PontiacBonnevilleClub.com

Sorry in advance for this post being so long. I have a 1999 SLE that came with factory tweeters and a 7 way equalizer HU, but swapped out that one for my previous HU which has two sliders for bass and treble. With everything that I have read so far, prob a bad decision, but the display worked on my old HU. Enough on the back story of the vehicle. Here are my questions.

Does the vehicle come with a stock amplifier, if so where is it?

My rear deck speakers are starting to go out and I want to replace them with these: http://www.crutchfield.com/p_130TA6965R ... html?tp=91
Will these speakers integrate properly with my stock wiring harness, or will I need a walk through to properly install these.

When I install these new speakers, will it be beneficial to put some type of enclosure in the trunk to improve sound quality, or will leaving the back of the speakers exposed to the trunk (as is stock) be perfectly fine and not make any difference?

If the car has no amplifier, how hard would it be to install one from the HU down? Would it just require inline splicing from the original HU wiring harness?
How would I power the amplifier?
And, which model or brand would be a good buy, not looking for professional sound, just average better than stock sound that doesn't make the frame rattle or anything?

My front speakers are ok, but would a upgrade in those as well be in order to have that increased sound quality, If so what would be the best speakers?

Thanks for reading, I always want to try new things, and would love to be better educated on how car audio systems work. Any advice or tips would be welcome and greatly appreciated.

patriottuba wrote:Does the vehicle come with a stock amplifier, if so where is it?

Some do, some don't. For 1999 I believe there's no amp with the non-Bose stereo options. (If this is not right, someone will correct it.) I believe the amp for those systems that has it is up behind the glove box. (Again, someone else will correct this if it is wrong.)

patriottuba wrote:Will these speakers integrate properly with my stock wiring harness, or will I need a walk through to properly install these.

They should wire right up.

patriottuba wrote:When I install these new speakers, will it be beneficial to put some type of enclosure in the trunk to improve sound quality, or will leaving the back of the speakers exposed to the trunk (as is stock) be perfectly fine and not make any difference?

Should be fine without and not make any difference. There may be members of the forum who disagree on this, but I haven't heard of anyone advocating this in our Bonnevilles for the rear deck speakers.

patriottuba wrote:If the car has no amplifier, how hard would it be to install one from the HU down? Would it just require inline splicing from the original HU wiring harness?
How would I power the amplifier?

It is relatively straightforward to install an amp. Typically you don't connect it to the factory head unit wire harness, you connect it to an aftermarket head unit; one that has line outputs to drive your amp for the channels you're going to amplify, whether that be the front door speakers, the rear deck speakers, or a sub in the trunk. You power the amplifier with a thick amplifier power cable from the battery, with a big fuse near the battery, and run through the firewall at a location explained in detail in another post of mine, which either I or someone else will dig up and post the link to if you can't find it by just browsing this forum. Then you run the cable along the wire channels beneath the door openings to your trunk. Your aftermarket head unit also should have an amp turn-on wire to run to the amp, and then you need to run speaker wires from your amp to whatever speakers you power with it. For the rear deck speakers or a sub, you already have the amp in the trunk, so it's easy to wire those to the amp. For door speakers you can run new wires up from the trunk to the doors (I did), or you can use a common installer trick to re-use the factory radio harness wires that went to the rear deck, by splicing them behind the radio into the wires that feed the door speakers, and hook up the ends in the trunk that used to go to the deck speakers to the amp's outputs. (I have a diagram in another post, but I know I'll have to fix image links for you to see them.)

patriottuba wrote:And, which model or brand would be a good buy, not looking for professional sound, just average better than stock sound that doesn't make the frame rattle or anything?

Anything name brand. I have Alpine amps, Pioneer head unit, and I'm currently changing out my 14-year old Boston Acoustics speakers for Polk Audio. There's plenty of good products among the big name brands: Pioneer, Infinity, Polk, JL, MB Quart, Eclipse, and on and on. There's no right or wrong, you have to decide what you like.

patriottuba wrote:My front speakers are ok, but would an upgrade in those as well be in order to have that increased sound quality, If so what would be the best speakers?

