Having trouble with car audio in Honda Civic

[DamnedButDetermined]

I am trying to hook up my sisters amplifier in her car, and can't find a good REM wire? If anyone is familiar with the stock radio in a 98 civic please tell me which wire i should tap into.

When i was looking at the rear of the radio you can see two plastice sockets that hold about 15-20 wires, and then there is another socket that doesn't hook to anything. I kept putting the rem wire into diferent holes in the unused socket, and found a few that would turn the amp on. I settled on a yellow one at the left side of the socket. I ended up cutting the wire and splicing into it. After i got everything put back together, her stock cd player wouldn't work. You can put a cd in and take a cd out, but the yellow power light won't work, and when you pust the CD/Tape button on the headunit, nothing happens. It did work for a second, when i was listening to a cd, and adjusting the bass. It would stop working when the bass hit really hard...then just stopped working all together.

I feel so bad about messing up my sisters radio and ****, but she wants me to try and fix it tomorrow. Please tell me someone knows what is going on! Or at least tell me were you think i should take it. I am cheap, so remember that!

Thanks,
DbD

[Tyler Durdan]

If she has a power ant., find the wire that controls that, and splice it down the wire and hook into that. It's usually blue, but make sure you double check in the owner's manuel, fsm, or chilton's if your sis has one. The yellow wire that you hooked into is probably the constant wire (for the clock), and was probably run in a series with the cd player controller. Find the antena wire, and splice into that.

Disclaimer: I'm in no way responsible if you break your sister's radio, but will take her out for dinner if need be.... .;)

[gfisch]

The REM wire should be +12VDC when you want teh amp on, so just wire it to the cigarette lighter or somethinga nd it will turn the amp on when the cars on.
If you dont want it on all the time, throw a switch in that wire
Using the antenna wire will probbaly only turn the amp on when using the radio and turn it off when the CD player is on so thats no good.
Oh, and thats a VERY bad way to try to find the right wire. You should get a cheap mulitimeter from radioshack or somewhere and look at the voltages.
If its not working, therse a good chance you blew a fuse or something. Or maybe knocked another wire out.

[Tyler Durdan]

Working off the ant. wire works because when you turn the radio / cd player on, it sends a signal to the ant. no matter what. This will inturn turn the amp on. And when you turn the radio/cd player off, amp goes off because the signal is disrupted. It's a good way to keep the amp from overheating when your not listening to the radio. I've done three of my cars this way, and two buddies the same. All of our amps are at least a year old, and still pumping out the same juice as the day they were purchased. Problem with going off the cig. lighter is that the amp will always be on when ever the car is started until the car is turned off. It'll work, but your speakers will be getting power whenever you do and don't have an audio signal. Lot of stress on speakers and amp.

Edit: I see you suggested a switch...good idea, but why waste the extra time and money?

[gfisch]

I guess it works on most cars, but I know on my old Sony head unit, the antenna would go down when I switched from radio to CD. So in that case it wouldnt work.
But, I guess factory ones always stay up reardless of the mode when they are on.

[DamnedButDetermined]

Thanks for the replies guys! I know that was a really bad way of finding the right wire, but i didn't have a owners manual nor a chiltons to look at, niether did i have a voltometer! The weird thing is that my sister just told me that the speakers ended up working the whole drive from jax to gainsville, so i guess that problem is fixed? Now i just need to figure out how to unfuk-up her cd player??????????????????????????????

DbD