Stereo & Electronics - Using new wire, or use existing wire?

I am just installing my new speakers and I just wanted to know what everyone else has done to wire them up. They are going from a cross over installed in the door through the door to the back where the amp is.

Do you tap into existing wires that already run through the car? Do you run totally new wires? Does the adapter plug that plugs into the stock amp have wires that I can tap into that are in the door?

Your help is superly appreciated!! Thanks.

For my front doors, I ran 12 gauge from the amp to the passive crossovers. The new speakers came with some 16 gauge for the woofers, 18 gauge for the tweeters. This wire was used from the cross over to the speakers.

I already had the car torn apart to install rca's and power wire. Installing the 12 gauge was not much trouble.

The stock wiring is likely to be 18 gauge or more. If your door speakers are not more than ~50 watts rms, I'd say go ahead and reuse the factory wiring. You'll have to cut and splice into the factory amp connector - or make/get terminals that fit into it (32 pin blue connector by the amp).

Look at post #4 in this thread http://web.camaross.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3199862 for the a link to the wiring diagrams.

Most people suggest using new wires, I ran new power wires to my head unit. The paperwork that came with it recommended running lower gauge wires. I think it depends on what you buy. Higher end/higher powered stuff, you might actually be able to tell the difference with new (lower gauge/thicker) wires.

GPz: Do you like your setup or would have done anything different. Just looking at you sig and saw all the alpines. I have an alpine hu, but I had heard a lot of mixed reviews on their component sets. Just looking for your opinion.

Well, to tie it in to this thread, running 12 ga to the doors and sail panels was probably overkill.

16 gauge is more than enough I think for 50-75 watts rms... How often do i really listen to it loud...

The wire was cheap ($free), so I can't complain, and it was already on hand from a previous install years back.

If I had to do it again, more thought would go into the amp location so that I could

a) stow away both ttops in the proper locations
b) the 2nd amp could be mounted next to the first instead of making a custom bracket to bolt onto the stock amp bracket (9" X 13" amp).

http://home.comcast.net/~zx1100e5/

Those are pics of my install prior to the addition of the sail panel speakers and 2nd amp. I don't have any pics of the final install.

The alpine 177r's sound really good. Loud, clear, good bass response (they are crossed at 80 or 100 Hz if I recall). The 17LP's are at 125 or 150.. Mainly for midbass and midrange response and rearfill. I'm quite pleased with the arrangement.

I was originally going to go with type R components in the doors, but a few folks on fbodyaudio.com suggested I spend the extra cash ($90 extra to be exact) and go with the type X. Listening to both R and X components in the store, the X had somewhat more clarity with the same source.

Am I enough of an audiophile to care? No... But I wanted to do this project once, and only once (for this car), so $90 was a small price to pay to not have to pull panels off and go through the trouble of changing speakers in the future.

All the main components came from ikesound.com, wiring from knukonceptz.com, and the sony amp was left over from a 1992 install.

Thanks, good response :) I may have to look it for a little better setup on my car now.

I am delivering ~75W RMS to the speakers, but the speakers themselves (prewired crossovers Memphis M-Class) all use 16g, so I just used the stock wires. The system slams and sounds unbelievably clear, so I'm glad I stuck to the stock wires. I see your point, sometimes a little overkill is a good thing.. one of those 'do it once and never look back' projects.

Hopefully everything will hold up and sound as good in the future as it does now.