Need audio install help. WIREZ!!??

[motorvated]

Got my new Kenwood unit in today. Slightly confused as to what to do though. There is kit, and it has two wire setups. One plugs into the back of the Kenwood and has wires coming out of it...and one plugs into the factory harness and has wires coming out of it. Do I just splice these two wire harness that came with the kit together? Like blue-blue, both whites-both white, both greys-both greys and so on and so on?

[DPancoast]

yes. go out and get some quick disconnects like this:

http://www.raptortechnique.com/images/glo_plug_repair01.jpg

you splice the wire from one harness, put it in one end and crimp it...., match it up with the other crimp....tape it up. If you just splice the 2 wires together and twist and tape em, the heat behind the unit will most likely make your tape come off and you could run into a bunch of wires touching which = problems later! Plus the better the connection the better the life/quality most of the time.

But yeah just match colors. Some of the wires that come from the Kenwood, might not be on the car harness, so just dont splice those.

[motorvated]

ya i have a ton of those connectors^^ OK...guess i going to do this tonight. Im adding rear speakers to the car, it doesnt have any stock. So I have to run cables under the carpet to the rear. But there are left rear/right rear speaker wires on the kenwood harness...So i'll just splice right into those correct?

[DPancoast]

yeah, just run the wires from the speakers +/- to the harness +/-

they should be labeled so you should be good to go.

If you want to get crazy, I would recommend an amp to power all 4 speakers, but thats just me. You dont NEED one though if you're just shooting to have some sound when youre driving

[motorvated]

Im going to be amping them eventually I think, but not at first. I want to see if i'll need it or not. The headunit should push 4 speakers enough...and amp would just make it better.

Ok..so the two harnesses match up. All the wires on one harness match up to wires on the other harness. Im left with two extras. One is Brown and says MUTE. Wheres that go? The other is Black. I figure the black on is ground, and just has to be screwed into something metal behind the dash?

[DPancoast]

black is ground, correct.

the mute button, im not sure to be honest... maybe look in the manual or google it. I've never dealt with something like that.

[motorvated]

awesome. ONE more question. The 6X9s I got are serious business. Polk Momos. They are 3 ways..and came with these..boxes? Its 2 stereo cables that go into the car harness, and they run into a small 4X2 plastic box thats vented. Out the other end are wires and four connectors that go to the speakers. I take It I need to use these boxes..but WTF are they? Some sort of small amp?

[motorvated]

Actually..they seem to be crossovers for the speakers. These are some high tech fukers! They have 4 connectors instead of the usual 2 im used to, cross overs and a HUGE magnet. I THINK I have to run the crossovers from an amp though...Not so sure. This is all new to me. Usually I dont F with this stuff.

[russiankid]

Ditch the connectors and solder all the connections. Cleaner job, less room, better connection.

[DPancoast]

^^ Im gonna take a wild guess that he may not know how to solder... and if he does, I dont think he would want to be outside doin it lol... but you are right, that would be better in the long run.

yeah its probably a crossover of some kind. They are in a box for a reason. Whenever a company makes speaker/box setups like that, it usually means that the box is going to give you the best sound/quality with that speaker. Plus the box is to spec for the speaker for airspace and stuff. You should be able to wire it up +/- even with 4 wires coming out. It could be just 2x + and 2x - but I cant tell you without lookin at it.

[motorvated]

So..I HAVE an amp, Ide just need an install kit. I seems like these speakers are suppose to be amped. Run the crossovers from the amp to the speakers. Does that sound right? Im not going to amp the front speakers..just the rears. So do I take the LeftRear/RightRear wires from the headunit harness, and extend them to plug into the amp? Man this isnt gonna be as easy as I thought

[DPancoast]

if you want to amp the rear speakers. You would run an RCA cable from the headunit to the amp, from there you would run +/- from the amp to the speakers. You wouldnt need to worry about extending the harness to the rear if you have an amp because the RCA cables will take care of the sound from the headunit to the amp.

as far as the crossovers are concerned Im not sure. The only speakers I've dealt with that had crossovers, it was still only 2 wires because they were "in-line"

[lagos]

Ditch the connectors and solder all the connections. Cleaner job, less room, better connection.

You are quickly becoming one of my favorite people on tst!

Seriously though, crimp connectors are the devil. You will have all kinds of issues with them down the road. I solder everything in my car with my butane powered soldering pen.

If you really MUST crimp something, then you need a ratcheting crimper. They usually cost 3x more then a standard crimper, but actually give fairly reliable results.

[motorvated]

AH True!!! Ide just run the RCA cable from HU to the amp. Then plug the two wires from the crossovers into the amp..and run the crossovers to the 6X9s. Sweet. Thanks a lot man. Here is a link to the 6X9s I bought. You can check them out.
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_107MMC690/Polk-MOMO-MMC690.html?tp=91

[motorvated]

BTW my mom has a soldering kit for some reason..So im going to use that to do my connections. Better quality FTW

[lagos]

Do it once, do it right!

[motorvated]

ya..im gonna start soldering here in a second. Thanks guys!

[SovXietday]

Solder yellow to yellow, black to black, red to red, all the speaker colors, and if there are blue wires solder them together too. Make sure you do blue on blue and not blue/white on blue. Orange (illumination) wires I normally cut short and tape up along with the mute wire and any other random wires that you will never use. Mute is for if you put like a Parrot or something like that in the car. Illumination causes problems with some radios, so I normally get rid of it.

As for the crossovers. You run the speaker wire from the door (or from the HU, whatever) into the input on the crossover. Mount the crossover somewhere, and then run low/mid pass to the midrange speakers and high pass to the tweeters. If you want to run speaker wire from the HU, the colors are as follows.

White - Driver Front
Gray - Pass Front
Green - Driver Rear
Purple - Pass Rear

Always solder, never crimp unless you're using quick connects or ring terminals. Oh, and please run you're power wire through the firewall and make sure that your hole is either through a grommet or if you drill a new hole that it has some form of protection around the metal.

[motorvated]

thanks a lot^! Got it all soldered..Install tomorrow

[agoodall]

hahaha when i had my 240s' all i used do is strip, twist, and tape....enjoy

but without a doubt soldering is the way to go

[motorvated]

Should i cover the pieces of wire where I soldered, with electrical tape?