sheetsaf

Hey... Im new in these parts. I bought a 2002 protege es in june. i want to put my kicker am and 10' kickers in my new girl. I was wondering if the stock head unit has the needed wiring. (i.e. remote wiring, rca plugs, ect) thanks for ur time.

Out
sheets

hihoslva

Remote wiring - no
RCAs - no.

But - you don't have to ditch the stock deck just to add amps. remote turn-on can be accessed from the cigarette lighter (this will have the amps on whenever the car is on - but also if the radio is off).

You can also use an amp with high-level inputs, or get some converters that will take your speaker leads and convert them to RCAs for amp input.

~HH

JDMstuff

The only problem with using a key-on power source for the turn on lead is that the amp will be on when the car is on. If you're planning on just running the subs with this amp, it should be ok, since they would be in the trunk. I wouldn't advise you to hook the amp to the other speakers in the car without a proper turn on lead, as any sound in the amp will be amplified when the radio is off. If you want to eventually get another amp for the smaller speakers inside the cabin, but still want to retain your factory HU, just put a switch to turn the amp on and off when you want to use it. As far as the signal wires go, if you have a newer Kicker amp, you should already have the high level input. Just look for an extra speaker terminal block on your amp. Run a pair of speaker wires from the rear speakers into this block and you have your signal wires. If it's an older one, just get a high-level to RCA adaptor and run a pair of RCA's from that.

sheetsaf

thanks for all the advice.. i will do that and then adventually get a new h.u.

for now
out
sheets

Aydu

I have a sub and amp in my 2002 Protege ES, along with the factory head unit. I have an amp with speaker level inputs and tried using them for input by tapping into the rear speaker wires, as has been suggested.

It worked, technically. I got a signal from the amp, but the volume was so low that I barely could tell I had a sub. Adjusting the amp's gains up still didn't give me any substantial volume - at least not what I wanted.

I ended up using a line level converter to convert the speaker level signal to a line or RCA level. When this signal was connected to the same amp via RCAs, the volume was great. I used an adjustable line level converter to be able to control the signal going to the amp.

Any amp will have line level (RCA) inputs, so you'll be ok if the speaker connections don't produce the volume you want. As a worst case, you'd just have to pick up a converter, and they are available anywhere that sells car audio stuff - even Walmart!