Wiring a stereo in

[Brianmoooore]

'll have a look at my E30 later on and see what sort of mess is behind the glove box... Hopefully the socket is there unmolested.

Usually stays unmolested. The ICE/alarm cowboys shy away from it because they don't understand it.
Hazard switch leads and ignition switch wires are much more attractive to them!
Most E30s have their original radio loom relatively intact in my experience. It's just the four pin plug connected to four open ended wires.

[Conrad]

Cool, I reckon it would be pretty obvious if mine had been raped in that case. I'll get a torch in there later on and see what state its all in! Fingers crossed I just need to buy the wiring harness.

[Royalratch]

Even if it's screwed, the wiring harness will fix all it's like starting from scratch - that's what I'm trying to say!

You'll just need to wire in the speakers into the ISO harness and you can trash all the old wiring in one go.

Good excuse to upgrade the speaker cables form doorbell gauge too.

[Conrad]

True. For now I'll put up with whatever the standard speaker wire/speakers are. I'll eventually invest in a 4 channel amp, a sub and some comps... but for now I can't afford it.

I noticed some pioneers on the rear shelf, were these stnadard equipment?

Con.

[Royalratch]

If you're going to get that deep into the wiring, another 5mins and £10 and you could fir some nice new speaker wire and it would make quite a difference.

[Conrad]

True, but the effort would be pointless unless I had decent speakers to go with the wire.

Eventually, I'll be fitting amplified components, this means the speaker wire I would have laid would be pointless, as I'd have to remove it and create fresh runs from the amplifier to the crossovers.

Cheers,

Con

[Scoupe]

well this thread has managed to annoy me significantly, as i spent around 3 hours today trying to decide what the hell was going on with the wiring in my dash...

i pulled a poverty spec head unit out of the dash first thing to see it wired in with a chocolate block, and was a little sour, but whipped out the multi meter found out which wire was which, and then labelled them all up, and checked that the power wires didn't come from any where silly.

then i got the most basic ISO connector i could find, and cut the pointless end off, and wired that into the dash, tidying up all of the wires as i went along. Finally managed to finish that, and it didn't work, which annoyed me slightly, but....such is life lol

but i had left the interior light on over night , so a little battery pack loving. and she works all good

Bit of a waste of time after reading this thread though! lol

got my couple of amps, 15" sub, 6x9's and 6" components to get on with tomorrow...then i should be able to make some serious noise again, rather than have the kit sit in my room for another 6 months!


take it easy all

[Royalratch]

Do it man - do it now!

[Scoupe]

will get on with it today

[pictonroad]

discovery of little loomy thing leads to a score change.

ICE progress 6/10

Not ordering it from the Ratch's site and paying too much. 5.9/10

Discovering I can piggyback digital radio off the normal aerial 6.2/10

[gooner1]

That's what Powelly has found. My stereo wasn't wired in that way. I've finished guttting all the wiring and will now install from fresh soon as I get's my loom.

I ordered my loom from these guys:
http://www.bluespot.co.uk/install/show_model.asp?id=23

You need the one below. It's the same as powellys and it's £10 INC postage!


Will post pix!

Cheers all.

Is the iso end block on this one solid unit, only i need one for an 86 cab and an alpine head unit, and the connections on the head unit are side by side as opposed to one above the other. If you follow me.

[Royalratch]

Yes I do. It's the same connection, it's just on some they come as one block and on some the block is spereated into thinner blocks.

But they add upto the same block so this would work on your head unit.

If you look at the diagram above, you can see the actual pins are in 2 rows of 4 pins.

[gooner1]

Cheers Ratch, will order one now.

[Royalratch]

This post is kind of aimed at ICE beginners like me, so it's not that exciting or tech but I know everyone likes pix.

These are the bit's to start with. ISO / E30 Loom, AMP Pre-Outs and AMP Power.


The ISO / E30 specific loom is exactly the same as powellys and I never knew it existed until he found it - good call powelly. Plug and play now with and end to cowboy wiring.


