[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by gramicci101

Do you know basic wiring theory? I'd imagine so, if you've ever worked on your house. It's very similar, just use crimps or solder instead of wire nuts.

Your power wire (don't lick this!) needs to have a fuse within 15 inches of the battery terminal. There's a big gasket right behind the battery that you can fish the wire through to get it inside the car. From there just peel up the edge of the carpet and feed the wire all the way back to your amp. Your ground wire needs to be as short as possible; I routed mine to one of the screws holding the door amp down. Just get some sandpaper and buff the paint off right around the screw hole so the ground will make better contact. Your power and ground wires need to be the same size.

Any amp wiring kit that you buy will have all the fuses, wiring, and connectors that you need. Size your wiring kit off the size of the amp you buy. If you have a 200 watt amp, you don't need an 00 gauge wiring kit. An 8 gauge kit will work just fine. If you're pushing 3000 watts, an 8 gauge kit won't cut it.

LOC is Line Output Converter. This takes the high level output from the radio (speaker wires) and converts them to a low level input for the amp (RCA connectors). The basic ones are purely a physical format conversion. The nice ones boost the signal to a uniform voltage and may give you some form of crossover or gain control as well. Many amps have high level inputs though, which means you can run speaker wires straight to the amp.

Your FRS might have RCA outputs on the back of the radio, which means that you don't need a LOC. You can run RCA cables direct from your radio to your amp in order to pass signal. This is good because it's a uniform voltage (2 or 4 volts) instead of varying with the audio signal, and because you don't have to tap off of an existing speaker's wire to get audio signal. So all of the craziness I did with the Metra harnesses then becomes unnecessary. You can fish a single wire back with the RCAs for remote turn-on at the same time.

That's really it. Account for power, ground, signal, and remote turn-on, and your amp will work. Wire the speaker correctly to the amp, and the speaker will work. And then you can make noise to your heart's content.

OK that is easier than I thought. Car sound systems was never my strong point.