I have a 2001 Lightning and I need to find a way to hook up my amps with my stock head unit. If there is a diagram available, I could figure it out. I dont mind running an extra wire into the radio plug if I knew which pin it was. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I need to keep the stock unit because of theft and Im tired of flipping a switch to turn on the sound. Thanks.

 

Purchase a line out convertor from a local audio store. You use this to tap into the stock speaker wires with RCA output plugs which plug right into your amp. Then wire the hot to the battery, and the remote turn on to a fuse in your fuse box, then you hook the speaker wires from the amp to your subs or etc and you are in business. OOPS, don't forget to ground that amp, I used the seat screw, works fine. Check my gallery if you want to see pictures.

Cajun

 

I would rather only have my amps on when my radio is on. It seems there is less popping when the radio or key is turned on.

 

splice into your power wire for your power windows, that is a power wire that is hot only when the ignition is on, that would be ok for your remote (turn on wire) wire.

You CAN ground your amp at the seat bolts like cajunscrew mentioned, but you are risking getting a bad ground.
Below is a quote from Basic Car Audio Electronics, a very respected source. here's the link. http://www.eatel.net/~amptech/elecdisc/caraudio.htm
You have to scroll down to "battery ground" to see exactly where this quote comes from.

"The seat belt bolts are rarely a good place to ground your equipment. Sometimes there will be a thick tar like substance (used for waterproofing) that will prevent you from getting a proper ground. Even if there is no sealant, the connection may be less than perfect because the hardened steel seat belt bolts (relatively high resistance) go into a hardened steel nut that's pressed into a piece of stamped steel that's spot welded to the bottom of the vehicle (not exactly a great electrical connection)."

This is something to keep in mind guys, I found that I had a better ground when I drilled my own bolt through the sheet metal.

 

I just had the Truck apart this weekend If i had read this I could have told ya...

I am 75% sure what you are looking for is a BLUE cable out of the Radio.

It's the "Remote" cable this is used to power on the CD-Changer or AMP in your case when the Radio comes on...

 

I have the radio hanging out. I dont see a blue wire, or a blue with white striped wire. I guess Im just s.o.l.

 

I just looked at the radio wiring diagram on my service manual CD and it does not look like there is an output on these vehicles that is hot only when the radio is on. However, the black wire with the pink stripe is the hot when key is in "run" or "acc" wire so you can tap into that to turn your amps on. That is how my amps are set up for the time being until I get around to replacing the stock head/LOC combo I am using now with an aftermarket deck.

 

Get the N902 from

www.davidnavone.com

 

pull ur head unit out and grab a test light

 

Just run a #14 wire from the amp to a switched voltage point in the inside fuse panel ( such as the hot side of the fuse for the radio).

 

Here is something to consider. There is no antenna lead to attach to or any other lead that only is powered when the radio is on. But if you have the factory HU, then you are either using the High Level Speaker leads directly into your amp, or directly into a Line Converter. In either case, one observation I have made is that there is a 6.7 VDC bias from the positive speaker wire to chassy ground (not the negative speaker wire but the steel of the vehicle itself). This bias is only present when the radio is on, it disappears when the radio is off. And, it is not influenced by volume, so it remains the same at all times, and is basically on and off with the radio. If you have any electronics background a simply circuit could be constructed from this. It may be as easy as just installing a 5VDC relay. From there, just switch the amp turn on into the amp with this relay or trigger circuit.

Anyone do this already?