Stock Amp on 2001 Chevy Suburban

[Quackaholic22]

I recently installed an aftermarket head unit and speakers throughout my 2001 Chevy Suburban. I installed the unit and noticed the speakers weren’t working. Come to find out, it has a stock amp in the car. So I did some research and found out it was a pink wire that needed to be connected to another wire in the aftermarket plug in to the factory plug in. Well after I did this, I have noticed my car has been dead 3 times in the past week. I know it is pulling constant power from the stock amp on the car. I don’t drive it every day, so if I go a couple days without driving, I have to jump it off. Where should I connect the “pink” wire to be able to only send power to the amp when the car is turned on? Here is a picture for the help. I had it hooked up to the remote antenna to begin with (royal blue wire). Should I connect it to the illumination dash light (orange wire)? I am clueless. I pulled the pink wire out of the OnStar plug that you can see in the back. I don’t need or care to keep OnStar. It’s probably a simple fix. Any help would be appreciated.

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[01ltsuburban83]

I'm in the same dilemma with my 01 suburban. Sounds like same system and same issues. Ever get it resolved?

 

[HardofWhoring]

The factory amp is junk, and you should just get rid of and run new wire from your new head unit.

Your amp is going to have two wires that matter, and you need to know which is which. You have your main power feed wire. This sends all the power to the amp. I THINK it's going to be yellow for battery voltage/batt pos. It should also be the thickest wire of the bunch.
Then you have your remote turn on. It's a switch wire. If the power wire is your plug in on your tv. The remote turn on is, your ..... remote (control's) turn on (/power button). It acts as a switch wire, and turns the amp on. They are connected to the head unit's blue with white stripe wire. THE ONLY PROBLEM I SEE: Is they are very small circuits in there. Those turn ons are generally only capable of handling about 500mv. Your 20+ year old factory budget (junk) amp MIGHT have a switch that draws more than that. You can run a jumper wire to any 12v source and test if that's your turn on.

So the thing is, many head units these days have more wattage output than those amps. I swear those amps are only like 17w per channel, and it might not even be at 4ohm. There's a good chance your head unit can do more than cheap 20 year old factory amp, that's designed for those basic factory speakers. If you draw more power than that circuit handle, you will ruin your head unit. Do you want to ruin it for less power?

What's the RMS wattage per channel on your head unit? Head unit model? Do you have aftermarket door speakers, (if not, will you?).