I will be doing the work myself and I am allready getting a headunit from a friend but thanks for the offer.

 

Is a Aiwa cdc-x176m a headunit that would work in a 3rd gen?

 

pretty much any headunit will FIT in a 3rd Gen

 

you can wire a after market HU into a bose system, just remember that they have amps so you have to use the pre amp outputs on the HU. The wiring in my 89 was the same without the bose so all i did was buy the harness for the non bose and pulled the bose deck out and tested the wires to see which was the turn on lead for the amps by turning it on and off.

 

My maxima doesn't have the factory cd player radio and I don't see it saying bose anywhere. When I was getting something out of the trunk I noticed something that looked like an amp maybe. It's round and has cooling fins on it and it was under the rear deck. I'll have to investigate further unless someone can make sense of what I saw. They say active speaker on the rear.

 

you don't have a bose, and you have a low yield thermo-nuclear device in the trunk. Please call the Dept of Homeland Security ASAP so they can deal with it.

 

I know I don't have a bose. I want to install an aftermarket headunit. Do you know if my stock sound system is amplified? I read somewhere that there is a different wiring harness for amplified systems vs. not. Is that true?

 

all max's had amplified systems of some sort.
the harness is the same, so don't worry about it

 

Cool. This is the wiring harness I was going to get. http://cgi.ebay.com/1987-1994-Nissan...QQcmdZViewItem But that "(Remember, it only works on vehicles that has a non-amplified factory radio)" made me ask questions. Do I also need a antenna adapter?

 

yes you need an antenna adapter as well

 

I saw these two adapters but one has an extra wire. Which one should I get? And what's that extra wire for in the second one?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Radio...spagenameZWD1V

http://cgi.ebay.com/1987-05-NISSAN-I...QQcmdZViewItem

 

I bought an antenna adapter today and installed the headunit. The rear speakers don't "work". I get sound in the front but not in the rear. Anyone have any tips or ideas why it might not work. I check the wiring, it's good and correct. My rear speakers say active speaker on them if that helps any.

 

Anyone have any ideas about the rear speakers? They worked with the stock radio.

 

the factory non-bose were still amped in the rear, you probably don't have the amp powered. once you power the amp you should have your speakers back. you may also be able to wire around it if you so desire.

 

A simple 600 peak watt sub won't kill the alternator/battery will it?

 

I got the rear speakers to work. All the speakers need to be replaced as they are blown so they sound really bad when they get bass. I'm replacing the rear with 6x9 225w and the front with 6.5 140w. About my sub, I have a 12" 600w peak, 200w rms. What kind of amplifier do I need? Will a 200 or 250w max power amp be good?

 

For a 200w rms, 600w peak 4ohm sub what amp would be good. Would this be good: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/SONY-...QQcmdZViewItem ? Is it better to face the sub at the rear of the car or towards the rear seat?

 

Ignore peak watts, its just propaganda, RMS is all that really matters. If you bought a quality sub, I'd recommend going with a 250w amp, so you can feed it clean power through the 200w range. I'm not a fan of Sony amps in general, I don't know what that goes for retail but seems like a modest deal.

Play around with where you put your sub, figure out what sounds best for you. In one spot you might get a bit more boom, but in another you might get truer sound, its all about experimenting when it comes to audio.

 

This is a budget setup so it's nothing special. I don't know much about audio so I'm learning as I go. I was just going to get the cheapest 250w amp from ebay that I could find. Should I look for one with anything specific? For example this ( http://cgi.ebay.com/MTX-Thunder-251D...QQcmdZViewItem ) amp is rated at 250w but at 2ohms, my sub is 4ohm so it would only be getting 125w. So something like this would not be good. Am I right? The sony amp looks to have what I need. 250w at 1 channel at 4ohms and it's cheap. I think it should be ok. My friend has a 10" sony sub hooked up to this sony 250w amp and I hooked up my sub to it for a minute to see how it worked and it was nice.

 

You will probably want to look for an amp that delivers 250w at 4 ohms, unless you are considering buying a second sub [4ohm] and wire them in parallel so the amp sees a 2 ohm load, getting you your 250w to each speaker. Other than that you should be looking for a class D mono amplifier.

 

I almost got that amp, that would have sucked. I was looking online before and some site or ebay auction listed it as a 250w at 4ohm amp.

 

yeh do your research with that stuff. marketing is happy to lie to people who don't know any better.

What is your budget for the amp? Have you bought your wiring yet? There are some sweet kicker (Good stuff) wiring deals on Sounddomain. Blaupunkt Velocity Amps are getting good reviews in the budget category, take a look at the VA 1400 here. It will get you 400wrms @ 4ohms... Remember it's better to have too much power and not use it, than too little. Think I saw that VA 1400 for $139 shipped on sonicelectronix, but it looks like they are out right now.

