Possibly want to bypass stock amp

[rapperpapper]

I've got a 97' GSX and I'm pretty sure I blew the stock amp. The car alarm randomly went off at 2 in the morning, wouldn't shut off and I got pissed off and I didn't realize what I was doing. The car was running when I decided to rip off the negative battery cable. Ended up ####ing some shit up and I fixed most of it but....

Anytime I try and put a new fuse in the interior block for the amp it blows in 2 seconds and I get smoke from under the seat. I don't have the money to replace it right now so I was gonna see if there was a way I could just bypass it completely?

 

[LiquidX]

If it's blowing, then you have a short somewhere that you would need to find. The only way to bypass it is to run new wire. It won't sound as good but it'll work. Best bet is to run new wire with a new headunit and new amp.

 

[rapperpapper]

Yeah I figured somewhere inside the amp it shorted. From what I can see the wires on the plugs look ok. It sucks because I've got an amp that is almost exactly the same in my Dodge Avenger that I don't even use, but the model number is off by 1 digit and it doesn't have the same plugs.

 

[RedTurboEclipse]

You can bypass the stock amp. You don't have to run any new wires or anything.

All you have to do is simply UNPLUG the harness in the amp.

The audio in the DSM is wired in parallel. Because not all of them had the Infinity system as it was an option.

You will lose the tweeters, but your door and rear speakers will work, and will be powered by the stereo, not the amp obviously.

Sound will be weaker compared to it, but that answers your question if you can bypass it.

 

[MJBean420]

i got a stock infinity amp. I am pretty sure it still works fine. If interested, PM me an offer.

 

[turbosax2]

All you have to do is simply UNPLUG the harness in the amp.

You will lose the tweeters, but your door and rear speakers will work, and will be powered by the stereo, not the amp obviously.

Are you sure about this? I've removed the rear speakers from my car, but the rest is stock. I tried removing the stock amp but then the speakers wouldn't work. When I put the amp back in, the speakers worked again. The head unit always worked, just no sound came from the speakers without the amp. I want to remove the amp for weight savings and still use the stock head unit, but I'm not sure if this is possible now.

What about the '95 head unit that came with the auxiliary input on the front; does that work without the stock amp? If anybody has this stock '95 radio in your car, could you try unplugging the amp and seeing if the speakers still work? Or send me a '95 radio and I'll find out

 

[Atuca]

Eric I am 500% sure you can remove the amp under the passenger seat and there will be no problem, it was my first tech article ever!

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/newbie-forum/252126-new-stereo-installation-my-review.html

And since I am in the middle of the interior rewire, I can attest to the following:

The speaker wires from the amp crimp into the speaker wires connected to the stock stereo plug. The Infinity amp gets its input from the din connector, so if you remove the amp, the stock stereo powers the stock wiring that is already running through the car. If the amp was working, it just adds more power through the stock wiring through the crimp to the stock wiring.

I was pretty upset that Mitsubishi did this, but I have the removed amp and stereo wiring harness to prove this, out of a 99 GSX.

Unless mitsubishi wired the cars different by location.

 

[turbosax2]

I know you can with an aftermarket radio, but what about the stock radio? I've tried two stock ones and neither work without the amp, and both work with the amp. So unless I'm missing something here...

 

[Atuca]

Did you keep the Din plug unplugged from the back of the Stock radio? If plugged in it might output just through that plug (to the amp), instead of through the standard wires.

TBH I did a speaker and head unit swap, and I don't remeber if I did one and than the other. So at this point, I would have to bow out and leave the question open to debate.

Sorry I don't got any more info.

 

[turbosax2]

Are you talking about the black cable that runs from the radio to the amp? If so, I removed that cable from the head unit when I removed the amp for testing.

 

[Atuca]

Yes. There is one black cable that goes to the amp, and one to the 10CD changer. If you removed the one going to the amp and it didn't fix the issue, than perhaps the stock infinity double din radio does not work/output without the use of the amp.

My next guess for a stock apparence would be grabbing a single din CD player out of the non infinity sound system eclipse and see if that works, otherwise..

