Upgrading the stock Infinity stereo

[Scott95GSX]

Hey guys,
I've had my 95 GSX for about a week and I like it a lot so far. My car didn't come with a CD changer though, and I don't like not being able to listen to my CD's so the stock stereo has got to go.

I've got an alpine head unit, an amp and some speakers from my last car. I've searched the board and found some good posts which talked about running the power wire for the amp, so that shouldn't be a problem. What I'm worried about is getting the speaker wire from the amp to the speakers in the doors. My install on my last car was pretty easy, I just spliced the speaker wires from my amp into the stock wiring harness which then took the signal to the speakers. The problem is that the Infinity system already has an external amp, and I assume the speaker wires don't even run to the stock wiring harness up front.

I'd like to get some idea of how the speaker wires are currently run in the car before I start trying to install this stuff so I can get a plan of attack going. From what I've read, it's really hard to get new speaker wire into the doors, so I'm probably going to need to use the existing wire. Can I use the speaker wires that currently run to the Infinity amp, or is there an easier/better way to do it?

I appreciate any help you guys can give me, I need my tunes

 

[Defiant]

I've just been through some of this, going from a stock CD/radio to the stock Infinity with the amp and 10-disk changer ('95 Talon). I'm nearly old, so fancy expensive systems don't do much for me, nor the dinosaur music I listen to in a rumbly car with all that tire squealing and those annoying sirens behind me. Main reason I wanted to change was to be able to see the clock and tuner instead of hiding it behind the gearshift. From what I was able to find out, and experience, the speakers are wired directly from the radio: I did no more than pull the old radio out and put in the "new" stuff. I also read somewhere in the Digest or one of the boards that if you don't have a (factory) amp, the front speakers aren't powered up unless you jumper them. Yeh, I know the stock stuff is "crap", but I can hear the noise just fine, and now I can even swap out the dash CD without having to pull out of fifth.

 

[Scott95GSX]

I'm kind of going in the reverse order that you went in... I'm pulling out the stock Infinity system. I believe with the standard system, the speaker wires do run directly up front. Since my Infinity system has an external amplifier though, I was figuring the head unit sends the signal to the amp and that speaker wires run from the amp underneath the passenger seat. I've got everything pretty much figured out (I think), except how to run the speaker wires.

 

[97GS-TSpyder]

If you have the stock infinity system you have to jump the wire(connect the two with another piece of wire)the tweeters and the front speakers because of the factory amp...then it will be fine..if you dont have the stock headunit but still have the amp it wont with so you have to take the amp out

 

[Scott95GSX]

Well, I'm going to be replacing the head unit, the amp AND the speakers. So I'm not worried about getting the stock speakers working again. I'm going to have a pair of components up front. My problem is how to run the speaer wire... how to get the signal from my amp in my hatch to my component set up front, and whatever speakers I put in the back.

 

[Defiant]

Yeah, serious listeners (or, kids with the bucks) all seem to downtalk the factory system, and I'm not about to say they've got extra filling making them full of something. But having the idea of a bare AM radio, and a heater offered as _options_ in my living history, getting a CD player is not much short of a miracle to some of us.
I should have made clear in my first post that it's the dash tweeters that are only factory-wired through the underseat amp, not straight from the radio. Check the wiring diagram (if you don't have the manuals, your library probably has MOTOR manuals, good for the wiring), the door and rear speakers are wired both directly to the speakers _and_ to the amp, and the tweets are wired only out of the amp. All the connections you'll need are under the front navigator's seat, and it comes out with two easy nuts and two easy bolts.

 

[Scott95GSX]

Interesting, thanks for the info. So let me see if I have this straight... The door speakers and the rear speakers DO have wiring going to the stock deck location. So I would remove the stock amp from underneath the passenger seat. Then I would run speaker wire from my new amp in the back to the wiring harness in the dash and connect it up with the factory speaker wires. Does this cound correct?

 

[Defiant]

Or, all the speaker wires are in a terminal under the passenger seat, in a nice neat connector, E-08. As long as the factory wired the speaker locations, why not use those wires? They won't care what's run to them, and if you use the factory loom connectors at the speakers, seems like it'd save a lot of fussing. The amps show up on eBay for about the same price as a radio harness adapter, might as well grab one and gut it for the hookups.