Quick install help on a Ram Promaster?

[earbender]

I have a 2020 Promaster with the stock Uconnect 3 HU. I plan on installing my alpine amp, pioneer sub, and upgrading the door speakers, while continuing to use the stock HU and for now, the stock tweeters. I have all the parts and materials.

The stock HU does not have RCA outputs. If I splice into the harness at the back of the stereo, I void the warranty, which I don’t want to do at this time. What I’m trying to figure out is where else to splice to bring full range, speaker level signal, to the amp, and then return it to power the door speakers and stock tweeters.

I can take a signal off the stock speaker harness at the doors easily. But I’m not sure if this signal has been split off separately from the tweeters or if its inline. I also don’t know if it is full range, or if it has had a low pass applied. But assuming it is full range, when I return this signal from the amp to the upgraded door speakers, I’m not sure the new amplified signal will be passed on to the tweeters, or if they receive their own signal from a split prior in the wiring. The stock speaker wire harness is just a two wire harness that comes out of the door boot. The tweeter is is on the A pillar and gets its feed from a lead somewhere before the door boot. I haven’t taken apart the dash yet to investigate and am hoping I don’t have to unnecessarily.

Is anyone familiar with the Promaster?

Can anyone advise otherwise?

Do the tweeters need the amplified signal? It seems to me, if they were not inline, then there would be a frequency/volume mismatch, if when I turned up the volume, the mid ranges were getting amplified signal but the tweeters were still being driven by the low level stock HU signal.

Do I need to find a splice point somewhere between the HU and the door speakers, where I can be sure that returning the signal there will definitely pass it on to the tweeter?

Thanks for any help.

Click to read more...

 

[THATpurpleKUSH 5,000+ posts]

I'm familiar with Promaster vans. Why would you want to keep that awful Uconnect headunit? Cunt punt that bitch into next Tuesday and get an aftermarket headunit.

 

[earbender]

I'm familiar with Promaster vans. Why would you want to keep that awful Uconnect headunit? Cunt punt that bitch into next Tuesday and get an aftermarket headunit.

I want to try keeping the UConnect because:

- I’ve read too many fail threads at the Promaster forum when people have tried aftermarket head units. blinking dash lights, clocks that won’t reset, lost steering wheel controls, back-up cameras failing, etc

- I’ve read you need a PC in order to program Maestro to work with the PM. I use Macs. Don’t have a PC, and don’t run windows.

- So far, the UConnect integrates okay with my older iPhone. That’s not always the case with every HU.

When I calculate the success rate of easily installing a new head unit, it isn’t high enough to justify not just trying the stock HU with the alpine amp and seeing how it sounds, when the alpine is doing most of the amplification and the HU is only in charge of D/A conversion. If it sounds like trash, I can still swap it out afterwards and there is no unnecessary work that was performed.

Do you know where I should try splicing?