[Morpheus]

I have read all of the topics related, and my E must be an alien...I have followed wiring schematics for "splicing" in the RCA male plug to the amp wiring harness @ HU side...one of the wires was red, the other two pink, and a brown. I used the usual "white hot, black ground" stripes to figure out the rest. Now the tweeters sound great, and I get nothing from the sub. I plugged the single rca into my TomTom Eclipse II AVN4430 front left non-fad plug. i have attempted to turn up the non-fad (HU has the option to adjust) and still no sub response, even after adjusting the bass all the way up.

Another issue is static...I grounded the HU to the chassis, as one post recommended. Still static...

any ideas would be grand...

 

[BigAl205]

The harness for the sub is a small black connetor with 3 wires coming out of it. The center conductor of the RCA should go to the RED/BLUE wire and the outer shield goes to the RED/WHT. The PINK/BLK doesn't get connected.

When you say static, are you talking distortion or do you mean poor tuner reception? What model radio do you have? I'm trying to figure out which red, pink, and brown wires you are hooking to...which harness are they coming from?

 

[Morpheus]

same harness you are speaking of, small black w/ 3 wires. i will check my wiring, cant remember what ones i did now...should have taken a pic...but there is only ONE red wire...the other is arguably brown...

static as in cd or dvd playing, volume turned down to 0...yet audible static can be heard from all speakers...

I have an Eclipse II AVN4430 (find here: http://www.crutchfield.com/p_099AVN4430/Eclipse-AVN4430.html?tp=20212 )

thanks for the quick response. my wife and I will be make a cross country (sc-->ca) in a couple weeks, would be helpful to get this figured out before then...

 

[BigAl205]

Are you running speaker wires directly to the harness or did you cut some RCA's and plugged into the back of the radio? Give more detail on how you wired it up. Check out post #2 here... http://www.elementownersclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52097

 

[Morpheus]

yes that is what i did, using rca plug...now do i use one plug or two?

i have an rca spliced and then plugged into the non-fad (left) rca female...i will take pics and post them tomorrow..

 

[Morpheus]

ok, i have the splice done as you instructed...view pic below for verification.

now the blue/white wire from my HU is not connected to anything, there is only a solid blue wire on the Element side harness, do i connect this b/w wire with the solid blue also?

it goes like this (current connection for SUB ONLY)

Element Side /Harness connection/ HU side

Blue(solid) /------------------/ Blue (solid)
no connection /------------------/ Blue white (should I splice this with solid blue on HU side?)

the rest of the speaker wires run to a scoche harness adapter, wich in turn is connected to the elements wiring.(similar to the second diagram...) no stores in my area sell metra...i have sound, just not from the sub, and all speakers have audible static at 0 volume...make sence?
Edit**PM sent bigal

 

[Yoda E SC]

you need to disconnect the blue (headunit side) and connect the blue/white in its place. the difference is that the blue white stays on when any of the sources (CD/aux/radio) are on and the blue only comes on when the radio (am/fm) is on.

as far as the static, are you using the speaker level outputs from the radio into the harness (white, white/black, gray. gray/black, etc) or are you plugged into the rcas on the back of the radio for the front and rear speakers as well? You shouldnt have any static if there is signal going to the amplifier and you have the speaker outputs going into the harness although this is a higher level than that of that factory deck. It will however have some with the radio turned all the way down. If you have to do that and cant live with the static (should be very very low volume of it anyway) turn the radio all the way off and it will go away. Not much you can do there besideds bypass the original amp and add one for your sub or bypass just the 6 main speakers and power them off the radio and keep the sub running off the amp.

 

[Yoda E SC]

the other thing to keep in mind is that the sub is going to be much much lower than the other speakers as you are sending a high level (speaker level output) into the part of the amp for the 6 speakers and a low level (rca) into the sub input.

 

[Morpheus]

again...speaker wires are hooked to harness witch is hooked to factory harness...(think thats the third time explained)...confused, why would that make a difference? i mean sure i could splice in all rca's, but i am cramped for room with wiring as it is...that would add to the mess, why is it that hooking in with reg speaker wires makes a difference? i am a jet engine mechanic, not an audio whiz, dumb it down for me...

why not splice the blue and blue/white and connect to factory harness blue wire?

 

[Yoda E SC]

the "loudness on the speaker level oputputs is higher than that of the rcas. that is why you will not hear the sub, even if it is on. if you splice the outputs of the radio together for the power antenna turn on and the amp turn on you will burn one of both of them out eventually on the new headunit. you dont need them both, just the blue whie fromt the new radio hooked to your car side harness.

 

[BigAl205]

Ahhhh...I see your problem. The SC and EX have an external amp behind the kickpanel, but you have the harness for the LX which doesn't have an external amp so it doesn't have the amp turn-on lead on the harness. You will have to physically splice the BLU/WHT wire from the radio to the YEL/GRN wire of the factory harness. As far as the spliced RCA, it looks like you've got the subwoofer hooked up correctly, but as Yoda said, you are running an amplified signal to the inputs of the factory amp for all of the other speakers. This speaker-level output is too hot for the external amp to handle and it is giving you disortion and could possibly fry the inputs of the amp. This may also keep you from hearing the sub clearly because you are overpowering the highs. The proper way would be to splice in RCA's to the Scoche harness and plug them into the RCA outputs of the radio. It should look like this when you are done with RCA's coming out of the Scoche harness....

 

[Morpheus]

ok, sounds easy enough...will take some work, and some jedi mind tricks along side some zip ties to get all these wires to fit... if i scrunch some of the unused stuff down enough it should look and fit better...

the fun continues...

**ok now i'm looking...and i see all the individual colors wires coming off harness...what goes where? as in what wires for FL,FR,RR,RL? the splicing is manageable if i knew what went where...thanks for all the help!(and patients)******Nevermind, i have the wiring diagram right here...

 

[Yoda E SC]

CEA/EIA color standards, white=FL, gray=FR, green=RL, violet=RR. the ones with the black stripe are your negative and should go to the outer shield of each of the RCA's while the solid color w/out the black stripe should go to the center pin of each RCA. May the force be with you.

 

[Morpheus]

SUCCESS!!! Thanks you guys for the help!

the bass hits harder than stock, spliced in all the rca's as instructed and BAM! no static and bass goes boom..

again thank you with all of the help!

 

[NismoGriff]

SUCCESS!!! Thanks you guys for the help!

the bass hits harder than stock, spliced in all the rca's as instructed and BAM! no static and bass goes boom..

again thank you with all of the help!

I was wondering through all of this if it really was a static sound you were hearing or more of a hiss??

 

[Yoda E SC]

glad you got it going.

 

[BigAl205]

Great! Glad it worked out for you.

 

[texaselement]

Yoda - you steal my idea on your profile pic?
I had it first! lol

 

[Yoda E SC]

yours should be black, at least mine it the pigmentally correct (at least close).