 

Being in school and having a part time job limits my budget especially when I have a lot of stuff to do with the car. The sub I have is a pioneer td-w30m. So I'm looking for a 250 or 200w rms amp for as cheap as I can find one. I found a Rockford Fosgate Punch P2002, http://www.rockfordfosgate.com/produ...9&locale=en_US What do you think? I found one for $70, I was hoping to find an amp for $50 but this isn't bad.

 

i'm sure it will bump. you could try asking at caraudio.com and see what they say about it. They also have a nice section where you could buy used and probably get stuff even cheaper.

 

Clif is correct, the Bose system wil eventually deteriorate.
I used crutchfield to buy a replacement head unit and purchased their adapter and it all worked great for about 2 months. Soon after, the Bose speakers in the front went bad as did the rears. I ended up gutting the enitre Bose set up and rebuilt from the ground up.
I have a 1000W 4ch amp in the trunk wiring new 200w 3-way 6.75s in the rear.

My only problem now is that I cannot figure out how to wire the new front speakers I purchased from the amp in the trunk??? Cliff, any suggestions on how you wired your front door speakers?
My solution is to mount miniture mid range tweeters on the pillars between the front and back doors. I am about to do this tomorrow in lieu of installing the new 120W 4x6 speakers in the front. Any thoughts or suggestions...

 

just run new lines to the front doors. i did that my 3rd gen, it's fairly easy. run the wires under the rear seats, then down each side's door sills, into the kick panels, through a hole which i drilled, and finally into the doors. some have used the stock grommets in the doors, which is fine if you don't want to drill. it just takes a bit more effort.

 

I'm replacing my speakers also. The stock ones are blown. Walmart has 6x9's that are about 220w and 6.5's that are about 120w and all four will cost about $80.

 

those wattage ratings are not to be trusted. those are just usually the thermal limit of those speakers, and the RMS wattage should be considered more so then max wattage.

 

Generally when you see very high wattage ratings on very cheap speakers, the rating indicates the PEAK wattage PER PAIR. So, that 220 watt pair of speakers can handle 110 watts peak each, or about 55 watts RMS, or about 1/4 the wattage advertised on the package, and sometimes the real RMS power handling is even lower than 1/4 of the advertised rating, read up carefully. A pretty good rule is that you are going to get what you pay for. If it comes from Wal Mart, don't expect it to handle a lot of power, or sound really good.

The Punch amps are good stuff. I have a 200 a4 that really thumps, and sounds great. I also have a Pyle amplifier. I believe they call it a 1600 or something crazy like that. True power output is about 400 watts. I have it paired up with an Audiobahn 12" sub in a custom box, and it puts out some great sound.

 

You might not even see 400 actual watts from that Pyle amp...

 

It is possible that it isn't even hitting 400, but for the price it puts out some decent power, sounds clean, and I've had it for several years with no problems, so as a low budget / high power choice, I think it is pretty good. I'm not sure that it would sound as good if I were powering full range speakers with it. It is possible that there would be distortion, or audible noise, but running the sub it sounds very good.

 

Finally got my stuff. A headunit http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pn...744290,00.html, front speakers http://www.rockfordfosgate.com/produ...n_US&p_status=, rear speakers http://www.infinitysystems.com/car/p...=US&Region=USA, sub amp http://www.alpine-usa.com/US-en/prod...model=MRP-M450, subwoofer http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pn...677103,00.html, and I still need to get a wiring kit for the amp. Now getting these speakers to fit, going to have to find all those threads again.

 

i replaced the four stock speakers in my 93 with some sony xplode speakers from wal-mart, and they actually sound pretty good. i didnt get any extra speakers. just the two 6" in the front doors and the other two behind the back seats. i reccomend them if you are just replacing the speakers.

 

If you read my post prior to this one I listed all the crap I bought. I was initially going to get walmar stuff. Audio people is this a good amp wiring kit for a mono amp? http://cgi.ebay.com/TSUNAMI-8-GAUGE-...QQcmdZViewItem My sub is 600w peak and 200w rms.

 

I just dropped 2 12" kicker subs in my maxima today but i cant here them yet cuse the Head unit has a bad ground or sumthin and it keeps turning on and off

 

I'm going to have to adjust my amp. The sub is 150w rms and the amp is 220w rms.

 

wiring kit looks fine, always make sure they include a fuse, thats the most annoying part of wiring up an amp

 

I'm trying to modify the stock plastic cup that holds the speaker in the door. The supplied front cover is very open and I don't want my new speakers to be accidentally crushed by someone’s foot.

 

you can just get a piece of 3/4" MDF and make your own mounts instead of trying to hack up the stock plastic ones. it'll save you a lot of work....

 

The new speakers are a lot deeper than stock so I'd need to stack the "wood" I'm guessing.