Sooooo tired, and so I'm quiting for the night. At this point everything is installed and put back together. Speakers are working and the radio functions. The only thing not working is the DCI. I don't have the energy top rip everything apart again to see if perhaps a wire came lose. Since none of the dash buttons are working I figure either 1) perhaps the power or ground wire to the DCI came loose, or 2) the DCI or IR transmitter is fubar.

All in all it was an adventure with only a couple of moments of panic. One came last nght when it started to rain and I couldn't get the roof to work. Forgot I need to rehook up the center console switches. ANd the other was when I couldn't get the drivers side window to go up. Took apart the door but it turned out it was a simple case of the "off" switch being engaged on the drivers door. Duh!

Anyway, couldn't have gotten this far without this guide and a few others.

 

Great job! Post pictures up once your done.

 

You don't have any concerns using the rear sway bar as a grounding point? In reality, it's not part of the frame and could come loose over time. Just thinking outloud here. I'm going to move it there anyway.

 

If your STB is coming off your car is most likely in big trouble anyway

 

Just to clarify, the MY2000 OEM Stereo does indeed have rear speaker output pins on the stereo itself. As installed, only half of the internal amp is utilized. By tapping the rear pins you can use the rest of the OEM head unit's AWESOME power...

The challenge is there are no wires for rear speakers in the stock harness. Many of us put four extra wires in the harness to use for rear speakers. Do some more searches here, try Lucid's site if it is still up, try MacGyver's site, or search Odyssey forums for their pinout.

I know this was a few months ago, but if you still need the pinouts I will dig them up.

EDIT: Here is MacGyver's Audio page with the pinouts about 3/4 down the page.

LINK

Rear pins are:

Pin Function_______________ Pin Function
5 Right Rear Speaker +______ 15 Right Rear Speaker -
6 Left Rear Speaker +_______ 16 Left Rear Speaker -

As I said, there are no wires in the harness, so you need to jam four wires in there from a spare harness or some other source. I think someone once said wires from a PC Molex power supply connector worked for him...

 

That maybe true but why confuse them.... there's no stock wiring from that HU for the rear speakers. As you said you have to add those pins yourself... why the hell would anyone waste their time with that I'll never know

 

Well, I think the reason most people did it was to add fill and volume with rear speakers, and to get more out of the OEM HU. There may have been 50 or a hundred, or more of us who "wasted our time" with it.

There was a time, DK, when there was no solution for the dash controls with aftermarket head units.

Back then we wanted to get the most out of our OEM equipment. And we doubled output from 5 watts to 10 watts! THAT was something...

Mine worked perfectly fine until I upgraded my head unit several years later.

Perfectly, that is, until during one Honda Service appt. a confused tech ripped those wires out of the harness.

It wasn't difficult to put them back in, but I have never taken my car back there. Why on earth would a tech pull wires, just because he didn't understand what they were for...???

The main reason I posted this is because some people are not ready to replace their OEM head units, whether for styling or for financial reasons. I think in that case it's important for people to know all of the built-in capabilities of their HU.

Bottom line is there IS a separate, unused two channel amp in the HU; it and the fader control becomes available when those rear speaker pins are tapped.

 

Yeah well you have your opinion and I have mine. If you can afford a 30K car buying a set of speakers and a HU really shouldn't be a problem... but I guess I'm wrong... whatever. The stock system is junk. If you want to use it go ahead, but don't come into my thread about wiring and try and make me sound like I'm not giving good advise.

Please do me a favor and stop filling this thread with info that doesn't help it. Start your own thread!

 

Hey John...great write up. I've been installing for years and you've covered the basics and beyond very well. 2 items to note though. 1st...Ground wire sizing. Common mistake by installers everywhere either not knowing the difference or shops trying to cut some cost from the install. Ground wire should "always" be of the same gauge (wire size). D.C. or Direct Current power as used in auto systems (stereos) pulls amperage in a current flow path. The positive lead of the D.C. circuit "pulls" (or pushes depending on your training) current through a device and that current must then flow back to its' source (the car battery) through the negative (ground) lead. Restricting this flow by using a smaller gauge wire on the ground lead as you suggest will limit the performance of your amplifier. Each amp should have its' own ground lead achored to the chassis as you suggest but of the same gauge you use for the 12V lead. 2nd...The 12V lead for after market head units does not require a 10 gauge lead. In this instance more is not better. It is just harder to run a 10 gauge lead for this source. The 12V hot lead for all head units is just to provide power for the memory for the clock, presets...etc. The fuse size is usually 1 amp or less for this lead. 18 or 16 gauge is plenty for this lead. Not trying to be picky at all here. Your write up is superb and I just wanted everyone to get the best performance out of their system as they can.....FYI Brand new S2K owner...2005....what a car!!!!! No mods yet....Dale

 

Well as it turns out you can down size the ground without any effects that I have ever seen (by only 1 gauge size though). The way I have written this up has nothing to do with saving money... I have 4 gauge wire hanging on the walls collecting dust... in fact I've most likely put enough 4 gauge in the trash to cover both amps. But if you install that way good enough....

As for the 12v power for the HU and using a 10 gauge lead for it... It says right in the Alpine manual to use a 10 gauge power lead from the battery. Maybe it is over kill, but to "Properly" install this HU you have to run a 10 gauge power lead.
Oh and why is it harder to run a 10 gauge lead... It takes about 5 minutes tops in this car... and most cars for that matter maybe 10 minutes if you have something special... Plus if your going to run an 18 or 16 gauge lead why not just run what the Manufacture says to its not any harder to do it the right way using the proper size wiring gauge. I've been installing and running wire for like 15 years...

But you can wire your car any way you like