Should've been a simple install, but ... head unit trouble

[joex444]

Helpin a buddy do some pretty basic audio install for his '97 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder (convertible turbo). Basically, he bought it a few months ago but the factory speakers were completly destroyed -- cones ripped right off the speakers.

First, he's got the Infinity factory amp, but to my knowledge it only controls the front speakers.

So, the cheapest fix is what he opted for (car has 160k miles, can you blame him?). Not looking for incredible volume or car shaking bass, just some audio (though I admit, the turbo sounds pretty nice anyways).

What he got was a pair of Pioneer 6.5" fronts and Pioneer 6x9 rears, which I was able to install without a problem.

The trouble is this **** head unit. For the record, I have installed a Panasonic HU before, in my car. That went flawlessly, in a '95 Ford Contour V6 5spd [more logical upgrade, at 76k miles, HU only].

So, my buddy has a Sony CDX-GT710 and a Sony CDX-GT71W. After we tried the 710, we got really pissed and bought a second HU at WalMart, the closest they had was a 71W, which uses the same harness.

Now, I've gone through the wiring harness twice and I know all the wires are really tight. The wiring harness that we bought has the functions for each wire marked on them, and I matched them up to the guide Sony prints out for their harness. Between the two of us, we couldn't see any mistakes. I'm using bare wire to bare wire, with electrical tape insulating everything well.

The head unit will angle down, let you put a CD in, angle up and eject the CD really well. Unfortunately, that's all it does.

I did try resetting the unit after connecting the wiring harness -- after I grounded the black wire to a bolt underneath the center console. We called Sony's support and all they had to offer was make sure the Red and Yellow wires are correct. I told them the functions for each, and they said that was correct. They also said to make sure the contacts were clean. They're both brand new units, so this shouldn't be an issue.

On the harness, I'm using the 8 speaker wires, RED, YELLOW, Power Antenna, and Illumination. The car harness has a wire which doesn't match the Sony harness -- Dimmer Ground. I've tried grounding this and leaving it disconnected, but either way the HU will not display anything. It just can't be turned on.

The only noise it's ever made is when you leave the face plate down too long, it will beep and put the face plate back normal. We've tested which speakers make noise, and all 4 speakers beep.

Since this problem happens WITH BOTH UNITS, I highly doubt both are defective. This can only lead me to a wiring harness problem, or an incompatibility (for some absurd) reason -- Sony's manual says it is incompatible with sony Japanese cars, and Mitsubishi is very Jap.

Anyone have any suggestions to try? I'm gonna try just connecting a power only wiring harness that he has (just has RED, YELLOW, Power Antenna, Illumination, Dimmer Ground) to see if the HU can turn on and do something without the speaker wires connected. This should eliminate any possibility of a speaker wiring problem or a short somewhere in the speakers. If that works, then I can add each speaker individually to the harness and see which one is shorted (hopefully not a door speaker).

Let's just assume that doesn't work, am I better off telling him to take back the Sony CDX-GT71W he just bought last night and get a cheaper Piooner DHP-4900?

Click to read more...

 

[BuckyBoy 10+ year member]

Did you run new wires from the speakers straight to the head unit?

 

[darkhunter139 10+ year member]

EDIT:

lilmanic suggestion is probably what you need to do

 

[quest51210 10+ year member]

if the car has the factory Infinity system you will have to bypass the system...you are obviously a rookie and dumber than the radio.

 

[lilmaniac2 5,000+ posts]

so you didnt even think about the factory amp?

 

[lilmaniac2 5,000+ posts]

probably need to hook up the remote turn on for the amp....

 

[quest51210 10+ year member]

the factory amp controls all the speakers and bypass is the only option. tag you ACC, 12V, and ground from the harness in the dash, the rest you have to grab from the factory amp under the fron passenger seat.

 

[quest51210 10+ year member]

I think your problem might be with your ground.
The "Dimmer ground" you explained on your harness should be connected to the black ground on the radio. You dont need to make the ground yourself......I think anyways lol

do you realize incorrectly hooking up an illumination wire can cause some serious problems in a vehicle? put your 2 cents in elsewhere.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/furious.gif.fc81ca146dbff91fede3ed290dbc4f4c.gif//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/verymad.gif.3f39c5c2fd57527b671fad3efdfac756.gif

 

[darkhunter139 10+ year member]

do you realize incorrectly hooking up an illumination wire can cause some serious problems in a vehicle? put your 2 cents in elsewhere.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/furious.gif.fc81ca146dbff91fede3ed290dbc4f4c.gif//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/verymad.gif.3f39c5c2fd57527b671fad3efdfac756.gif

I did not realize that was an illumination wire.

I edited it out sorry

 

[joex444]

Hey guys,

Yeah, I'm a rookie, I know, but I knew the amp was there.

None of you have explained why the head unit won't turn on, though. I've tried using only the ground, Illumination, +12V Battery, and +12V Ignition wires (which was suggested) to test it -- along with the factory harness audio adapter (4 RCA + AMP turn on into the factory DIN cable on the amp) plus antenna power & antenna input, and that didn't work. It didn't even make the beeping noise that it made when I had the speakers hooked up on the dash harness, which is confusing.

