I apologize for my lack of knowlege in anything electrical/audio equipment, but that's why I'm asking you guys so let's see:

After a long 3 year wait I finally purchased my S2000 about a month ago. The previous owner had installed an aftermarket pioneer head unit and pioneer amp which were working fine upon purchase. I had to replace the battery a couple weeks ago and upon installing I wasn't paying attention and accidently hooked it up backwards for a moment. By that I mean I tried to put the negative terminal on the positive end (might of been other way around) and it sparked at me kind of viciously and I said "oh, backwards, whoops" and continued to turn it around and proceed. Hop in my car: head unit won't come on and the 'power' light on the amp isn't on either. Replaced the fuse on the amp itself and still nothing. I've looked over and over for a diagram of the fuses (inside the car) and I can't figure out which one is for radio.

Summary:
a) Could the battery mishap potentially fry my head unit and/or amp, or do I need to just go replace the correct fuse before I even ask anything?

b) If it DOES sound like a fuse, where on earth is the location of the radio fuse??

Thanks so much for any help!!

 

Based on what you did, your car shouldnt power up, and shouldnt start either. Hooking up a battery backwards (I know, Ive done it) blows the 100A battery fuse under the hood. Check that fuse, its probably blown.

 

I've been driving my car and everything... the 100A is fine. I checked the fuses in the cabin and they are all fine as well.

I don't understand how my amp AND head unit won't work but everything else is fine?? I'm going to pull my head unit today and see what I can do. If anyone can shed some light on a potential solution that'd be awesome.

 

Pull the radio and see if it has a fuse of it's own.

(To test the amp, just run a jumper wire from the + terminal to the remote turn on terminal and see if it powers up... most likely your HU isn't supplying the +12V to it to turn it on)

 

usually there is a wire going from the headunit to the amp which
turns on the amp when the headunit is on, so if your headunit won't
go on, the amp usually won't either. according to the Helms manual,
there are two fuses for the "audio unit" - #9 and #22. #9 is also
for the power socket, so you can check that one if you have a
cellphone charger or something else to plug into it. as noted by
Doug, a lot of aftermarket headunits do have their own fuse, so
if it's not one in the main fuse box you'll need to pull the headunit
to get to its fuse.

 

You said that you replaced the fuse on the Amp, but you didn't mention the inline fuse near the battery on the power wire(s). I'm guessing it's blown and the installer ran either another power line from the battery to the radio for it's power (with it's own inline fuse) or used a power distribution module to send power to both the amp and the HU.

So check that inline fuse or fuses..

 

Thanks so much for the replies! I'm sorry that I didn't mention it before, but I did check the inline fuse on the power wire under the hood. It was fine as well. I also checked #9 and #22 fuses and they were all good as well. I am going to go ahead and pull the HU out tomorrow and replace that fuse (if there is one) and go from there. Hopefully that will solve my problem.