Monday, December 21, 2009 - 07:27 pm, by: Aiden Cheese(Chillpen)
Hey guys,
My stacker won't play cd's for longer than 10-15 seconds without skipping. The radio crackles. The left hand rear speaker cone is broken.
It's time i put in a stereo.
Look the truth is, i really like the quality of the soarer's sound system from factory, the radio (when not searing my ears with sharp noises from the radio) sounds fantastic. Full rich sound.
Anyway - I honestly right for now just want to swap the head unit and then probably later the rear speakers as a pair.
I've got what people tell me is a GTTL and from what I'm reading it sounds a lot more involved then unplugging the old big one and plugging in the new one. I've been searching around for hours now and i've not come up with a good solution.
There seems to be about 43 pins and none of them seem to make sense to me.
I found This LINK and was wondering if i can follow that diagram to maybe cut a few wires and put on some spade bits and hook right up.
But i've also been reading that the CD changer is needed to drive the speakers, so that won't work.
So you could say i'm confused and searching reveals very little. Please help!
Monday, December 21, 2009 - 09:26 pm, by: Aiden Cheese(Chillpen)
I'm just thinking it's probably just going to be easiest to spend a day pulling up some interior and leaving all the default wires alone. That way I can keep it tidy(ish) and still get mp3 playing headunits. I might replace the stock amp (under the stacker) with a small amp for the speakers, and the sub amp with again a small amp, run three RCA leads to the back and then the front speaker wires forward.
I'm not going for anything huge powered so I should be able to hide everything with the existing trim. It looks like I should be able to throw in these 100w rms 6" speakers I have lying around into the rear to get rid of that one broken speaker.
If anyone has some suggestions, please they are welcome.
The other option looked like cutting into the existing wires - the RL RR FL FR etc wires and just adding a tonn of spade bits so i can put things the way they were before if i decide to take them out. Is there any reason i can't just do it that way? That looks like the quickest way..
Tuesday, December 29, 2009 - 04:56 pm, by: Boris Siljanoski(Z2tt)
That Diagram is for the V8 Soarer, not sure if it's the same with the Twin Turbo which is your car, but assuming it is.
Use your factory wires. Just find out which wires are for which speakers coming out of the amp, the wiring diagram can help with that. It's probably a good Idea to replace the factory amplifier with another one like you said. For the speakers your replacing, Make sure to remember which colour wires you connect to +ve and -ve, that way when you wire those wires up at your new amp, you know which one is +ve and -ve.
Find out which wires to use for the auto amp trigger, should be one allready for the old amp. Also you might consider running a thicker power wire to your new amp if it's going to be a very powerful one.
Other than that all you need to find out is the wires for Switched 12v (When Key is on Acc/on), and Constant 12v, can easily be found using a Test light. These are for your head unit. Then all you need to do is run RCA cables from your head unit to the amp in the boot, and maybe a Trigger wire for the amp to turn on if there's not one already at the boot that you can use.
Most people chose to run their own wires, but a waste of time when there is already wires there.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009 - 05:51 pm, by: Aiden Cheese(Chillpen)
Okay just to let you know how i did it:
Pioneer head unit, pioneer 10" sub and one 4x 125w amp and one 350w sub amp. (these are max values, can't tell what the RMS is but it could be closer to probably 25rms haha. the stock speakers in the soarer were 25rms)
All the stock wiring was left alone, i made a clip which stole the positive earth and accessory cables from the stock loom.
Ran 3 RCA cables to the rear of the car; fronts rears and sub.
Ran 2gauge wire from the battery to the amps, which i split into two 8gauge wires in the boot for powering the amps.
Ran a speaker wire from the rear of the car to the doors for each of the two front amps. Ran two wires for the rear speakers. Left the stock sub out, everything else could be connected via spade bits. the stock amp had wires soldered.. wasn't feeling like soldering upside down when i had a 10" sub as a doorstop in a box the same colour as the boot lining.
Removed the amp and CD changer on the rear righthand side of the boot. left the sub amp and regular 10amp in its original place..
After some fiddling (with grounding points) i've got a faultless system which plays MP3 cd's and doesn't have crackle when listening to the radio.
I've got a input cable ordered so i can make up a 1.5din plate which will house a boost gauge, a water temp gauge, and a 3.5mm input jack (to go with the cable). that will finish off the face.
if i want to revert the whole thing back i could do so in about 2 hours.
Its all the 4 stock speakers and 2 tweeters. If anyone doubted the quality of these speakers, please visit me, i'd be happy to show off exactly how balanced they are (and even more so with the stock sub if i was able to hook it up without fear of getting solder everwhere ).
For whatever reason the speaker which was making weird noises no longer makes it, i'm assuming a channel in the 18 year old amp had died or something
I'd take pictures, but you wouldn't be able to see anything.. the most impressive bit was the plugs i think we made to fit in the stock plugs in the door speakers. They're simple but effective, and removable and can just click in the old wires if the stock unit was plugged back in.
the two new amps sit where the old amp + stacker did. The 10" sub and box is strapped to a wood board which is bolted in some of the bolt holes in that weird assembly. the board is hidden by the regular boot cover thingies.
Overall it cost me about $100. I already owned the amps and sub and head unit from the daihatsu charade
I broke two rca cables while trying to pull them under the carpet to get behind the head unit (doh). I was much more careful after replacing those...
