Can I hook up a sub and amp to the stock headunit and still control them using the stock bass and treble controls?

yes sir... you'll need a loc (line out converter) splice through your rear deck speakers.. if you have any other questions such as how to install an amp let me know

Could they do that at Best Buy? I'm near clueless with this stuff.

yea they could probably charge you 14.99 for the part and then anothr 45 or so for the install its pretty simple.. its a little box.. in which has 4 wires.. usually a green/green w stripe and a gray/gray w stripe sometimes a ground.. you'll cut your rear speakers.. use wire connectors green goes to left speaker wire pos green w stripe negative then do the same on the other side.. then you plug your rcas into the line out converter box.. not hard.. pretty self explanatory even comes with directions..

Best buy is a little steep for install. try circuit city. it is 50.00 for install compared to about 120.00 from best buy.

id trust a sound and security place over best buy. Btw my install is almost complete. there is gonna be a total of four amps and an eq all off the stock deck.

Anyone have some suggestions where I can find custom sub boxes that fit in the LS? I have 2 12" MTX in a bandpass, but it doesn't fit in truck. I would like to find a box that fits between the wheel wells, pressed up against the rear seat firing towards the rear of the car.

Thanks
Chuck

Hey 2k2ls. Be sure to let me know how that sounds. I'm in the middle of throughing in my stuff and running the stock deck as well. I already have an Alpin out of my ES300 that got smashed b4 i bought my LS, but I'm trying to keep the stock look.

I've got Polk Audio 6.5 components,
6 Kenwood rear fills
10' PPI sub
4 channle V12 for mids/high
Orion 225 for the sub.

Really hoping since the stock deck is also made by Alpine it will sound good.

Asim

I've got an old 200W amp and 12" sub and was thinking of putting it in my trunk. It will be coming from my 85 Mustang that I am not driving anymore. I'll be using the LOC but have a question. Since I don't have the audiophile system and no speakers in the rear deck lid, what is the easiest way to get the wire from my rear door speaker to my trunk? I assume I will have to run it through the rubber wire protector in my door jam? Kind of a stupid question but figured if anyone had a better idea they would let me know.

ive got a question about hooking up the stock head unit to a system, i have a 2000 LS V8 sport that has the glove box 6 disc changer and no rear deck speakers, so where should i splice into if i dont have rear speakers? is there still an output for it on the head unit, even though i dont have them. im getting system put in soon and am in need to figure this out.

I've got an old 200W amp and 12" sub and was thinking of putting it in my trunk. It will be coming from my 85 Mustang that I am not driving anymore. I'll be using the LOC but have a question. Since I don't have the audiophile system and no speakers in the rear deck lid, what is the easiest way to get the wire from my rear door speaker to my trunk? I assume I will have to run it through the rubber wire protector in my door jam? Kind of a stupid question but figured if anyone had a better idea they would let me know.

better solution.. pull out your head unit and wire it directly behind your headunit and tuck it up in your dash, you wont have to hide any wires, or worry about taking your door panel off.. Just make sure you cut the right wires...

better solution.. pull out your head unit and wire it directly behind your headunit and tuck it up in your dash, you wont have to hide any wires, or worry about taking your door panel off.. Just make sure you cut the right wires...
Thank you very much, sir. That sounds much easier.......I'll be making the install this weekend.

Oh yes........before I hook up my system this weekend, I want to run it by any of you wizards out there.

I have a LOC with 6 wires running out of it.......4 for speakers........2 they tell me not to worry about. I will be wiring my amp's ground and power cables from the battery in the trunk. I will have to have the signal wire (blue wire) wired into the amp wire behind the radio. All this sounds good, yes? The only question I had was what wire is the amp wire for my 2000 LS with base audio system located behind the radio? Is that blue as well or will it be a different color?

Thanks a lot and let me know if I am missing anything please.........I had read something that if I have the ground wires in my LOC that I will need a ground loop converter but I dont know about that. Any help would be great.

Oh yes........before I hook up my system this weekend, I want to run it by any of you wizards out there.

