I'm close now to finishing my install. I have all my speakers installed (and a bit of a sunburn to prove it), the subwoofers sit ready to thump at the back of my car, the amps ready to supply power behind them, and a crossover in the middle. Now, I just need to find a suitable place to put all the wiring. Has anyone done the wiring before, as in wire all the power cables, RCA cables, etc to the trunk of a 1st GEN protege? I have pretty much the following cables to cable to the rear of my car:
4-gauge power cable
3 pairs of RCA cables (left and right for front, rear and subwoofer)
power activation wire (to the amps)

I think that's it (it's early in the morning so my memory isn't the best). I've got down how to connect everything, but I have yet to start ripping up the car and place cables. I'd like to install the cables somewhere they won't be damaged, but also out of the way and not unsightly. Is there a good place to do this, perhaps down the side or center of the car? It's a '90 4wd, 5-spd for your knowledge. Any help, as always, is appreciated!

 

well, congrats, how did the rear speakers go for you? how'd you go about mounting them? anywho, in our first gen's, running wires back is easy, run your positive wire through the firewall under the passengerside of the dash (little rubber grommet in there you can pull the wire through) pull the positive wire and remote 'blue' wire under your paneling on the passenger side, undo the screws on your door sills in the front and back and just simply lift them up, they'll snap back in easy. keep tucking all the way back, it just takes some figuring out to completely hide them. then when you get to the back seat, just tuck it in underneath the rear seat cushion or infront of the passenger rear seat belt. sure up the door sills and you'll be fine and you'll have a professional grade install on that end. now, here's where i get stuck, because i know, depending on the wire brand, 3 pairs of rca's is a really tough fit under the drivers side door sills, so run at least two of them under your drivers side door sills and you can simply tuck tem up under the dash with some wire ties to something thats not a moving part (ie, steering column/rods). finish in the rear doing the same method as the passenger side. you can also feasibly run wire under your console in the center of the car and under the rear carpet, takes a lot of work to do, but looks invisible when done. it's all a matter of what works and what you want. the most important thing is to keep your rca's as far away from your power cable as possible, eitherwise you'll get a nice alternator whining sound through your speakers. you might have some luck running the power through the center console and the rca's on either side of the car. thats my suggestions from installing amps and wiring in my car. hope this helps a little... by the way, i have a 94 lx.
peace

 

demon has the best answers...LOL

I just redid all that **** to mine, works wonders...

 

That's great advice on hooking up an amp. You probably know this, but make sure you have your ground wire from your amp properly grounded to the chassis of the car before hooking up any power wires or you will see sparks fly and a peculiar burnt wire smell (DOH!) ( (/) <---<Homer Simpson there> If you have any paint where your ground wire will be grounded to the chassis, make sure you scratch it off for a good ground. Let us know how it sounds!

Mister T

 

Thanks, all, especially Demoninvictus!
I'll go ahead and do that... probably Monday as I'll be fairly busy this weekend with a convention, work, and so forth. However, once I'm done, I'll have a rocking system once again. I got the deck installed the other day and temperarly hooked up the speakers directly to the CD deck to make sure I had installed all the speakers correctly (and I did!). I have the Pioneer TG1457's (6.5" speakers) in the front doors and rear. They sound nice, but I am missing my subwoofers. I used to have them installed in the truck, but as I'm going to be selling it, I have to have my sound installed into the Protege.

As for your question, Demoninvictus, when I got to installing the rear speakers, I came across the problem that the speakers were drilled for 4 screws, and of course our 1st gen's have a 3-drilled hole setting. I was able to screw one screw into the speaker and into a drilled hole in the rear. I have a second in another hole just outside of the ring of the speaker tightly holding it down. The same thing for the front. This is only temp (I was anxious to get them in there). I'm going to be ordering a complete (and huge) manual on the Protege (primarly, the 4WD) so I can find out the dimensions and build a board back there for the speakers. I'm not yet sure what I'll do for the front, but they are secure as is. We'll see how much I put into this car... I do love the 4WD, but it doesn't have a lot of HP to begin with and I'm not sure if I want to put a lot of money into it (such as do the GTX conversion)... We'll see..