Wiring in a new CD player

[tedmcedd]

Hi guys and girls!

ive got a pioneer head unit CD/MP3 jobby i have had for a while, it travels along with my cars!

Ive been trying to wire it in today, however im very confused!!

where would be the best place I can get a switched live from?? the haynes diagram makes no sense to me! after having mini's for 4 years this is all too confusing! the mini diogram fitted on a single page for the complete car!!

next question is, i have a fader switch in the storm, is there any point trying to get this wired in? i have two speaker wires behing the old radio, a brown pair and a green pair... however on the pioneer i have two pairs front and rear... should i just run new wires through? or can it work with the original lot?

thanks in advance!!

Ed

[the edmundator]

next question is, i have a fader switch in the storm, is there any point trying to get this wired in? i have two speaker wires behing the old radio, a brown pair and a green pair... however on the pioneer i have two pairs front and rear... should i just run new wires through? or can it work with the original lot?

I have the same switch in all of my mk2s (they're all '84 or earlier). In the GL I connected up the front pair from the head-unit to the original factory wires which splits the signal to the rears through the fader. The sound is perfectly acceptable, but I suspect if you re-wired with decent-quality speaker wires it would probably be better. I just like switches to work if they're there!

[tedmcedd]

ahh ok, so the pair of wires that are there, the brown and green i connect to the front wires from my headunit and ignore the rear ones...?

any advice on the switched live?

thanks!

Ed

[the edmundator]

ahh ok, so the pair of wires that are there, the brown and green i connect to the front wires from my headunit and ignore the rear ones...?

Yes, just tape the rear wires from your headunit out of the way.

Not sure about switched live, I just turn mine on and off (I like being able to have the stereo on without the ignition sometimes).

[Risocco]

Patched into the fag lighter for my ignition live dude

Alex

[ianaudia4]

You can use the blower motor switch as that is only live with the ignition and it is just above the radio. Don't forget though that you will need a permanent live for the memory on the radio.
Are you changing the speakers? The original ones are pants and are easily changed with alpine or Pioneer 6 x 4s.

[fonzooorooo]

excuse the techiness in the following (it is relevant/useful!):

I'd ignore the original fader switch and use the fader on the headunit.

The reason is impedance issues... The headunit's speaker outputs will (most likely) be rated as MINIMUM 4 ohms/channel... You will be connecting 2 pairs of 4 ohm speakers (unless you use JBLs etc which are actually 2 ohms!) depending on how the factory switch is wired, this will either present 8 ohms/channel (safe, but wastes power) or 2 ohms/channel (likely to cause problems with overheating/output transistor failure on the headunit amplifier) - this is just resisors in series/parallel. If your headunit will run down to 2 ohms, it'll be fine regardless of te configuration. (though if it's being presented with 8 ohms, it'll be very inefficient)


+1 on changing speakers... (any modern aftermarket stuff'll be a vast omprovement on the original speakers) I've got a recent-ish post up here about plugging the gap round the edge of the front speakers ... have a read. Time well spent!