I have a LOC with 6 wires running out of it.......4 for speakers........2 they tell me not to worry about. I will be wiring my amp's ground and power cables from the battery in the trunk. I will have to have the signal wire (blue wire) wired into the amp wire behind the radio. All this sounds good, yes? The only question I had was what wire is the amp wire for my 2000 LS with base audio system located behind the radio? Is that blue as well or will it be a different color?

Thanks a lot and let me know if I am missing anything please.........I had read something that if I have the ground wires in my LOC that I will need a ground loop converter but I dont know about that. Any help would be great.

correct youll take the 4 wires coming off and tap 2 + into the + of your speaker and the other two into the negative. the other 2 wires are a ground that you dont need to worry about. as far as which wire in the harnest is the remote, im not exactly sure (maybe the top row, second from the left(but dont quote me on that)). is what i did was went to circuit city and got a wiring harnest for the HU and read which one was the remote. but im sure smoeone here knows which one it is. good luck hope this helps a little. its really simple, once u get started ull be finished in no time.

the 2 are a phone mute wires.

Oh yes........before I hook up my system this weekend, I want to run it by any of you wizards out there.

I have a LOC with 6 wires running out of it.......4 for speakers........2 they tell me not to worry about. I will be wiring my amp's ground and power cables from the battery in the trunk. I will have to have the signal wire (blue wire) wired into the amp wire behind the radio. All this sounds good, yes? The only question I had was what wire is the amp wire for my 2000 LS with base audio system located behind the radio? Is that blue as well or will it be a different color?

Thanks a lot and let me know if I am missing anything please.........I had read something that if I have the ground wires in my LOC that I will need a ground loop converter but I dont know about that. Any help would be great.

You stated "I will be wiring my amp's ground and power cables from the battery in the trunk" make sure you dont connect the ground to the negative on the battery, I saw some idiot who did that with a Mmats amp what an idiot... The remote wire is typically blue, but sometimes that alarm wire is blue or the Ilumination wire is blue. You can always use a voltmeter and see what wire is not hot when you turn the car off... I have an aftermarket head unit in which i would recommend upgrading to... Much better sound quality!! If your not getting any sound then you'll have to use that ground wire on the LOC, but I have only had to use it once.. if you get engine noise through the speakers try moving the ground... if that doesnt solve it then you'll need a ground loop converter... let me know if you need anything else.. oh yea if your putting the LOC behind the head unit make sure you have long enough RCAs to get from the LOC to the trunk.. only bad thing.. Good quality RCAS will give you better sound.... imho

You stated "I will be wiring my amp's ground and power cables from the battery in the trunk" make sure you dont connect the ground to the negative on the battery, I saw some idiot who did that with a Mmats amp what an idiot... The remote wire is typically blue, but sometimes that alarm wire is blue or the Ilumination wire is blue. You can always use a voltmeter and see what wire is not hot when you turn the car off... I have an aftermarket head unit in which i would recommend upgrading to... Much better sound quality!! If your not getting any sound then you'll have to use that ground wire on the LOC, but I have only had to use it once.. if you get engine noise through the speakers try moving the ground... if that doesnt solve it then you'll need a ground loop converter... let me know if you need anything else.. oh yea if your putting the LOC behind the head unit make sure you have long enough RCAs to get from the LOC to the trunk.. only bad thing.. Good quality RCAS will give you better sound.... imho
Yeah........I made a typo there. I will be wiring the pos to the battery and the neg to somewhere else in the trunk. Thanks for the help though.........its good to see people are on top of things.

yea just didnt want to see your amp go "Boom" lol wouldnt be a good idea.. what type of amp are you gona be running.. what type of speakers, type of box? what guage wire?

Yeah........I made a typo there. I will be wiring the pos to the battery and the neg to somewhere else in the trunk. Thanks for the help though.........its good to see people are on top of things.

Since you're wiring the positive to the battery, wire the negative, from the amp, directly to the battery too.