Sony - Xplod 52W x 4 In-Dash CD Deck with Detachable Faceplate - CDXGT240

less than 100 bucks you got a built in amp better than the infinity in the eclipse and can play MP3s

Sorry I can't help test my theory, I ditched the unit years ago.

 

[RedTurboEclipse]

Atuca has mentioned everything I was going to say.

The proprietary DIN cable that connects from the stock deck is just the audio ouput and the remote turn on wire. If you've seen the MITAH adapter you can verify this yourself. Think of it as 4channel rca output and the remote turn on wire for amps. That's all that din cable is.

Power, ground, speaker output is all on the amp harness. Thats why its so convenient to route/tap all the wires for new amps to this location since they are all here INcLudING the ones for the dash speakers, which cannot be found behind the deck IIRC.

They are wired in parallel as mentioned with the stock deck. So something strange is going on.

It has been so long since I did the test to confirm that sound still works without the amp, I don't remember if i tested with the stock headunit and aftermarket.

Perhaps it only works with aftermarket headunit. I know this for sure because I remember after getting my new expensive deck I told myself "DAMN THE SOUND SUCKS, why is it the rears are overpowering the front, and I have to fade to the front to make it sound balanced" At the time the way it was wired was using a harness to wire the new deck, obviously amp already out of play.

The amp is out of play the moment that din cable is not plugged in-- it won't have any input signal and wire to tell it to turn on.

Then of course since the xovers are built into the amp, and the dash speakers are wired into it, then I had no dash speakers resulting in the horrible balance. Funny how people are so in denial after this, they swear the sound is still soooooo much better, i guess you have to be when your $300 makes the sound field worse and you don't know why.

This is where over the years since I got familiar with the system, was to test what was better:
aftermarket deck, no mitah adapter so stock amp NOT in play
aftermarket deck, mitah adapter stock amp in play
aftermarket deck, no mitah adapter so stock amp NOT in play, component speakers/xovers for dash speakers

Your ears will enjoy the dash speakers working. So even if you purchased a $300 stereo and just wire it up behind the deck with the usual mitsu harness, the dash speakers will not work, and the sound field is horrible. You will most likely need to fade to the front to balance. Sound only coming from your legs.

Then I've tried getting the MITAH adapter, which will retain the the use of the stock amp giving you the nice sound field. But in this setup, your deck won't be powering the speakers, the stock amp will obviously. This is where it starts to get tough, because your ears will tell you this setup is better. Obviously because there are 2 more speakers in play, so its louder and better sound field.

So does that mean the newer decks are still inferior then the 10+ year old stock amp? Unfortunately there is no data on how much RMS watts the stock amp puts out, nor the specs about the xover point.

Aftermarket decks provide 15-20~watt RMS per channel. Conclusions of the above comparison were not fair. To really see how much SUPERIOR the aftermarket deck power is, you would need to have a setup in comparison. But you can't if you wire everything behind the deck. That would leave you with no dash speakers. Now if you get some passive xovers/bass blockers/component speaker set which come with the xovers, and wire them up (conveniently into the stock amp harness since the leads for all the speakers are there), then you can "hear" the difference. Aftermarket deck power seems to be superior in this more fair comparison.

sorry to go off topic, but people should know this.

 

[turbosax2]

I gave up and put the stock amp back in, now everything works. What I found is that the stock head unit will only power the speakers if the amp is also plugged in. I tried an aftermarket head unit and of course that worked without the amp. From more searching I found a few posts that said this is the case because the stock radio does NOT have a built-in amp, wheres aftermarket radios will (and factory radios that came in cars without amps).

 

[rapperpapper]

So if I just bought a new aftermarket head unit, whats the best route to go? and I plan on getting aftermarket speakers (possibly subs) as well.

 

[Mike_GST]

Atuca has mentioned everything I was going to say.

The proprietary DIN cable that connects from the stock deck is just the audio ouput and the remote turn on wire. If you've seen the MITAH adapter you can verify this yourself. Think of it as 4channel rca output and the remote turn on wire for amps. That's all that din cable is.

