounds like you either didn't hook up the amp turn on lead or you didn't bypass the stock amps.

In the top of this new member tech section there is a thread called the FAQ for FC (also found as a sticky thread at the top of the 2nd gen RX-7 tech section). In it, will have all the wiring colors for the 2nd gen RX-7 factory wires, including the amp turn on wires.

 

so i need the amp turn on wire then, right?

 

well that will depend on how powerful of a head unit you put in, wither you use the stock amps or bypass them

 

I'm just putting in a low grade pioneer head unit, and I guess i'm just using the stock amp, so i'm not really going to bypass it.

 

Icemark helped me out quite a bit on my stereo install I did just last weekend (although I searched and found his posts).

You did not (in all likely hood) connect your amp turn on lead. There is not one in the harness kit you bought. I spliced a wire from my acc. switch to the amp turn on lead and VIOLA! Works just fine.

(ps, it is the white wire, possibly with little red marks along its length)

 

Thanks for the advice, I'll check it today when I go to my shop.

 

i would just hook up your speakers straight to your deck. get rid of the amps if you are not using them

 

I hooked up the amp wire to the accessory wire in the radio harness, and i have sound out of the speakers, but when i cut the key on whether the radio is on or not i have a droning or a buzzing noise, like the amp is running constantly, is this normal, or have i done something wrong? Thanks for the help so far, but i need a little more help with this, I can live with it, but will it hurt anything?

 

Yeah, you need to take the Mazda White amp wire to the amp turn on output from your radio. Not too the Acc wire.

There should be a Blue or Blue/white wire (if the radio follows normal ISO wiring) that needs to be hooked up to the Mazda turn on wire, so that the amp is only on when the radio or CD is on.

But the buzzing also suggest that the aftermarket CD/Radio unit that you are using is a high power unit, and that may be an issue with the stock amps which are designed for 15 watt (peak) inputs. If this is the case, then you will need to bypass all the amps and take the speaker wires of the radio to the speakers. But we will not know for sure until you have at least the turn on hooked up correctly.

 

Well, I got the turn on properly connected in the vehicle. it doesn't buzz all the time, but it does it when the radio is just turned on now. I read in the book that came with my radio, and found that the max output is 50 amps, and the normal output is 22 amps. so do i need to run wire from my speakers to the radio, or somehow bypass the amp? This is one area I am completely clueless on. So anymore help that someone could give would be appreciated.

 

I am sure you mixed up your reference of amps with watts, so based on that yes you need to bypass the stock amps.

 

yea, i meant watts, sorry, so how would i go about bypassing them?

 

anyone able to help with the bypassing, I'm not sure about how to do it.