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Strange Factory Wiring


digitaloutsider

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So, I pulled the passenger side dash speaker wiring out of my GP to put in my Cutlass since one of the previous owners ripped it out for no apparent reason. I thought it was a little a strange. The car had premium sound. I REALLY need to put this wire into my car to make that speaker work. Does anyone know where the Cutlass' amp is, or even if has one? (I have the 6-speaker, bass-slider audio system)

 

speakerwire.jpg

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Yes.. because aftermarket looks like shit. And to be honest, the factory deck in my Bonneville sounded worlds better than most aftermarket systems I've heard. In fact, the ONLY aftermarket system I've heard that sounds better than my Bonneville was one that included ALL Boston Acoustic components, a Zapco amp, an Eclipse Headunit, and Eclipse subs, and the system totalled over $8000.

 

Anyway, to clarify: YES, I'm fixing my stock system so my interior doesn't look like shit. Yes, I'm fixing my stock system so my car doesn't sound like shit, and finally.. YES I'd like to know where my factory amp is located. Thank you.

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I don't blame you..

I've never messed with a cutlass premium audio system, but my guess for factory amp location would be under the dash somewhere. Let me ramble for a minute..

 

Get me a picture of the headunit, and a picture of the wiring coming out of it. When you locate the amplifier, get me pictures of the wiring harness shawing the color of wires in the harness. I could help you out a lot more if I had a visual reference of what you're working with.

 

I'm guessing that the 4" dash speakers are powered by the headunit's amplifier, and the door speakers are powered by the aux amplifier.

If I remember right, the rear speakers are DVC 2-way 6x9's. One lead feeds the tweeters (powered by the rear outputs on the headunit), and the other lead is for the woofers (powered by the aux amplifier w/ a low pass filter), controlled by the gain slider in the dash.

 

Another way to tell where a speaker is being powered from is wire color. Solid colored speaker wires come directly from the headunit. Solid colored wires with a colored stripe usually come from an aux. amplifier. If the wiring in the cutlass hasn't been hacked to all hell, you should be able to tell easily.

 

Did any of that make sense? :lol:

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I got boston acoustic seperates and they sound so sick. The funny thing is they were not that expensive. under $300 and that was 10 years ago! I have had them in two different rides and played at full blast volume the whole time.

 

they dont look like shit though, because you cant see them.

 

masked by stock grills.

 

 

cant help ya on that one. :thumbsdown:

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That helped quite a bit, Luke! Thanks! The factory harness HAS been hacked to hell. And I'm quite stumped on the whole audio setup as a whole. It has the nice bass slider, but the door speakers don't appear to be stock. The speakers ARE Delco, but the door panel itself is from a non-door speaker car. The speaker covers certainly aren't factory. So, i'm not sure if someone spliced those in at some time during the cars life, or if the door panels were ruined and someone put new ones in. If that's the case, most of the wiring in the car is probably fucked. It had an aftermarket system at one time. Whoever installed it was a complete jackass. Whoever installed the factory system back in is an even bigger one. They fucked up the wiring hardcore, especially in the rear deck. They attached the speakers from UNDERNEATH with wood screws, and attached the wiring the wrong way on the right side (signal from amp/woofer going to the tweeter portion; signal from the headunit going to the woofer portion). So that speaker's blown. I'm sourcing parts from White93Z34, so hopefully I can get all that shit together when I get my new headunit from Dikran. Remember that Olds 5-band EQ CD Headunit from the Auction Watch section? :wink:

 

Ohhh this poor, poor car. It's had one hell of a rough life.

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The factory amp is behind the headlight switch, behind/under the "dash carrier" Good luck. I had the same stereo system as you in my old '89 Cutlass and it did sound quite good, especially after I changed the amps to '91+ models (more power)

 

 

I'm not sure if it was explained already, but the premium sound system in the Cutlass has just tweeters on a plate in the dash. The stereo powers the door speakers and the 6x9's in the rear, and the extra amp powers the 6x9's other coil for bass only, and the bass control on your dash is basically just a gain control for that amp.

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