aftermarket sounds

[enimox7]

I recently purchased a 200 watt mtx roadthunder amp and 10" sub from circuit city and instead of having them install it for an extra 60 bucks, I decided to install it myself into my 87. I found a good way to run the wire from my battery to the amp without having to drill through the firewall and I'm pretty sure I'm running all the wires correctly to the amp and from the amp to the sub. I tried working on it for the past 3 days and still haven't been able to get any power to the sub.

I went back to circuit city yesterday to see how much it would be for them to troubleshoot and the guy stopped what he was doing with the other car in the garage and came over to help me out real quick for free. (A prime example of why I love circuit city ) He used a multimeter to check all the connections running to my amp and found out that my main power lead from my battery was only giving off 3 volts while the remote terminal was pushing close to 11. So I figured this was my problem so I went home and redid the connection to my battery and still no power.

I'm thinking it might be a weak battery or just bad wiring on my part. Has anyone else come across a similar problem or have any suggestions? This is really starting to give me a headache. If you'd like to see pics of my setup, let me know.

I was also wondering how other people with aftermarket systems ran their wires through their rx7.

[DevoutWankelist]

Try regrounding it, 7 times out of 10 that will fix and power issues with amps. Make sure to use a new location too.

[Soyo]

I put new Pioneer speakers in mine, but I had circuit city rerun all the wires then put in the speakers myself, didn't wanna deal with that in the middle of December in Kansas! BUURRRR!!!

[enimox7]

Ok, so I assume it's the ground wire that's being the big pain in the arse. It's really weird though, because whenever I try to ground it to a chassy point anywhere on my car(i've tried under the hood mainly), my amp shuts off. And when I touch the ground wire to the remote terminal connector on the amp, my LED light gets brighter, which I assume means that more voltage is running to my amp somehow. Still aint having any luck getting the sub to start pounding though. Any other comments/suggestions. Looks like I may have to go back to circuit city if I don't figure this out soon.

On a side note, the stock clutch on my fc is pretty much burnt out and i've ordered a new exedy clutch that I wanna get installed some time this week. How hard would it be to install yourself, without any kind of car stand involved, just a 3 ton jack from schucks? I've heard you need to pull out the tranny to uninstall/install the new clutch and it takes even professionals 4-5 hours to complete. Any suggestions or recommendations of some well known shops to take it to. I live in the Seattle area if anyone happens to knows any smaller, reliable shops in the area.

[DevoutWankelist]

Dont ground it under the hood, ground to the nearest location possible. Where exactly is your amp located, if it is in the rear of the car there are some screws near the tail light assembly that are easily accessible and will work for a ground, In my experience ground wires over 3 feet long will always be screwy. Look under your interior panels for a better location.

As far as the clutch, did you order just the clutch disk or the new clutch kit that comes with pilot bearing, pressure plate, and realease bearing? because you will definately want to replace the bearings as well. Also while you have the clutch off you should get your flywheel resurfaced, ($15 at Oreillys) but getting the flywheel off is a pita if you dont have an impact wrench, because NOTHING else will do it except some goofy torque multiplier that mazda sells. I just get a 57mm socket for it and hauled it over to my friends shop and borrowed his impact wrech (friend with tools kick ass), but once it is off it is a good idea to replace the rear main seal too. If you havent tried anything like this before and you dont have someone helping you this could take a while. I did this a month ago when it was freezing outside, do you have a heated garage? It took me a week and most of that time was spent swearing and tearing at the 57mm bolt on the flywheel, the pilot bearing, and the rear main seal, without special tools they are all a pita. So if your just going to install a clutch disk only all you have to do is take off the transmission (oh yeah and the drive shaft), bolt on the flywheel and put the tranny back on, but I would strongly reccomend getting a full clutch kit that comes with the pilot bearing and release bearing etc. I would also reccomend that you resurface that flywheel and replace the rear main seal too.

P.S. Not that this happened to me or anything but *cough* *cough*, but while you have anything heavy above your head be careful not to drop it or anything. Just trust me on that one, the going rate in my area for someone unconcious under their car is about a $400 ambulance ride. heh heh not me I swear heh

[DevoutWankelist]

Oh yeah, what size ground and power wires are you using?

[enimox7]

Originally Posted by DevoutWankelist

Oh yeah, what size ground and power wires are you using?

Both 10 gauge wires i got with the amp wire kit from circuit city. It came with this small ass ground wire so the circuit guys said to just use the leftover power wire to ground. I have the amp mounted behind the drivers seat...I was planning on putting it under the seat but the damn thing won't slide underneath and I think it would be pretty tight even if I removed the seat, mounted the amp, then put the seat back. I managed to make my 7 into a 4 seater by removing the storage bins that were back there and stuffed some pillows in the holes to make it a little more comfortable. I end up having to adjust my seat up whenever I need to fit another person behind me so that would probably scratch the amp if it were under my seat. Anyway, I'm probably gonna have circuit take a look at what I'm doing wrong cause I have better things to do with my time right now. Thanks for the help guys.

And I got a exedy clutch kit, which just came in today, so I'm probably gonna get that thing installed tomorrow if possible.

[ponchonutty]

Originally Posted by enimox7

Ok, so I assume it's the ground wire that's being the big pain in the arse. It's really weird though, because whenever I try to ground it to a chassy point anywhere on my car(i've tried under the hood mainly), my amp shuts off. And when I touch the ground wire to the remote terminal connector on the amp, my LED light gets brighter, which I assume means that more voltage is running to my amp somehow. Still aint having any luck getting the sub to start pounding though. Any other comments/suggestions. Looks like I may have to go back to circuit city if I don't figure this out soon.

On a side note, the stock clutch on my fc is pretty much burnt out and i've ordered a new exedy clutch that I wanna get installed some time this week. How hard would it be to install yourself, without any kind of car stand involved, just a 3 ton jack from schucks? I've heard you need to pull out the tranny to uninstall/install the new clutch and it takes even professionals 4-5 hours to complete. Any suggestions or recommendations of some well known shops to take it to. I live in the Seattle area if anyone happens to knows any smaller, reliable shops in the area.

I don't recomend your style of testing but I think you could have a bad amp. Those amps are terrible!!!