Hey all! Looked through the other posts about other Monsoon installs, but nothing seemed to cover off what I'm looking at here...
I was at the Boneyard last week and found a Stock Delco radio out of a 2000 (I think) Grand Am. It's the UP3 option with the 7 band eq/CD etc... I also grabbed another Delco radio out of a 2000ish Monte Carlo 'just in case'. I was excited to get back home and hook it up!
After wiring the adapter up (I cut the wires so I could have the connector from the donor boneyard cars) The UP3 Pontiac one didn't work.... but the other one I grabbed from the Monte Carlo did. Not to be detered, I still wanted the UP3 Pontiac version as it would match better, so I spent a day going to different boneyards to find a working UP3. Couldn't find a single one... hardly any boneyards around here keep cars older than 10-15 years. But, I did some research and found that some Units need the stock factory AMP to work properly, as the head unit is just a pre-amp. I did manage to find a Monsoon amp out of a 2004 Grand Am.
I returned home and went through the pinouts for the Monsoon amp. seems it takes the speaker outputs from the Head Unit (Front right and left, Rear right and left) as Inputs, separates it internally in the amp (built in crossover I assume) then distributes them out to the various speakers. I hooked up my previously thought to be 'non-working' UP3 head unit, and BINGO!!! It worked (but the LCD display won't light up...no biggie I have a new bulb on order). I tested each of the speaker outputs from the Monsoon amp and verified I had a signal from each one.
Now, here's my question. On the Monsoon amp it splits out the speaker configuration like so:
FRONT:
Right side tweeter (+ & -)
Left Side Tweeter (+ & -)
Right Side Mid-Range (+ & -)
Left Side Mid-range (+ & -)
REAR:
Right side tweeter (+ & -)
Left Side Tweeter (+ & -)
Left Side SUBWOOFER (+ & -)
RIGHT Side SUBWOOFER (+ & -)
In testing, (I tested it from my workbench with a spare speaker I had laying around) and there is definitely some built in crossover from the amp as the SUBWOOFER output was much deeper than the Tweeter etc..
So, in my Fiero I have upgraded all the stock speakers with new speakers that are of the same size (4x6 in the rear sails and 4x10 in the dash) as well I plan to add a single subwoofer in the passenger footwell area.
What is the best way to hook up this speaker config? I was planning on reversing the stock front/back configuration, meaning wire the front speakers (4x10 in dash) to the REAR Monsoon outputs (Subwoofer and Tweeter), and the rear sails (4x6) to the front Monsoon outputs (tweeter and Mid-range). To do this, I would essentially combine the + outputs from each channel (Front right tweeter and Front right Mid-range) together and same for the ' - ' side, therefore combining the midrange frequencies and the tweeter high frequencies together as the speakers can handle them. I believe in the original car (The Grand Am I got the amp out of) there were separate components for each output...
Then what about the Single Subwoofer?... use a line convertor and seperate amp? seems like a waste as it's already 'there' in the monsoon amp.
I am making my own wiring harness with adapters a donor wiring from the donor cars. (no, I am not cutting any wires in the Fiero)....
I'm not looking for 'shake the neighborhood' sound, just a nice lower end fill-in of Bass as we all know the stock size speakers don't quite cut it.
Hope I was clear in my explanation... if there anything I wasn't clear on please let me know...
Thanks in advance,
Cheers!
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PK
I should join a club and beat you over the head with it!