Yes. Better door speakers will do fantastic things for your sound. Most of us recommend spending more on better door speakers than on better rear deck speakers. Good component separates will treat you right. You have 5.25" door speakers. I just bought new Polk DB5251 speakers for my doors. The Boston Acoustics separates I've had forever treated me well, but time has deteriorated them after so long. Your front door speakers will also be improved if you seal off the gaps between the raised mounting points and the door speaker's outer rim using some weatherstripping. I have photos that explain it better if you get to that point. We also have guides for removing the inner door trim panel so you can get to the door speakers, which mount to the trim panel, not to the door frame. Some people have crammed 6.5" speakers into the door openings, but this requires cutting up the door trim panel, and usually involves having the aftermarket grille on the outside of the door panel. Some people are comfortable with this and say the improved sound from 6.5" speakers is worth it. I personally agree that all other things being equal, 6.5" speakers in the doors will be better than 5.25", but I just don't like the look of aftermarket grilles on the outside of the door panel, and I don't want to cut up my door panel, so I stuck with 5.25" door components with separate tweeters mounted in the factory tweeter openings behind the factory tweeter grille in the door. For Bonnevilles without the grille there, the "business card holder" plug can be removed and replaced with a factory speaker grille.

Great reply Bugsi. I appreciate all of your imput and would like to ask a few more questions. Is it not possible to run a Amplifier from the stock HU, because I would like the car to look as stock as possible, never liked the look of an aftermarket HU in our cars. If it is possible, is there a writeup to explain what wires I would need to spliced? I just want to raise the wattage going to the upgraded speakers.
Great idea on the front speakers, must get that write-up to remove the door panel so I can put that weatherstripping in.

patriottuba wrote:Is it not possible to run a Amplifier from the stock HU, because I would like the car to look as stock as possible...

It is possible, but your results may not have the quality you desire. Because the factory head unit does not have line outputs, you must either use attenuators on the speaker level outputs from the radio, to reduce the signal to drive an aftermarket amp, which boosts it back to speaker level, often introducing unwanted alternator noise. Some aftermarket amplifiers even have speaker-level inputs designed exactly for this scenario, which simplifies wiring, but again, I warn of possible poor quality results. Also, Pac-Audio.com offers the AOEM-GM21C harness and OEM1 adapter that plug directly in between your factory radio and factory harness, and tap off and attenuate the signals you need to drive an external amp. Check it out here: http://www.pac-audio.com/productDetails ... egoryID=28
If you have steering wheel radio controls, or heads-up-display, or OnStar, that would maintain their function with the factory radio as well (but I think the OnStar from 1999 no longer functions.)

So yes, you can do it, but I can't guarantee great results. Then again it might sound awesome, so if you try it you have to tell us if you love it or hate it.

My preference was to go aftermarket, but my Bonneville didn't have steering wheel radio controls and didn't have heads-up display, so I didn't lose any features going to aftermarket. An aftermarket single-DIN head unit with a Metra mounting adapter keeps things looking nice.

If you wire up an aftermarket amp, you tap fused power from your battery like this:


Then you drill through the firewall behind the maxi-fuse panel here, to run the power wire through the firewall and ultimately to your trunk:


For the door panel, the red arrows mark the location of plastic fasteners that pry off with the inner door panel, and the green areas mark the location of 10mm screws that have to be removed. There's also the trim piece around the door latch and the sideview mirror cables that need to come off too:


You can see the weatherstrip strip filling the gap caused by the "castle" like raised mounting points for the door speakers:


If you add an amp in the trunk, here is the speaker-wiring trick that can be used to connect to the door speakers without having to run lots of new wires. Study the left picture, and compare to the wiring changes made in the right picture:


My aftermarket system is wired up like this:

I would have to run new speaker cables from the HU out to the Trunk alongside a power cable to feed the amp though right, and place the adapter behind the stereo somewhere correct?

