DIY non-invasive amplifier harness
03-29-2007, 05:37 AM
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DIY non-invasive amplifier harness
I figured for my 100th post, I’d post a little audio enhancement home brew DIY.
Project: incremental audio improvement
A disclaimer, aside from the standard …if you hurt yourself, your car, etc. it’s not my fault… the pictures were a bit of an afterthought. Sorry ‘bout that, but I think you’ll get the idea.
I wanted to maintain all factory harness integrity and be the least invasive possible in the installation of my custom 8” sub boxes (rear floor) and amp (on top of the spare tire). I’ll add pictures of the boxes and amps if there’s interest. They’re really nothing to write home about though! They still need carpet to cover them!
The interesting part is the signal tap. At least I think it’s the more interesting part! There doesn’t seem to be anything commercially available that does what I wanted it to do.
A little background info:
For the time being, I want to keep the factory hi-fi speakers and Nokia amp fully functional. Right now, I just want to add my little sub boxes to enhance the anemic factory system. While doing so, I am also adding the infrastructure to support a total of 4 amplified channels using amplifiers under the front bonnet. This means I’ll need to run a bunch of wires from the cabin into the front bonnet area where the amplifier(s) will live.
Running the wires is pretty straight forward and I’ll leave it to your imagination but here are some notes:
Running the wires is a PITA, but not really all that bad once you’re into it. Use a straightened out hanger to guide the floppy wires as you fish them through the areas too small for even munchkin hands. I did end up pushing the a grommet behind the glove box out of the hole and simply ran the 4 RCA lines and 4 pairs of 16 AWG wire next to the grommet. Sure the car isn’t as sealed as it was before, but I doubt I’ll even notice a bit. I did also drill two holes (and added grommets) through the (replaceable) black sheet metal bulkhead to pass the wires from the HVAC area into the main front trunk area. Main thing is, I didn’t damage anything, and it’s fully reversible to it’s original condition (if I got a new small piece of “bolt-in-able” sheet metal to replace the part I drilled into).
There seem to be a few options to get the signal out of the factory CDR-210, but all were undesirable for various reasons.
I didn’t want to replace the factory amp (yet) and; I want to at least have the option to run it in parallel with my new stuff. This means that I needed to tap into the low-level outputs that go to the factory amp, all the while not cutting any factory wiring.
Essentially I wanted to make a pass through /tap harness that plugs into the CDR-210, has the 4 RCA female plugs, amp remote-on signal, and a set of spade connectors that are inserted into the factory plug that would otherwise have plugged into the the CDR-210.
Since nobody seems to sell these, I set about making one myself.
Conveniently, I happened to have an amplifier RCA output harness that came with a Blaupunkt head I purchased years ago. It is a perfect match to the factory harness plug that disappears into the abyss of the dash and runs to the Nokia amp under the seat.
I cut each of the wires right behind the plastic plug housing, and spliced in an extra wire to each lead that leads to a small spade connector. (Things would have been much easier if I could have pulled the terminals out of the plastic plug housing, but I couldn’t get them out, so I had to cut each wire). In each wire splice, I had one “input” and two “ouputs”. The input is what plugs into the back of the stereo. One output goes to the factory harness, and the other goes to the RCA connectors or remote on signal.
Now I just need to talk "the boss" into letting me buy some replacement speakers for the doors, and I can then employ my other two amplified channels.
I hope I haven’t rambled on too much and you get the idea. Call me crazy, or what you will, but I like tinkering projects.
Cheers!
Project: incremental audio improvement
A disclaimer, aside from the standard …if you hurt yourself, your car, etc. it’s not my fault… the pictures were a bit of an afterthought. Sorry ‘bout that, but I think you’ll get the idea.
I wanted to maintain all factory harness integrity and be the least invasive possible in the installation of my custom 8” sub boxes (rear floor) and amp (on top of the spare tire). I’ll add pictures of the boxes and amps if there’s interest. They’re really nothing to write home about though! They still need carpet to cover them!
The interesting part is the signal tap. At least I think it’s the more interesting part! There doesn’t seem to be anything commercially available that does what I wanted it to do.
A little background info:
For the time being, I want to keep the factory hi-fi speakers and Nokia amp fully functional. Right now, I just want to add my little sub boxes to enhance the anemic factory system. While doing so, I am also adding the infrastructure to support a total of 4 amplified channels using amplifiers under the front bonnet. This means I’ll need to run a bunch of wires from the cabin into the front bonnet area where the amplifier(s) will live.
Running the wires is pretty straight forward and I’ll leave it to your imagination but here are some notes:
Running the wires is a PITA, but not really all that bad once you’re into it. Use a straightened out hanger to guide the floppy wires as you fish them through the areas too small for even munchkin hands. I did end up pushing the a grommet behind the glove box out of the hole and simply ran the 4 RCA lines and 4 pairs of 16 AWG wire next to the grommet. Sure the car isn’t as sealed as it was before, but I doubt I’ll even notice a bit. I did also drill two holes (and added grommets) through the (replaceable) black sheet metal bulkhead to pass the wires from the HVAC area into the main front trunk area. Main thing is, I didn’t damage anything, and it’s fully reversible to it’s original condition (if I got a new small piece of “bolt-in-able” sheet metal to replace the part I drilled into).
There seem to be a few options to get the signal out of the factory CDR-210, but all were undesirable for various reasons.
I didn’t want to replace the factory amp (yet) and; I want to at least have the option to run it in parallel with my new stuff. This means that I needed to tap into the low-level outputs that go to the factory amp, all the while not cutting any factory wiring.
Essentially I wanted to make a pass through /tap harness that plugs into the CDR-210, has the 4 RCA female plugs, amp remote-on signal, and a set of spade connectors that are inserted into the factory plug that would otherwise have plugged into the the CDR-210.
Since nobody seems to sell these, I set about making one myself.
Conveniently, I happened to have an amplifier RCA output harness that came with a Blaupunkt head I purchased years ago. It is a perfect match to the factory harness plug that disappears into the abyss of the dash and runs to the Nokia amp under the seat.
I cut each of the wires right behind the plastic plug housing, and spliced in an extra wire to each lead that leads to a small spade connector. (Things would have been much easier if I could have pulled the terminals out of the plastic plug housing, but I couldn’t get them out, so I had to cut each wire). In each wire splice, I had one “input” and two “ouputs”. The input is what plugs into the back of the stereo. One output goes to the factory harness, and the other goes to the RCA connectors or remote on signal.
Now I just need to talk "the boss" into letting me buy some replacement speakers for the doors, and I can then employ my other two amplified channels.
I hope I haven’t rambled on too much and you get the idea. Call me crazy, or what you will, but I like tinkering projects.
Cheers!
