hibby50

Hey everyone. I just installed a new head unit in my sc that came stock with a nak. I ran all of the speaker wire to the trunk and connected it to the stock amp speaker output. Doing that a lost the subwoofer for my car so i got an aftermarket amp to power the sub. My question: can i use the existing 12v and ground wires for my new amp since i will only be pushing half the power of the original amp and if so what color are the wires. TIA

hibby50

bump... does anyone know?

irishcharm

iTrader: (1)

clarify your actual question and i should be able to help you.........you said.......My question: can i use the existing 12v and ground wires for my new amp since i will only be pushing half the power of the original amp and if so what color are the wires. TIA .............


if your asking if you can power an aftermarket amplifier with factory power and ground wires.....no, not at all. You need to buy the appropiate gauge wire for that aftermarket amp and run that from your battery. what kind of aftermarket amp did you get for the subwoofer?

hibby50

its a sony xm-1s. Do i need to run a ground from the battery too? I was gonna run a 4 gauge from the positive terminal and use the existing ground.

irishcharm

iTrader: (1)

your flirting the line between 4 gauge and 8. look on here under the main topics for the length to power ratio. If your only using the amp on a 4 ohm subwoofer then 8 in enough due to the 290 Watt RMS at 4 ohm.

As far as grounding (a highly debated topic)....you need to ground it to a bolt thats bare metal on a bare metal surface. im sure you can google how to properly ground an amplifier and see tons of results. Without getting into a long explanation, thats some of the best info I can give.

Whenever adding aftermarket amplifiers, you never reuse any factory wiring except for an amp turn on wire. thats it.

on a side note, i dk what watt your factory sub is but im guessing its less than 200 w at 4 ohms so running 8 awg is cheaper and easier to do. go to BB or an audio store and buy an 8 gauge amp kit. will come with power wire, a fuse for that wire which must be installed within 12 inches from the battery (to be safe), a ground wire, amp turn on wire, and maybe rca's which you will need to run from your headunit to the sony amp

hibby50

Thanks for the help. I have the RCAs run already. But thats the thing, the stock amp was pushing over 200 watts and looks to have 8 gauge wires already (maybe a little smaller). I had the nakamichi system so my stock amp was a 5 channel 260 watt. 100 for the sub 40x4 for the speakers. But yea ill just go get a 4 gauge and run it from the battery. thanks agian