Mach 460 aftermarket head unit installation

mongo · Aug 9, 2006

When I bought my car It had a Kenwood head unit and mach 460 sound but only the upper speakers on the door worked. The rear speakers short in and out and rarely stay on for more than a few seconds. When they are on they're barely there and don't make barely any bass at all. When i tore it apart I found a Install Edge.com IEC PSI2 adapter. Only half the wires in the adapter are hooked up but all wires coming from the car are used. None of the red and white plugs for amps are used. Is this even the right adapter, Do I even need an adapter. What do I need and how do I get it to make factory quality sound with this head unit.

Spyder · Aug 10, 2006

you can buy adapters that wire directly into the harnes that comes out of the kenwood deck, and then they have plugs that plug directly into the facotry harness's. Yes there are two harness's back there.

mongo · Aug 10, 2006

Where can i get an adapter at?

B0mb3r645 · Aug 10, 2006

Hard one, even I'm having troubles with mine. I got info on an RCA adapter that should work (if your head unit has RCA, should have) and just goes to the mach 460. It says on there for an 00-01 stang, don't really know if the mach 460 sound system was really changed or anything then.

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=265-790&CFID=2909781&CFTOKEN=96288697

Other than that, I know Wal-Mart has the Schoche Premium sound adapter (which is what I tried, but failed) but I don't know if it'll work for the other, lower speakers. Any more input anyone?

Spyder · Aug 10, 2006

i would suggest getting the adapter from this place.

www.crutchfield.com

search for the stock wiring adapter and you should be able to find exactlly what you need.

mongo · Aug 13, 2006

I got my rear speakers and upper fronts to work correctly. Thanks for the help.

Stangbangin · Aug 16, 2006

I was having problems installing my aftermarket headunit also. I had the adapter from scosche also. The thing I did was I spliced the two amp turn on wires form the facotry harness together and soldered them to the aftermarket head units harness. I'm guessing one of the facotry wires wasn;'t meant to be spliced in because it got alot of interference to the amps. So I unspliced them and bybassed the lighter blue and connected the darker blue wire. Without any amp interface and it sounds like it should......for a factory stereo anyways.

Stangbangin · Aug 16, 2006

sorry that didn't help your problem much but late ron down the road you might need that little bit of info.

mongo · Aug 17, 2006

Thanks I was wondering how to hook up the lower fronts.

B0mb3r645 · Aug 18, 2006

Stangbangin said:
I was having problems installing my aftermarket headunit also. I had the adapter from scosche also. The thing I did was I spliced the two amp turn on wires form the facotry harness together and soldered them to the aftermarket head units harness. I'm guessing one of the facotry wires wasn;'t meant to be spliced in because it got alot of interference to the amps. So I unspliced them and bybassed the lighter blue and connected the darker blue wire. Without any amp interface and it sounds like it should......for a factory stereo anyways.

Hmm, I might have to try this. I did try something tonight, but it failed, just trying it heh, but was just the lighter blue with the darker blue? I haven't looked at any of the wires yet tho, but I'll look again.

Stangbangin · Aug 18, 2006

you'll know what I'm tlking about when you see it. The light blue is coming from the plug that has the hot wire and everything . It might be for a power antenna who knows but it ain't necessary for amp turn on.

B0mb3r645 · Aug 22, 2006

It was the amp wire, didn't need the power antenna (although I tried this before I remember and nothing worked...), hooked that up and only the front of the mach system is working, not the back two speakers. SOOOOOOO.... I'm wondering if that's the amp.. Do the amps go left and right or front and back?

Matt94GT · Aug 22, 2006

I would assume front and rear. But why dont you just bypass the amps your aftermarket deck should power the speakers better and sound better, sorry if you are doing this bout to head to bed and didnt read thru the entire thread.

Stangbangin · Aug 26, 2006

If I'm not mistaken I believe those amps are powering the low and mid speakers and the highs seperately. So the rear and front 6x8's on one amp and the tweeters on another. The only reason I think this is because when I was hooking my stereo up I forgot one of the amp turn ons and only the tweets were working. making me think that they are run seperately. This would make sense since those factory amps probably don't tune but for one kind of speaker. so they have one set up for high frequency and one for the low and mid's...does that sound reasonable cuz its just my "theory"

B0mb3r645 · Aug 26, 2006

Don't think so..

Well, I did it tonight. I took out the amp, checked the amp then tested the lines. The power line was ok, but the speaker line wasn't. No manual came with the car, so I'm stuck right now. I thought the amps had like 200W each and my deck is only 22Wx4.

Matt94GT · Aug 26, 2006

No I dobut the amps are that high powered...you gotta belive me though if you have a nice deck it will sound better powered off that then the stock amps.

B0mb3r645 · Aug 27, 2006

It's a nice deck, but its not a Pioneer or Kenwood headunit.

Lightning Struck · Aug 27, 2006

Im going with the pioneer 6500 I think is the model number, they are on sale at crutchfield right now for 219 :dancing6:

Matt94GT · Aug 28, 2006

Pioneer are nice but im never going to buy anything other then a alpine I absoutly love mine.

Stangbangin · Aug 28, 2006

ok my earlier thread I was mistaken...after poking around and messing with my stereo it looks like those rear 2 amps are just runnimg the big speakers all around I could find what is running the tweeters...in the dash directly below the head unit does any one know what that is>>>>? it looks like an amp> myabe for the highs...