How to Install an Amplifier in a car using common sense and proper tools, saving yourself some money

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By mybird91
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this is the temporary system i installed in my 1993 T-Bird LX. Please excuse the mess, it was only a temporary set-up.

Hello. My name is Jeff and what I am about to do is explain how to professionally install an amplifier in a vehicle. By reading this article, i hope you, the reader, will have gained the proper knowledge, and be able to professionally install your own amplifier.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Install vehicle
Amplifier
Power/ground wire
Inline fuse and fuse holder
Rca cables

Step 1

First thing you want to do is make sure you have the proper tools to do the job you are about to take on. You are going to need wire strippers, a socket set, a set of screwdrivers, and something such as pliers or vice grips to crimp your connections to the wires. For your wires you should have a 10" to 12" length wire that will serve as the battery to fuse holder wire, and a 14' to 17' to run from the fuse holder to the amplifier.
Step 2

Okay, now lets start by figuring out where to run our power wire. This wire will normally be 17' to 20' in length, as it will run from the front of your vehicle, where the battery is located, to the trunk, where your amp will be installed.

I always take into consideration what side of the vehicle the battery is on. In my car my battery is on the driver side, so the driver side was for running my power wire. Another thing to look for are rubber grommet in the firewall area. (In order to find you will need to remove the necessary trim panels and pull the carpet and insulation back to expose metal). If you find an unused grommet that will make your job easier, but if not you will need to drill a hole in the firewall and buy a rubber grommet from your local auto parts store.

Let's take our wire and run it through our firewall into the engine compartment, set up your wires so you know were the wires need to be at, (do not connect yet, just get a general idea of where they will need to be). Next, we will run our wire to the trunk. You will need to remove the trim panel on the floor that holds the carpet, also you will need to remove the rear seat if the vehicle has a sealed trunk. (removal of the rear seat is fairly simple, standard removal procedure is as follows, push in at the front of the bottom part of the rear seat to unhook it from the clips, it will need done on each side. Pull the bottom out and look at the bottom of the seat back, there will be two bolts, one on each side. remove these bolts and lift up to unhook from the upper clips. remove the seat back), now you have easy access to your trunk. run your wire where your amplifier will be located. To make it look as professional as possible, try to run the wire behind or under the carpet. Now that our power wire is ran to the trunk, lets get our ground wire ready. I normally remove a bolt in the trunk that holds the brake light assembly, scratch at the surface with a wire brush or a flathead screwdriver to remove the paint and make available a good ground connection. lets connect our ground to our chosen bolt and tighten the nut back on. leave the amp connection for later.
Step 3

Now lets get our rca wires and our remote wire ran. First lets do our remote wire. We can run this wire along the side where the main power wire is located as we want to reserve the opposite side for only the rca wires. The remote wire connects to a wire in the back of your stereo, as will the rca wires, so we will need to remove the stereo to gain access to the compartment and the back of the stereo. run the wire as you did with the power wire and then connect it to the wire on the stereo (normally blue or blue/white stripe labeled remote). Next is rca wires. This process is the same as for the power and remote wires, except we will run these wires on the opposite side. (The reason for this is to eliminate the chance of interference that will cause undesired operation). Now with all our wires ran to the back of the stereo, lets put our stereo back in place but don't completely install until after you have made sure everything is in working order.
Step 4

this is my power wire and in-line fuse holder. wire is wrapped in blue protective wrap for extra protection from heat.

Now we are going back to the battery. Lets get our fuse holder in place. One end will be connected to the wire going to the battery, the other end will be connected to the wire going to the amplifier. hook that up without the fuse in place, now we can start hooking up everything at the amplifier. Hook up power, ground, remote, speaker, and rca wires to the amplifier. Finally we can place our fuse into the fuse holder. make sure all the gain control knobs are turned all the way down. Lets turn it on and try it out now. Turn the volume up on the stereo to a volume you will never exceed, then go back to the amp and start adjusting your gains to a desired setting. There you have it, a professionally installed stereo, and the money you save by switching to.... do it yourself.

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computertech4u said

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on 10/28/2009 How to Install an Amplifier in a car using common sense and proper tools, saving yourself some money is great article can't wait for more... Let's see some more 5* Articles!

on 10/1/2009 How to Install an Amplifier in a car using common sense and proper tools, saving yourself some money. Anyone can now install a car amplifier in their own vehicle now thanks to your great steps! Looking foreward to reading more of your articles!