Will a top mount depth of 2.25 fit into my door frame, here is the front component speakers system I am interested in http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_122 ... zmap=12226 I just need to make sure they will fit before I buy them.

So I am going to make some guesses here hope its right.

From the factory HU I need to plug in the Pac-Audio Adapter you pointed me out to: http://www.pac-audio.com/productDetails ... egoryID=28

From there run speaker wires such as these: http://www.crutchfield.com/p_211ZN5210/ ... -foot.html
from the adapter box down the car to the amp in the trunk, while also wiring the power cable, will probably need 2 maybe 3 of these sections, would putting jumpers on those be a problem?

The amplifier I want is this one: http://outlet.crutchfield.com/p_130PRSD ... etails-tab
from the amplifier splice the old rear deck speakers wires that went to the old HU Harness to go up to the new component front speakers right? These are the ones I have in mind: http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_122 ... zmap=12226

Also, will I need a premium alternator to power this new system? Again all help is appreciated Bugsi

If you used the PAC adapter with your factory radio to add a trunk mounted amp, you wouldn't run speaker wires to the trunk, you would run line-level patch cables to the trunk. The ones you've shown are too short, and no, do not use jumpers to connect multiple lengths of patch cables together. If you shop car audio stores online or actual brick and mortar stores, you'll find that they sell a complete "amplifier connection kit" that comes with a long big thick power cable to go from the battery to the trunk mounted amp, the bolts and clamps needed to connect to the battery, a big fat fuse to go as close to the battery as possible, a shorter big thick amp grounding wire and all the needed crimp lugs and bolts to attach it, and (this is the important part) two or more nice long line-level patch cables to connect the line outs from your radio (PAC adapter in your case) to the amp in the trunk. -It is desirable to run the patch cables down one side of the car and the power wire down the other side of the car, although I've run them on the same side of the car before without problems. I run mine separately now. The kit typically also comes with a thinner long amp-turn-on wire. Some of these kits include speaker wires, some don't.

If you're using a 4-channel amp to drive all the speakers: Once you have an amp in the trunk, you can run speaker wires to the rear deck speakers easily since they're all in the trunk. Running speaker wires to the doors is something you can do while you're running all the patch and amplifier power cables, or you can use the "trick" that I posted in the image above, and re-use the factory rear AND front speaker wires to hob together connections from the trunk mounted amp to the doors. (I did that for a while, then upgraded later and ran new wires.)

The amp you've posted is a 2-channel amp. If you're only going to drive the door speakers with it, you can use the wiring "trick" to re-use the rear speaker wires: BUT also observe that you need to cut both the front and rear speakers from the harness end at the dashboard and splice the door speaker wires to the rear speaker wires to make a spliced-together longer wire that ultimately connects to the door speakers. Don't forget that!!!

If you're going to go through the trouble to put an amp in your trunk, I'd recommend getting a 4 channel amp and power all your speakers, or get a 5 channel amp and have room to expand to a sub later.

No, you won't need a premium alternator. Your 1999 Bonneville should have a 140 amp alternator stock. You'll be fine.

What about the speaker depth, the site says its not compatible with the car, but I would like to get them if I could.

What are the dual female connectors for on the pac audio kit. Is it one set of connections for each channel, if so will I need to run 2 sets of patch cables back from the adapter to the amp. About running them down opposite channels, I guess it helps with interference? How hard are the interior panels to remove to access and run the cables?

I believe the speaker depth for the door speakers is just fine. I know Crutchfield says there isn't room. I'm 99% Crutchfield is simply wrong on this. I'll have my door panels off this weekend, I'll let you know, but I think you have plenty of depth to work with any 5.25" speaker made.