Anyone know what the lone blue wire is for?

Got some nice phat speaker cable. One type is flat with some silver mixed into the strands, the other is much thicker and hi-fi specific. The unused set will be for sale for £10 for 5 metres brand new. The only problem is I want to wire them directly to the ISO plug and not the break out plug but how do I get them in as the speaker cable is too big to push/solder into the ISO blades? Can I get female/male blade connectors and wire solder the speaker cable externally THEN insert them into the ISO plug?


Here's my speakers, JBL components. Decent, not too flash.


Here's the tweeter with an E30 housing - I cannot get the original speaker out of this housing. I've tried meth spirit to break down the glue and it will not budge. Not even with pliers. Will try nail polish remover whcih is supposed to be super hardcore.


All goes in soon as I find the right power amp. Am after a very small 2 channel not over 55W to go behind the centre console under the heater controls. Ideas?

Cheers all.

[m-dtech]

blue wire is amp power feed.

amplifier has 3 terminals, (-ve), (+ve) and (power switch)

means the amp turns on when the radio does and does not cause a battery drain.

[Royalratch]

There's also a blue wire on the amp pre-out - which of these go to the amp?

So what you're saying is that it's a switch wire to trun the amp on and off? But does it actually power the amp itself? Where does the red power amp cable I have fit into all this?

[m-dtech]

no it does not power the amp, merley switches it off and on.

im not sure what setup your using, but a simple multimeter should help you find the correct one.

basicaly when your headunit is on there will be a voltage on the blue wire, thus turning on the amp.

[Royalratch]

All understood - hopefully won't need a multimeter as it's all pre-wired, just make sure it goes to the amp correctly.

So the blue wire on the amp pre-out also serves the same purpose?

Many thanks.

[m-dtech]

All understood - hopefully won't need a multimeter as it's all pre-wired, just make sure it goes to the amp correctly.

So the blue wire on the amp pre-out also serves the same purpose?

Many thanks.

Not sure mate, quite possibly try it and see. but im almost certain that it will be.

[Royalratch]

Got some nice phat speaker cable. One type is flat with some silver mixed into the strands, the other is much thicker and hi-fi specific. The unused set will be for sale for £10 for 5 metres brand new. The only problem is I want to wire them directly to the ISO plug and not the break out plug but how do I get them in as the speaker cable is too big to push/solder into the ISO blades? Can I get female/male blade connectors and wire solder the speaker cable externally THEN insert them into the ISO plug?

Any ideas on the above? Is the pic below what I need - solder the speaker cable to this then plug that into the ISO block?



Cheers.

[Conrad]

ISO is the standard and all head units that are ISO (which is all of them these days) are configured the same way.

The difference is at the car end but as we all have E30's it's cool.

Where head units still differ is with extra connectors like iPod / CD changers etc. They are still unique to each manufacturer.

I got my adaptor in the post on Friday, fitted it Saturday and the stereo wouldn't power up.

As I originally thought, these adaptors are NOT all the same, the one you have is for a blaupunkt unit.

I used it with my JVC unit, which has the permanent live on a different pin, so I chopped the illumination wire, and the perm live wire (on the harness) and connected them together, problem solved.

As for your speaker cable issue, just chop that connector off and use a connector block or bullets (preferably with solder).

[Royalratch]

Blimey, what's the point of having an industry standard connector if every bugger makes their units with different pin patterns?!?

As for your speaker cable issue, just chop that connector off and use a connector block or bullets (preferably with solder).

That's way easier. If I wanted to to get the speaker cable straight to the ISO block for a stronger signal path - would it make a difference?

[m-dtech]

speaker wire should be run from your amp and not the iso connector??

[Conrad]

What are you trying to achieve exactly? As m-dtech says, if you are planning on running your speakers off an amplifier and not the head unit, you won't be using that part of the harness anyway?

If you are for example powering the fronts off the headunit then do what I suggested above.

[Royalratch]

Need to run them off the head unit until I find an amp that fits where I need it to.

