luckyAD80

Hey guys. So I have 2 12" DVC 4ohm Kicker subs, a Soundstorm mono amp that I want to wire to be 1 ohm stable, and a JVC deck coming in Thursday.

Here's a pic of how to wire it to be 1 ohm stable, so I should be able to get that far.

Here's my question - could anybody that has personally installed something like my setup please give me very detailed instructions on what to do, like drilling any holes, establishing a ground wire point, where to run the wires (under carpet? and if so how), what side to run wires on, best place for amp, etc...

I really want to learn how to do this stuff, but I'm not sure if I know anyone that could help me. If somebody could walk me through all the steps - and yes I know it would be a huge PITA - I would appreciate it a ton! Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for your replies!

-Alex

luckyAD80

And here's the wiring kit I purchased for referencing the wires in your replies. Thanks again.

EvstaG

Does your amp have two outputs? Like one channel, but two outs?

EvstaG

Sorry double post, just switching from the phone. For reference I have an 2 door 89'XJ. I didnt see a year for yours, so some of this may not apply. So I will tell you how I did mine here: For the power to your amp, which I have in the rear ("false floor" style cargo box in the back), I wired from the battery, with the in-line fuse about 8 inches away from the battery (closer the better) There was a conveniently located hole in the firewall (Under/beside/near the purge ballast container thing, which is just behind the oil filter on the firewall ) that I flex loomed through. Through this hole I went directly under the carpet. I removed the kick panel and the trim panel on the floor that runs beside the seat. For my year at least, the passenger side panel has a decent amount of room for wire to be fed. I just fed this wire to the final panel, which has the seat belt mounting rail etc. I couldn't find my torx bit set to take the seatbelt rail off, however I managed to feed the power wire through to underneath the rear seat with little trouble. From this I just routed it to the amp and voila. If you arent running too much power, you might even be able to fit it under the rear seats. I have 800w and it hardly gets warm, so I am not worried about ventilation. It is important to flex loom or protect in some other way the parts that may encourage wear from vibration, etc.
For the remote wire, and the amp input wire, I ran them on the drivers side. This is because even with proper shielded RCA cable, the high amperage running through the amp power cable can give interference and poor sound quality. I Ran these wires behind the gauge cluster out the back of the deck (fiddly) and ran from the lower dash panel to the kick panel. The kick panel back was the same as the passenger side, however this is wear your rear electrical is run through, so you may have to squeeze it a little bit. A drawback of putting the amp in the front (say under a seat) that you can encounter serious sound quality loss running say 12 feet of amplified speaker wire to your subwoofers in the back, and it can look pretty mess if done sloppily. Also, I would not recommend skimping on the gauge for your wires to/from the subwoofer. I am currently running 10 gauge wire to each of my 2 12" 400W, which I would consider safe. Also, if you are going to be running loads of power a capacitor could be a worthwhile investment- this will place less stress on your alternator and battery for the big hits of the subs.
For a ground for the amp, I used one of the big seatbelt bolts, making sure to freshen up the metal with some sandpaper first. I am sure there are other chassis ground points that will work too, but I found this to be ideal because of its significant size, and the fact that it is obviously going to be involved with the car frame. Other than this, I can only say don't rush it. Also, if your wiring kit didn't come with spade/ring connectors for your power and ground wires, those would be a necessity.
I hope this helps some, and any questions fire em here!
Evan

mr white

You probably won't notice the high pitch whine from the RCAs interference with the power wire if you only have subs run. The LPF will take care of it and the sub won't be able to put out those frequencies anyway. IMO, not a big deal if only running a sub off the amp. Keep your ground wire as short as possible. I also prefer a larger gauge than the power wire and upgrade your chassis ground from the battery at the same time. Bolt the ground wire to a clean spot on the frame, make sure it it bare metal, no paint. Paint doesn't conduct. The blue remote wire needs to be spliced into any wire that goes hot and stays hot when the car is running, it doesn't have to be on the power antenna lead (that JVC HU will most likely have an output for the remote wire). This will turn on the amp when you turn on the car.
What model is your amp? What model are your subs? Less than 1kW rms will probably be fine with 4AWG. I wouldn't use a capacitor... If you are having electrical issues, you need to fix the problem by beefing up the "big three" grounds. Also if your amp isn't rated at 1ohm (a lot of them are not) you can not wire the configuration you want to do. The amp will just go into protect and won't work.

luckyAD80

Thanks for the replies! I will carefully read them when I have more time. As for my Jeep, it's an '01 XJ Sport.