Wiring clean-up

[7D2N]

Well I have been trying to clean up the wiring in my K5. The wiring was a giant mess, I removed the alarm system, power locks which never worked properly and a bunch of spliced (several times) big gauge red power wire. The Blazer has a pioneer premier 50wtx4 stereo with 2 Kenwood speakers a Kenwood 300 watt KAC-827 amp and 2 of these Kenwood sub woffers??. I want keep the system but add 2 addition door speakers.

Now for the help question. pic 1 shows the wiring as it is, red braided includes 3 wires, power. power ACC and ground. Black wires coiled around shifter are for the speakers and the blue ones goes to the L/R balance in amp. the small braided purple and black to remote? and ground. hope this makes sense.

can someone help walk me through a how to finish up the wiring.

Thanks in advance
7D2N

[tubbedII]

I can't tell if the radio is in, so I'll start from there.

The braided red should be used for the radio. The wires on the on the radio should be yellow and red for power. One is for ACC and the other is for constant. If the radio stays on with the key off, they are backwards.

If you aren't running another amp, the one you have must be used for the subs, and the radio will power the 6x9's and the other door speakers. I take it you're putting the x9's under the bench, so I would put those on the rear channel of the radio and the door speakers as the fronts. You just need to run speaker wire from the radio to all 4 speakers.

For the amp wiring, you need to run a fused power wire from the battery to the amp. I don't see this in the pic or listed, so you need to get one. It should be of decent gauge as well. The same wire can be used for the ground. I use the seat bolt for a ground if possible, but if not, just grind the paint off a part in the cab and use it. Another wire needs to be ran from the radio to the amp (remote wire). The gauge of this wire can be the same as the red braided wires, and should be blue coming off the radio. The blue rcas you have just connect to the amp as well.

How to wire the subs is the bigger question that is based on your subs details. I don't know, but I'm guessing they are single voice coil 4 ohm subs.

You have 2 options, running them in stereo (running separate wires from each channel to each speaker) or mono (bridging the amp by using the left's + and right's - and running one set of speaker wires to each speaker).

Subs are usually wired in mono, so if you go this route, you should wire the subs in series by running the positive off the amp to one speaker and the negative off the amp to the other. Then connect a wire between the positive and negate of each speaker. This will give your amp an 8 ohm load. You can wire the subs parrallel (splice the + off the amp to each speaker's positive and do the same with the -), but this will give the amp a 2 ohm load. This will produce more power from the amp, but if your amp is not stable at 2 ohms it could burn up (so I recommend the series way).

I've never ran an amp for subs in stereo, so I don't know how it will sound, but you could give each method a try and see which sounds better to you and go with it.

Kinda long post...but I hope it helps!

[7D2N]

Thanks Tubbed II your response will help me a bunch. Yes the head unit is in and I was able to look at what is there, the wires from the head unit are as you described, there is a black wire in the braided bundle that is connected to a black from the unit and I guess that is a ground and should be grounded is this correct? The RCA cables have a blue remote with them so that's good.

Thanks again
7D2N

[tubbedII]

Yes, the black should go to a ground, the same ground as the dash should be good enough. You can find the right power wires off the main fuse block and just tap into them for the red and yellow wires. One should be hot all the time, and the other only when the key is turned to acc/on.

Typically, the wire found in the rca group is actually a ground wire to try and help with the alternator wine. I've never used them as a remote wire, and I wouldn't trust it as one personally.

Good luck with the install!

[7D2N]

TubbedII, I guess you lost me, the remote wire is coming from the back of the unit is a ground. I thought the remote went to the amp. what is a remote wire and what does it do?

Thanks
7D2N

[tubbedII]

Sorry bout losing you...I didn't double check the pics you took when you refered to the rca group. I see the twisted wires that are in the grouping of the rca. You can use one of them as the remote wire. The remote wire should be a blue wire coming off the radio (it's usually either solid blue or blue with a light blue stripe). Just connect one of the twisted wires in the rca group to that blue wire on the radio and the other end to the remote slot on the amp.

The remote wire's function is to turn on the amp when the radio turns on. It doesn't supply the amp its power though, that comes from the fused wire from the battery I talked about earlier.

As for the other wire, I don't know what it would be for, but I wouldn't use it as either a ground or a power for the amp. It's too light of a gauge if you ask me. You could just tape off both ends and keep it there in case you ever need it in the future.

[7D2N]

Tubbed, Thanks I'll do a mock up and see how it goes, you helped a lot.


Thanks
7D2N