Since you're wiring the positive to the battery, wire the negative, from the amp, directly to the battery too.


no dont do that!!! :slam

no dont do that!!! :slam

Why not?

thats not how the amp was intended to be hooked up.. the ground shoudl either go to a ground strap, or directly to somewhere on the frame.. if you hook it up to the battery you tend to get engine noise..

thats not how the amp was intended to be hooked up.. the ground shoudl either go to a ground strap, or directly to somewhere on the frame.. if you hook it up to the battery you tend to get engine noise..

I've been installing for over 5 yrs and have never hooked an amp up through the battery besides the pos +
In which I am actually a certified installer.. I do custom installs, fiberglass, etc... :Beer :Beer

thats not how the amp was intended to be hooked up.. the ground shoudl either go to a ground strap, or directly to somewhere on the frame.. if you hook it up to the battery you tend to get engine noise..

Funny I've been installing a lot longer than 5 years and grounding directly to the battery has always been my last resort to eliminate engine noise but it's usually not necessary just find a good spot bare metal close to your amp if you can.

thats not how the amp was intended to be hooked up.. the ground shoudl either go to a ground strap, or directly to somewhere on the frame.. if you hook it up to the battery you tend to get engine noise..

Wow, I hope you're not serious. You do realize that the frame of the car is the same as the battery, polarity wise? The only reason people ground their amps to the metal of the car because its more cost effective then buying 17 ft of ground and running it to the battery. The whole car is "-" negative, thats why they ground it. There is no difference if you run a ground to the battery or to the frame, its the same thing, the frame acts as the ground wire, which is connected to the batterr "-". Have you ever installed an amp in a BMW, where the battery is in the trunk? Theres no difference if you connect it directly to the "-" battery post or screw it in two inches away to the frame. Have you ever worked on older Mercedes that have "common ground" systems? Every negative terminal of the speaker is connected to the frame.

I've been installing for over 5 yrs and have never hooked an amp up through the battery besides the pos +
In which I am actually a certified installer.. I do custom installs, fiberglass, etc... :Beer :Beer

I've been installing for over five years, and have a degree in engineering.
:Beer

yes you can do it.. but you Tend to get engine noise through the speakers, which causes you to have to install a ground loop converter.. I didnt say you were wrong.. its just a pain in the ass.. and the ground wire typically for that size of an amp.. say 500watts shouldnt be longer then 10-12in"..

Wow, I hope you're not serious. You do realize that the frame of the car is the same as the battery, polarity wise? The only reason people ground their amps to the metal of the car because its more cost effective then buying 17 ft of ground and running it to the battery. The whole car is "-" negative, thats why they ground it. There is no difference if you run a ground to the battery or to the frame, its the same thing, the frame acts as the ground wire, which is connected to the batterr "-". Have you ever installed an amp in a BMW, where the battery is in the trunk? Theres no difference if you connect it directly to the "-" battery post or screw it in two inches away to the frame. Have you ever worked on older Mercedes that have "common ground" systems? Every negative terminal of the speaker is connected to the frame.

Exactly :Beer

yea just didnt want to see your amp go "Boom" lol wouldnt be a good idea.. what type of amp are you gona be running.. what type of speakers, type of box? what guage wire?
I have two sets of amps/subs. The first set (which I am hoping my brother who is out of the country didn't take) is a 200W RockFos punch amp with 2 12" subs located in a box. The other is just a cheap amp I picked up from a friend at work.......I want to say Lightning audio with a 12" Lightning Audio sub in an enclosure.

The RockFos was used in my Explorer I used to drive and was keeping it at my brothers place. The other unit is in my old 85 Mustang GT convert (not exactly much room in the trunk which is why I went with the cheapo amp/sub. Also, at the time I didn't have a lot of money so it was good enough for the time). They both sounded good though. The way I figure it, I can always upgrade at a later date if I want more sound, right? As for now, I think I will save my money for repairing my car when it decides to break down. As for the gauge of wire.....I'm not quite sure on that. All the wires came with the sub/amp. Thanks for the questions though! :Beer

This is an anwser to all of you guys that are talking about a ground issue. I am an MECP certified installer and I just found my MECP study guide book. Here is what it says about grounding the systems componets:

FINDING A GOOD GROUND:
Finding a good ground can be trickey.