Karl Vanzuyden Tinkerer Victoria 95 Toyota SoarerGT-T, 73 HQ panelvan 308, 95 Renault Laguna V6
Tuesday, December 29, 2009 - 07:57 pm, by: Karl Vanzuyden(Karltt)
Good job Aiden! Post up some pics once you get the gauges/aux input facia made up.
I'm impressed with the standard speakers in the soarer, very high quality for stock. I've left them alone too, no point replacing something that ain't broke!
You've have gone the right way about things, the common grounding of the speakers can cause all sorts of dramas when installing an aftermarket head unit. But since you were installing an amp to run the speakers you would have had to run wires from the amps to the speakers anyway.
Its good to make other people aware of these issues when it comes to installing their systems too.
Its also a good idea to install it in such a way so that it can be put back to standard as you have done - keep your expensive aftermarket stuff for your next project!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 04:18 pm, by: Aiden Cheese(Chillpen)
Just for anyone who has a pioneer head unit and has problems with a whine through the speakers..
I'm not kidding. that works. There's a grounding circuit on the circuitboards on those pioneers and a specific bit fails, causing no proper earthing. However, what that picture is doing is using come copper wire to ground the negatives of the RCA's to the enclosure of the head unit.
I had really really loud whining, but its all gone now. I couldn't believe my ears.
Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 04:20 pm, by: Aiden Cheese(Chillpen)
Andrew Duaso wrote on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 04:42 pm:
although if that works seems like a good temp fix
Pfft temp? Forever. Those wires won't move. It'll probably just break again, although you seem to probably know more about it than my 1 day googling around a million forums.
Either way I can't fix the "rear out" (which run from a cable) the same way.
Saturday, January 02, 2010 - 09:53 pm, by: Nathan Machin(Nthside_soarer)
Boris Pioneer units are notorious for it, makes no diff whether its RCA's off the pre-outs for an amp or direct off the head unit speaker wires, i used to get the same feedback through my speakers and i was running 2 amps, monoblock for sub and 4ch for speakers. It was a pain in the arse, i did a similar thing as Aiden and it worked.
Sunday, January 03, 2010 - 12:34 pm, by: Nathan Machin(Nthside_soarer)
No Boris I got mates that own a few strathfield car sounds here in brissy and they all say that Pioneer are a great unit but if you are not careful they will all do it.
As i said if you are careful it shouldnt happen, its usually when you take it in and out of diff cars. Real pain in the arse. But if you install it and dont fiddle with it much then they are great. But just remember even if that do start the wining then you just earth the Pre-outs and all good.
Sunday, January 03, 2010 - 10:11 pm, by: Nathan Machin(Nthside_soarer)
Boris as you pull a head unit out and reinstall it back in another car you are unearthing and re-earthing the head unit. The more times you do this the more likelihood of blowing the grounding circuit and the grounding circuit is the shiiittty circuit that pioneer cant seem to get their act together with. Thats been my experience with Pioneer head units and thats what my mates at Strathfield all say.
Monday, January 04, 2010 - 10:15 am, by: Nathan Machin(Nthside_soarer)
I hear ya Aiden but as I said that has been my experience, what difference that would make who knows, but it has happened to me time and time again with Pioneer units, I have had 4 over the years and they all do it when i have changed them from car to car, install them initially and they are fine take them out and re-install them and the whining begins.....and yes you are right mate...who would make something that craapppppy????? PIONEER!!!!!!!!!!
Kind of a shame cos the units besides that are pretty good
Monday, January 04, 2010 - 05:14 pm, by: Aiden Cheese(Chillpen)
Oh yeah i agree, the features are pretty good, and the quality is fine. Just a shame they cheaped out on that one element.
In the end that fix makes them pretty good.
But do you know a way to fix the rear out's? They aren't housed on the chassis like the sub and fronts. I did connect a wire in the same fashion to try and remove the noise but it didn't work..
any other pro tips? At the moment i've cheated and split the front outs into the amp.. but i don't have any front/rear control at the head unit (but i can just put more/less power at the amps)
Monday, January 18, 2010 - 02:39 pm, by: Aiden Cheese(Chillpen)
Late update:
So i bought gauges off ebay, $10 each for combined $15 postage a total of 35 dollars for both. Now here's a good story for why not to buy both cheap gauges and ebay ones!
I figured i'd just buy some cheap ones because i just was using them to fill in the blank space but turns out the "boost" gauge sits at -12psi when its not even plugged in or while the car is off. The temp gauge doesn't have its needle centered. The best thing i did was introduce a switch to turn them off. Also the boost gauge is so dark you can't read it during the day.
Now i quit my job a few weeks ago so i'm broke so i won't be doing much on the car for a while, when i get some income i'll probably replace them with real gauges
Edit: just wanted to add that i dropped both the gauges at the same time resulting in t he ding haha. Also the entire replacement of the stock head unit including the gauge cluster plate etc was about $200 to me.
Monday, February 01, 2010 - 02:50 pm, by: Brian Rignall(Cashmere)
If you really like the original, then save yourself a whole lot of effort and replace like for like.
Call up a local parts place (used or Jap import) and you'll find someone with the same unit as in your car.
I had all sorts of issues with my original head unit and found a replacement unit for less than $100.
Boy doesn't that make life soooo much easier.
And yes, there are more powerful systems around, but I don't need a 12" sub blasting out my windows and rattling everything that isn't welded into place.
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