I am installing a new system in my 96 Accord EX Coupe. I am using 16 ga. Stinger Pro speaker wire, and I would like to run them through the rubber grommets between the door and the dash.

I have successfully wired the passenger door by running two 16 ga. wires through the rubber grommet, and drilling a hole in the plastic harness plug at the entrance of the door.

This worked fine on my passenger side because the male plug into the harness only used half of the female harness plug. I was therefore able to drill into the female harness a hole large enough to accept my wires.

Well, this tactic will not work on the drivers side, because the entire harness is being used (I'm guessing its my power window and mirror controls that take up the extra room).

Anyhow, I was wondering how you guys did this... surely there has to be many people with my model Accord that have successfully wired the driver side door. I want to retain the stock look by running through the rubber grommet if possible. Any ideas on how to do this?

 

to avoid this problem, I just used the stock wires. I'm only running my fronts at 50 watts each so no need to use pretty wires, the only gain they'd give you is all in your head. I'm not rippin' on you personally, im just stating in general so don't take it personal. But if I were going to do that, I'd prolly take out the pin that keeps the door from swinging out too far to get a little extra clearance. Then I'd remove the grommet that the factory wires go through, one side at a time. Remove the side on the body first, feed ur wire though the opening and into the loom. Then remove the side on the door and feed the wire through the end of the loom. Once you get to that point, you can replace the grommet/loom on the body and pull the wire through the other end. Once you get enough wire into the door panel, reinstall the grommet/loom on the door, replace the pin you removed earlier and finish up the job from there. Hope that helps:thumbup:

 

VRGNCD5, the stock wires is something like 22 ga. This wire does not have the current capacity to handle my 50 x 4 channel amp. I would suggest visting this site before using stock wires: http://www.eatel.net/~amptech/elecdisc/wire.htm. According to the calculator there, and assuming you're running a Class AB amp (60% efficiency) and the wire is 15 feet long, the maximum safe amplifier power for your setup is 17 watts.

 

The link doesn't work But even if it did, wouldn't sway me. I have been into the hobby of car audio for a good 10 years now. Not one of my installs has suffered from inability to handle the current. And only on one have I redone all of the speaker wires, and that was on my last car and only cause it was a personal challenge to myself. I had never done it before so I just wanted to give it a go just to see if I could make it look factory. In anycase, there was no audible difference, my old wiring was just fine, and never did I have any problems w/the amp that was running the speakers, the amp wasn't running cooler, everything was the same. Oh well, when you get the link up, I'd love to check it out.

 

VRGNCD5, I have fixed the link. http://www.eatel.net/~amptech/elecdisc/wire.htm

And I'm not really trying to *convince* you of anything, I'm just letting you know it might be dangerous to run that much power through your stock wires...

 

i'm in the same boat as VRGNCD5. I too have never had any trouble wiring up amps with the stock wire. In fact, one of my stupid friends wired a 1000 watt amp up with 16 guage and he never had anything happen.

 

as a former stereo installer, its a real shame to hear people are investing money in amplifiers only to make the weak link in their system the wiring.

wiring costs so little compared to the rest of the componants but that doesn't mean it's not an essential part. The real issue is not safety, I can't imagine an amplifier burning through a set of speaker cables without activating it's own internal heat protection circuitry (plus you'd have to be playing a test tone or something).

The reason is resistance. You're placing a huge bottle neck in your amps performance if you use stock wiring, in addition to introducing more noise into your music. stock wires are tiny and were only meant to carry the 5 or so watts RMS that a stock head produces.

Also, the thin insulation and the way the stock wires are run (wire-tied to every electrical harness in sight) mean your picking up more noise from the chassis and drivetrain. In short, running aftermarket wire is just as important as grounding your amp properly or using the proper gauge power cable.

-w

 

WarptEra, thank you.