The female RCA's on the PAC OEM-1 adapter are the line-outs to drive your amplifier with. That will be left and right front and left and right rear, and it should preserve the capabilities of your head unit's front-to-rear fader as well as the left-to-right balance, and allow you to use an aftermarket amplifier to power all four speakers. That's why I recommended a 4-channel or 5-channel amplifier. An amp with a sub channel probably also has the internal crossover circuitry to split the bass off to the subwoofer, so you don't need a dedicated subwoofer line-level output from the head unit or the OEM-1 adapter.

Yes, you'll run four RCA cables from the OEM-1 adapter to the amplifier, presuming you want to aftermarket amp all of your speakers.

Yes, running the RCA's and speaker wires down one side and power down the other side is intended to reduce power supply noise leakage into the line cables. Changing electricity traveling through a cable creates a magnetic field around the cable, and other wires in that magnetic field will pick up a copy of the changing electricity that created the magnetic field. This is the same principle that make transformers work. Ideally you don't want to pick up anything in your audio or power cables, but they do make pretty great antennas for all sorts of stray EMF. In addition to running the audio and power cables down opposite sides of the car, it is helpful if the line cables are a "twisted pair" rather than side-by-side. The idea is that wires that are twisted have the same overlapping average location in space, so one wire won't pick up a stray signal at a different level than the other cable in the pair. If the amplifier input has a differential input stage, any noise picked up on the cables that is common to both cables is easily rejected.

So in general, if you're shopping for an amp wiring kit or for the line-level patch cables alone, look for twisted-pair patch cables. You'll need four of them.

My door panels are off this morning. You have loads and loads of depth for the front door speakers. Six inches of depth, easily. The window does not get in the way even when it is all the way down. Ignore Crutchfield telling you there's not enough depth. There is. If you get a good quality set of 5.25" components, the speakers will mount right up and you can mount the tweeters behind the factory tweeter grille.

I'm installing Polk Audio DB5251 components today.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000P0PFA0

The how-to on removing the door panels is a PDF file here:
http://www.pontiacbonnevilleclub.com/fo ... 22901.html

That file shows a 93 or something. The main difference with your 1999 is that behind the door light there's only one 10mm bolt, not two. Also, FWIW, I use a small telescoping magnetic pick-up tool with my left hand when I take that bolt out using a nut driver with my right hand, because if that little bugger falls into the door, it's a bitch to get it out from inside the bottom of your door.

I think you asked about getting the trim out to run the wires down the channels under the door sills. It's a little tricky. Basically you pry the trim up. The trim has tabs that stick out of the back side and slip into little ribbed V-shaped "grippers". If you can pry/pull it right at where the gripper holds the trim, it's more likely to come out smoothly. Otherwise the stuff tends to get brittle over time, and you do risk breaking it. Also, I've had the gripper things hold so tight to the trim that they stay grabbed onto the trim and instead pull out of the metal slots in the car body that hold them. If that happens that's actually easier to just stuff the trim back in. Just be careful and go slowly and try to find exactly where the grippers hold the trim and pry/pull at exactly that spot. Don't bend or flex the trim, it will snap. Once you get wires to the back seat area, you can pass the wires into the trunk more easily if you remove the rear seat cushions, but that isn't absolutely necessary, you could just shove the wires into the gaps between the cushions and the sides of the car. If you want to pull the cushions, it's not too hard to do, and we can give you a walkthrough.

Here you can see the inside of the door panel, and how the door speakers attach to the inside of the door panel, rather than from the outside. The speakers attach with screws that go from the back of the speaker, into the little square areas that you can see in the image. See how the squares are raised up above the door panel material around them? The space between those square mounting points will be gaps around the perimeter of your speaker. This is disastrous to your sound quality. I've run extensive tests of the door panels with the speakers mounted without and with weatherstripping sealing these gaps. The sound is dramatically improved if you seal these up.