My friend says that he had another guy look at the head unit and he said that the Sony has to have 3 +12V wires into it -- the yellow, red, and Illumination.

Tomorrow, I'm going to test the Illumination coming out of the car to make sure it is getting +12V. If not, that could explain a whole lot. I suppose it would be safe to wire that into the red wire, as it won't drain the battery and it would create a parallel circuit so both the +12V Ignition and the Illumination wires on the Sony head unit are getting 12V. *THIS* may be why Sony said it's not compatible with some cars, and if it is they should've given a list of cars its incompatible with. I am aware that running the ACC on the dash harness to both Illumination and ACC on the Sony will increase the current through the dash, but I can also measure this.

I also have a diagram for the factory amp's speaker harness, so bypassing shouldn't be a problem if I can get the head unit to turn on.

Now, to get a head unit to turn on, all you need is power, right? Just your +12V constant, +12V ignition, and ground. There doesn't have to be any speakers connected. No need for any antennas plugged in. Just power. Then, the HU should've done something beyond accept a CD and fold the face down. Maybe my first post was misguided, but the real problem was that all it did was fold the face down, and it didn't actually turn on. No menus, no buttons worked, nothing. Just flip down the faceplate, and eject, that's all that work.

So, if anyone has any experience with the Sony CDX-GT710 / GT71W units, I'd appreciate some input -- especially if you need 3 +12V leads or not!!

 

[ls2poweredgoat 5,000+ posts]

Hard wire it.

 

[DarkFox 10+ year member]

No offense, but seance your novice at this I would almost lay money on you have blown a fuse durring install. Everyone seems to miss the simplest step first. Also, you dont NEED to by pass the factory amp, however, you can not simply use the speaker outputs off the new raido to go to the factory system. You either need to bypass it and run the wires from the radio to the speaker locations OR get a adjustable line level converter between the new radios speaker outs, and the wirring harness adapters labeled speaker leads. something like this :

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_4993_Scosche+SLC-4.html

will do the job nicely (yes there are much better alternatives, but heck, your using a wallmart radio, and they have these adapters at wallmart.

So replace fuse (probably under dash)

Figure out if your gonna run speaker wire yourself, or install a converter

Execute plan

listen to music

 

[joex444]

Maybe it's a blow fuse, but we have two head units that are having this same problem. I did check the fuses before we bought the second unit, they looked okay.

Is there any other fuses besides the ones on the head unit here? I'm not trying to be a noob, like I said I got one CD player to work in my car, and I got that CD player to work in the Eclipse before my friend got new speakers (the old speakers were blown, so he decided to sell the cd player to me and buy some speakers then get another head unit later). I didn't have any trouble getting that CD player to work fine in my car, and to get it to turn on in the Eclipse. This head unit is different somehow. Is it possible to blow a fuse in the fuse box? I'm not even sure which circuit that fuse would control if I did. I am aware you ground before plugging in the harness, just the same as you do installing a car battery or jumping a car.

Now, the fuses would certainly stop the head unit from turning on, so that's definetly something to check tomorrow.

I did see that thing at wal-mart. Perhaps someone knows for sure, but the factory amp, if I were to integrate it instead of bypass, is expecting pre-outs, correct? So I can just take that DIN to 4 RCA + AMP turn on cable and run it into the pre-outs (Sony unit has 3 pre-outs, Front/Rear/Sub). The adapter that you linked is taking the speaker outputs from the head unit amp and turning them into RCA, correct? So plugging those into the DIN adapter would give an amplified signal to the amp, which if its expecting line level inputs should either blow up or start clipping. On the other hand, if the amp expects pre-amplified inputs, then giving it line level inputs will produce no sound....which it did. Maybe bypassing is the easier thing to do, can definetly run some speaker wires under the seat.

 

[DjiNN 10+ year member]

like everyone else has stated .. if the car has a FACTORY AMP .. you have to bypass it inorder to be able to use the headunit with the speakers .. because the factory amp powers the speakers differently.

 

[KaeZoo 10+ year member]

The factory amp can't keep the head unit from turning on. It might keep the sound from reaching the speakers after the head unit powers up, but that's it.

It sounds like you don't have power on your accessory (red) wire. A Sony head unit will load/eject and operate the motorized face when only the yellow wire has power, but it won't switch on without voltage on the red wire. If you temporarily connect your red wire to the same source as your yellow wire, you should be able to get the unit to activate. (If you have a digital multimeter, you can test the voltage on the red and yellow wires; if you don't have one, get one. A cheap one will work just fine, and they're a must for anyone installing car audio). If you don't have voltage on your red wire through the harness, the most likely problem is the vehicle's radio fuse.

You can use the factory amp adapter (the DIN to RCA cables) if you want to keep the factory amp in the system, but since you're replacing your speakers too, it would be better to bypass it. I think it's located under the passenger seat; if you find it, you should be able to find all the speaker wires at that location. Just disconnect them from the amp and extend them up to the radio location. If you do this, you'll either need to leave the dash tweeters disconnected or put your own crossover filters on the wires.

The Sony "warning beeps" only run through the deck's speaker outputs, not the RCA outputs. That's why you didn't hear them when using the DIN connector (plus you may not have had the factory amp powered up).