My question was whether an ubroken signal path is better than bullet plugs etc. Would there be a difference.
One other thing, which of the polarity 'I & O' symbols equates to little tab / big tab at the speaker terminal end?

[pictonroad]

Need to run them off the head unit until I find an amp that fits where I need it to.

My question was whether an ubroken signal path is better than bullet plugs etc. Would there be a difference.
One other thing, which of the polarity 'I & O' symbols equates to little tab / big tab at the speaker terminal end?

An unbroken path will technically be better but in the acoustic abortion that is an E30 you won't notice.

Halfords sell the little adaptors to push fit into those ancient speaker fittings I think, that or pop to your local tip and pull one them off some grundig speakers.

As for the speaker terminal polarity, you need to find an adaptor to see which one is which, must be a pic somewher on the giant internet anorak....

[Royalratch]

An unbroken path will technically be better but in the acoustic abortion that is an E30 you won't notice.

LOL!:D

The speaker strip on the loom is labelled with I+• does that mean anything?

Out of interest, what cars / shapes have good acoustics?

[powelly]

I had planned on choppping that long speaker plug off and soldering new speaker cables to the tails on the speaker ISO plug, I reckon that a nice permanent fix.
Are you saying the lives are the wrong way round for some stereos, this seems strange, I thought ISO pin layouts were all the same. Ah well, shows how wrong you can be.

[pictonroad]

None,

All cars are a massive compromise, sound banging off hard surfaces all over the shop. E30 speakers in the footwell is just weird, I think only grasshoppers have ears on their ankles.........

I time delayed an alpine headunit in my golf so the sound from all the speakers was slightly out of sync and therefore hit my ears at the same time, made quite a difference actually..

Try a complicated song with a lot of frequencies, Chilli Peppers or summat and listen with your head in the middle of the car rather than the drivers seat, it'll sound markedly better. Other than time delay, you could buy a Mclaren F1?

To be absolutely certain of the polarity you'd better off testing it, I can't be sure from here.


It's coming on though mate, I'm looking forward to it, as I'm typing this my speakers have been delivered..... I'm catching you

[NL-BMW]

My headunit only comes ON with the ignition switched on.....
.....however I would like to turn it on while the car is either ON or OFF (without switching on ignitioin)

Any ideas????

Its a Pioneer.

Thanks

[powelly]

Your headunit is working exactly as It should, I`m assuming you want your head unit to come on without needing to put the ignition key in, to be honest this is exactly the kind of dodgy wiring most people want to undo.
If my assumptions are wrong then I apologise and i`ll shut up.

[Royalratch]

It should only work with the key in on position 1.

Working with no key in is dodge.

I too don't get the point of having an ISO standard plug and layout and then manufacturers mess with it.

Like the US sigining upto the UN and then doing sly shit on their own and messing everything up.

!

[gooner1]

ISO is the standard and all head units that are ISO (which is all of them these days) are configured the same way.

The difference is at the car end but as we all have E30's it's cool.

Where head units still differ is with extra connectors like iPod / CD changers etc. They are still unique to each manufacturer.

I got my adaptor in the post on Friday, fitted it Saturday and the stereo wouldn't power up.

As I originally thought, these adaptors are NOT all the same, the one you have is for a blaupunkt unit.

I used it with my JVC unit, which has the permanent live on a different pin, so I chopped the illumination wire, and the perm live wire (on the harness) and connected them together, problem solved.

As for your speaker cable issue, just chop that connector off and use a connector block or bullets (preferably with solder).

Ba..s, just ordered mine yesterday. Oh well,cest la vie.

[Conrad]

It's still perfectly usable bro, just gotta swap the wires over with a bullet connector or a connector block so the pin assignment is correct.

[Royalratch]

The speaker strip on the loom is labelled with I+• does that mean anything?

Any knowledge guys - trying to figure out speaker polarity.

I have these electrical symbols on the stereo loom - 'I' & '•' for each speaker feed and I need to know which one goes to the wide tab and the narrow tab on the speakers.

Much appreciated y'all.