The best ground point in a vehicle is a place with good physical connection to the same metal that the vehicle battery ground itself shares. Make sure that it has the same ground poential as the battery ground, however it doesn't necessarily have to physically connect to the battery ground point. Think of the chassis and the body metal of the car as one extremely large gauge wire connecting the ground of the battery to other vehicle accessories.
So in the end you ALL are right. I have 3 kicker amps all hooked up to my 2nd battery and have NO ground loops. No engine noise but I have had some problems with this on other amps/ cars.

u got any pics of your system?

Motts / or anyone else for that fact...

Have you ran the same system with the stock and then gone to an aftermarket. Percent wise, what was the sound difference.

(I know there no mathematical answer).

I've got my complete system out of my last car but would like to keep the stock head it it will sound almost as good.

Asim

Motts / or anyone else for that fact...

Have you ran the same system with the stock and then gone to an aftermarket. Percent wise, what was the sound difference.

(I know there no mathematical answer).

I've got my complete system out of my last car but would like to keep the stock head it it will sound almost as good.

Asim

an aftermarket head unit will make a big difference, i think most will agree with me on this.. your not distorting your speakers by running the LOC off of them... you'll have an actualy set of RCAS, and you can control more wrather then just bass/trebble/fade/balance.. you can control your subs....

aftermarket head unit
AUX inputs in the rear, 3 RCA pre-outs for front/rear/subwoofer, EQ support, all that stuff... there's a lot of MP3 capable decks now so that won't be an issue.
better CD specs can mean better sound quality. For example, the higher the CD signal-to-noise ratio, the cleaner the sound. And a CD receiver with a wider frequency response has more detailed sound. These specs are especially noticeable when using component amplifiers.
High power — with a very few exceptions, today's in-dash CD receivers all have built-in 4-way high power. When reviewing CD receivers, be sure to check the "RMS" wattage; it's a more accurate reflection of a built-in amp's real-world performance
Sensitive AM/FM tuner — aftermarket AM/FM tuners perform better than the ones in factory-supplied radios. Satellite radio controls — for state-of-the-art radio entertainment, look for satellite radio controls. This lets you connect the hardware to receive the digital broadcasts of XM Satellite Radio or Sirius Satellite Radio.
Tone shaping — all CD receivers have some form of tone-shaping, starting with simple bass and treble controls. And most CD receivers offer one or more of these features:
loudness for fuller sound at low volumes
bass boosts or bass enhancers for punchy bottom end
preset EQ curves for one-touch sound contouring
multi-band equalizers for precision fine-tuning
digital signal processing for reconstructing your vehicle's acoustic environments.
Security features — to help protect your investment, today's CD receivers offer many choices in theft deterrence:
detachable faces for take-it-with-you peace of mind
stealth-type faces that disguise the receiver to foil would-be thieves
"smartcards" that must be inserted for the receiver to work
programmable security codes
built-in alarms.
Preamp outputs — multiple sets of preamp outputs make it easier to install component amplifiers and subwoofers.
Many CD receivers have an auxiliary input (or the option to add one), so you can plug in even more sources of on-road entertainment:
a portable MP3, MiniDisc, or cassette player
a plug-and-play satellite radio tuner (some tuner/controller packages also have RCA audio outputs)
the audio outputs of a mobile DVD or videocassette player
the audio outputs of a TV tuner.

I'm sure someone will have something else to say.. :Bang

That's what i thought. Just concerned about a clean looking dash.

I've seen a few pics of guys with aftermarket decks and the car still looks good. I'm having the sub enclose built this week and ordered extra carpet so I can build a panel to make it look like the trunk ends at the sub on the left, amp on the right. (will take pics when done). Paying to have the components put in. 6.5 in a 5X7 opening can't be easy, plus I want to put the tweeters in the top part of the door panel and don't trust myself cutting the leather.

some of my installs...
http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/showthread.php?t=8313

heres my previous system in the ls.. i know have a fiberglass install. i'll post pics when i have some free time at home..

motts wheres my list

motts wheres my list
almost done its at home i'm :Beer :Beer :Beer still at work biaaatch.... you'll have it tonite..