So this was was personally requested by Tmoney and a few others who have been asking about how to add subwoofers & a amp to the stock set up ! So i'll give a basic insutruction and try to answer any questions I can during this thread. Im not sure if the mods will sticky this, maybe enough votes but here it is !

If you do not like the way I have done it, then...Choose your own way, this is how I have hooked up all my systems, and it works cheaply. SOLDIERING IS BETTER ! I just have no soldering gun !



Supplies needed
Subwoofer- (Duh! )
Amp-
Choice of speaker wiring-, I prefer 8g due to no limit
Subwoofer wiring kit-, depending on amp, should match amp setting; ext amp watts 600, should use a 600g wiring kit.
Music to test, I prefer using 3 six mafia to tune my subwoofer -
RCA Converter - Can be purchased at best buy for 15 bucks I think..lol
A Lighter, or wire cutter/splitter combo
Black tape
Small bag of twist ties
Ring connectors for terminals, from autozone or any auto store, size depends upon wiring kit
And sockets to take off battery !
Lets start !

First before I start, you CAN blow a fuse or worst catch your car on fire, so BE CAREFUL!

First you want to take off the battery, pos and negative. And set them to the side, Then at this point you can either
A) Start running your wires from inside the car
B) Screw in your speakers, if required, im not covering this
C) Go straight to your trunk

This guide WILL work with those who have amp set ups and it will not SCREW up your amp set up, but it will bypass it. You will still have bass in your regular speakers in this set up.

As Seen below, start by using the lighter to burn the rubber off both pos and negative of your rear speakers, we will use these to tap into the system quickly. Use the lighter and burn off the rubber and becareful not to burn your speaker or anything else ! You can also use a razor and just shave it off, its that easy as well. Light is usually always negative and dark is usually positive

Do this to both side of your speakers, if your speaker wire has a line and a solid color, I recommend using the line for negative and solid for positive so you will be coordinated ! Do nothing after this !




After finishing both sides, and using common sense, cut off a equal length of speaker wire for your convertor, it should have R+ R-, L+ L-

Choose where you are going to hide yours and go from there, I usually place mine besides the backseat easy access incase of tuning issues ! When you cut them, using the wire cutters, you should have 4 equal lengths of wire, maybe one side longer depending on where you are hiding the convertor, Burn each end with the lighter and pull off the speaker wire so you expose bare wire. Twist it and connect it to the bare wire of each neg and pos of the rear speakers ! As seen below !





Then match them up, pos to pos, neg to neg to your convertor, electric tape the speaker connections AND the convertor connections TIGHTLY. Yes you can solder them for better connections, but this is the cheap way ! l0l

So, now, its AMP time !



Run your battery wire from the battery through your car, depending on model, I can post pictures later of mine if need be. Ground your selection, in this hook up of my buddies impala, I chose the back connection for the OnStar !






Then secured wire & connections !





After this its pretty set in stone, depending the amp you have, just screw the battery into the battery connect, ground, speaker etc. I RECOMMEND, doing the battery and ground last, BECAREFUL NOT TO TOUCH THEM ! If you unplugged your battery and haven't plugged it up yet, they will not spark, but if you didn't listen, they will and will potentially blow your Amp fuse.

Now last, remote wire ! Your remote wire could be anything, depending on model of car, I chose something in the fuse box, sometimes people use metal female connectors, I just used the wire, I plugged it into...



My fuse is here, this fuse is basically an aux fuse, so when the car is on its on, when its off, its on, unless you open the passenger door, it clicks off, however the radio is still on, not sure if you can use this in your specific model, but mine 06-07 has it - Fuse name is RAP



Hook everything up, plug up your battery wire, hook up your speaker wire to your amp, mount everything where you see fit IF you have a drill, sorry forgot to mention that. Then turn on your car and Wala, Subwoofer should be booming. Tune your RCAs and your amp. The way mine are tune is my amp is turned down, and my RCA's are turned up, why? Because sometimes the wattage between both interfere and subwoofer tries to do too much, this may not be the case with your application as mine was cheap and not important to me ! Any questions write here or PM
me ! Ill post more links later on


http://www.crutchfield.com/S-g8WBlH4...rs_wiring.html

Refer here for subwoofer diagrams !

 

Perfect! Great info! Thanks!

 

Nice write up man. I never thought about using a lighter to splice wires. I will need to try that when I do that.

 

I keep one in my glove box for it, 2 dollar lighter vs 10-20 dollar wire cutters = win. lol.

 

Question: My converter has 6 wires. 4 for the speakers, but then there is also one for 12V and one for ground. Can I use speaker wire to extend these? The 12V yellow wire on the converter I was gonna tap into the amp wire going to the battery. Will speaker wire work in extending it? Same with the ground and other 4 as well correct?

I finally got my radio working again so gonna give this a shot tomorrow

 

I dont think you have to connect those to anything. I am pretty sure the one I had had those to and I didnt even use them but I could be wrong. As far as you wanting to extend them yes speaker wire is fine.

 

You don't have to use the ground tmoney, just the pos and negatives .

 

Ok, so the yellow 12V wire and the ground wire I can just leave? Also the converter has a blue remote wire. Can i leave that? If not, speaker wire ok to extend?

 

your converter is a powered converter and is different., you should hook up the 12v+ and the ground. the blue wire is the remote wire and can be hooked up to the fuse box just like the pictures above.

the one i THINK you have is better than the non powered ones. the one you have, should have some sort of gain and crossover setting as well and acts as a pre amp for the rca signal before you send that signal to the amp.

 

also, on a side note, many amps have the high level inputs (speaker wire connection) in them so there is no need for an RCA level converter. just splice the speaker wires like above, then run the wires right to the amp high level input. the less connections and splices the better. the more splices and connections you have, the higher the chance of signal noise to be introduced to your system, which isnt good.