Kicker system with aftermarket head unit

sidepipe87 · Post by **sidepipe87** » Sun Dec 19, 2010 9:10 pm

Will it work? I have the entire car harness with Kicker Livin Loud system out of the SRT I bought that I'm going to be putting in my '03. My question is can I put my aftermarket head unit in and still have the sub work or will I need to do weird shit? Also, is there some way to control the bass on these? My dad said they played with one at the dealer and couldn't get it to thump... are they just underpowered? what's the deal? I'm an audio noob. thanks guys.

GreeNeons03 · Post by **GreeNeons03** » Sun Dec 19, 2010 9:49 pm

I'm an audio noob too, but I know enough about electronics to install it myself and put this "How-To" together.

viewtopic.php?t=30202

Danteneon · Post by **Danteneon** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 10:47 am

Since the Kicker sub is wired into the factory harness for the radio, you should have no problem running the sub with the aftermarket head unit as long as you are using a wiring adaptor to intergrate the AM HU to the factory harness. I know the Kicker in Juan's car hits pretty good.

thttxboy · Post by **thttxboy** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:38 am

yes It will work like dante said, but I am not sure when I had a JVC headunit in there it treated the sub like a rear speaker so I didnt like it but so much. I eventually went back to a stock headunit and honestly I think it sounds better like that.

sidepipe87 · Post by **sidepipe87** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 5:58 pm

Hmmm... well I'll try it with the stock HU but I really don't wanna lose my Alpine iPod HU, but I'll see what happens. Thanks John and Juan!

LowNSlow · Post by **LowNSlow** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 6:01 pm

I've got $4 on the Alpine HU yo and the SRT shell if you wanna sell it...

LAWL.

sidepipe87 · Post by **sidepipe87** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 6:36 pm

I have 2 cars, the $300 Alpine HU will prob stay in the daily and I'll scrap the shell for $50 or whatever they give me for it.

nineball · Post by **nineball** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 7:27 pm

the kicker sub is wired in with the speakers (i forget if it is front or rear) so there is no separate control for it's level.

sidepipe87 · Post by **sidepipe87** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 7:35 pm

damn. ok. thanks.

heydockyle · Post by **heydockyle** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 9:18 pm

Yea it works Ryan, I have it in my srt.

Post by **Canada** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 10:31 pm

Can it be easily added to say an '05 without one? Using the stock HU?

sidepipe87 · Post by **sidepipe87** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 10:38 pm

I wouldn't say "easily" but yes. You have to change the body harness that runs alongside the driver's side of the car. I guess it's just time consuming. I'll find out when I do it

Dylan-00Blue · Post by **Dylan-00Blue** » Tue Dec 21, 2010 2:54 am

Chris drive it to my house ill put it in on its own inputs for you

marakka · Post by **marakka** » Tue Dec 21, 2010 6:20 am

There are lots of factors to consider when adding an aftermarket headunit to any system that has a stock amplifier. The original headunit fed that stock amplifier X amount of watts. Now you are feeding it Y amount of watts which is probably twice as much. Depending on the quality of the aftermarket headunit, you could run into problems. I've never heard of any problems coming from hooking an aftermarket unit into the system, but the potential is there.

As far as adding the sub... you don't "have" to change the harness. It does make for a cleaner install. If you've got a few feet of the harness in the trunk you can tap the rear speakers for signal and run the ground and power wires. It only uses a switched power... no constant. Honestly..... the Kicker setup is junk IMO. *cough* Now I do have a kicker box with a JL sub and a rockford amp for sale in the FS forum if anyone is interested.... *LOL*

sidepipe87 · Post by **sidepipe87** » Tue Dec 21, 2010 1:05 pm

Well I already have the entire setup from the SRT I stripped which is why I'm going with it. I have everything, so I'm going to swap everything over. Quality of the HU being too good or too bad? It's an Alpine iDA-x100. It was pretty much top of the line 2 years ago when I got it.

marakka · Post by **marakka** » Tue Dec 21, 2010 4:32 pm

The quality being too good. Amplifiers multiple the signal.... give an amp 10w and it makes it into 100w. Its not made to take 20w and turn it into 200w.... its just not beefy enough for that kind of turn around. I'm not sure on the internals of the Kicker amp but I'd guess they took that into account and set up some type of regulator system. But it can only handle so much input as well.

If you've got the stuff and want to swap it, thats good too. I believe you have to do the dash harness as well though? It plugs in near the kick panel or the knee bolster doesn't it? Not sure if non-kicker cars have the same dash harness as the kicker cars? Thinking as I type here.... they most likely do except the body harness is different like you said. Iunno.... something to look into before you get too far into it. I remember something being different about a Kicker car when I stripped a wrecked one.

sidepipe87 · Post by **sidepipe87** » Tue Dec 21, 2010 9:39 pm

I don't think the dash harness is different but don't quote me on that... I'm planning on swapping every harness from the SRT over anyway since I'm SRT swapping the car so I'll just do it all so I know everything will be good.