Power, ground, speaker output is all on the amp harness. Thats why its so convenient to route/tap all the wires for new amps to this location since they are all here INcLudING the ones for the dash speakers, which cannot be found behind the deck IIRC.

They are wired in parallel as mentioned with the stock deck. So something strange is going on.

It has been so long since I did the test to confirm that sound still works without the amp, I don't remember if i tested with the stock headunit and aftermarket.

Perhaps it only works with aftermarket headunit. I know this for sure because I remember after getting my new expensive deck I told myself "DAMN THE SOUND SUCKS, why is it the rears are overpowering the front, and I have to fade to the front to make it sound balanced" At the time the way it was wired was using a harness to wire the new deck, obviously amp already out of play.

The amp is out of play the moment that din cable is not plugged in-- it won't have any input signal and wire to tell it to turn on.

Then of course since the xovers are built into the amp, and the dash speakers are wired into it, then I had no dash speakers resulting in the horrible balance. Funny how people are so in denial after this, they swear the sound is still soooooo much better, i guess you have to be when your $300 makes the sound field worse and you don't know why.

This is where over the years since I got familiar with the system, was to test what was better:
aftermarket deck, no mitah adapter so stock amp NOT in play
aftermarket deck, mitah adapter stock amp in play
aftermarket deck, no mitah adapter so stock amp NOT in play, component speakers/xovers for dash speakers

Your ears will enjoy the dash speakers working. So even if you purchased a $300 stereo and just wire it up behind the deck with the usual mitsu harness, the dash speakers will not work, and the sound field is horrible. You will most likely need to fade to the front to balance. Sound only coming from your legs.

Then I've tried getting the MITAH adapter, which will retain the the use of the stock amp giving you the nice sound field. But in this setup, your deck won't be powering the speakers, the stock amp will obviously. This is where it starts to get tough, because your ears will tell you this setup is better. Obviously because there are 2 more speakers in play, so its louder and better sound field.

So does that mean the newer decks are still inferior then the 10+ year old stock amp? Unfortunately there is no data on how much RMS watts the stock amp puts out, nor the specs about the xover point.

Aftermarket decks provide 15-20~watt RMS per channel. Conclusions of the above comparison were not fair. To really see how much SUPERIOR the aftermarket deck power is, you would need to have a setup in comparison. But you can't if you wire everything behind the deck. That would leave you with no dash speakers. Now if you get some passive xovers/bass blockers/component speaker set which come with the xovers, and wire them up (conveniently into the stock amp harness since the leads for all the speakers are there), then you can "hear" the difference. Aftermarket deck power seems to be superior in this more fair comparison.

sorry to go off topic, but people should know this.

I have the Infinity system all stock, but since I bought the car, the rear speekers don't work. The rear speekers themself are good and the wires that go from the amp to them are good too. What should I look next? DIN cable? Amp outputs? HU outputs?
...and by the way, when I unplugged the amp, all the speekers stoped working, than I plugged it again and dashes and doors speekers came back to work.

 

[luv2rallye]

On my all stock Infinity 99 when I unplug the DIN cable at the amp ALL speakers go off (I've had it get loose couple times too). I didn't try unplugging the DIN cable at the radio which I suspect would still weakly power the speakers as that disables the amp (remote turn on wire not connected) but radio then gets connected to speakers. Don't know why your rears aren't working. Bad connection, blew the rear drivers in the amp? Try unplugging the DIN cable at the radio to see effect.

 

[Mike_GST]

Well, this certainly is something I can try. I have the electrical service manual for eclipse & eclipse spyder 1997 vol. 2. Do you know if the diagrams in the pages 278 and 280 are trustful?

 

[luv2rallye]

If it's the real Mitsubishi manual (which the Backup manual is) yes. Some of the the Backup manual's pages didn't copy well (diagram wire's missalignment or blurry). I have the 1999 real Mitsubishi service manuals (3). The wire diagrams are in volume 3 and on different pages than yours. But I would try unplugging the DIN plug on the radio to see if all the speakers work (if doors do but not rears then you'll know something).