im working on installing a 4 channel amp in my friend's mitsubishi eclipseRS. i want to power the rear speakers and the speakers in the front door. how do i get power to front speakers? how do i figure out where to run the new speaker wire?

 

just follow the OEM wiring harness through the door jam with new speaker wire.. it's usually one of the toughest parts of a stereo install, just because there's not much room for fingers.
good luck, have fun, and be sure to have a few beers lying around for when you get done.

 

Another tip:

If you can't fit them through the rubber boot and loom between the door and the car frame, try poking a hole in the grommets on both the door and the door frame. Then snake your speaker wire through the holes and into the door. Try to leave a little slack in the wire where it's exposed betweent the door and the frame. Wrap electrical tape around the speaker wire about 3 ft in length, like you would on the blade of a hockey stick before you snake the wire through. Then tie wrap or tape the speaker wire to the existing boot in 2 places to secure it. This further protects the wire for 1 foot between the doors, and one foot on either side so you don't get any shorts.

If you wish you can substitute the tape over the wire for a roll of smaller loom.

 

I used a coat hanger to help me in the tight spots. I slid one end of the wire into the door in the spot that the stock haress goes through and attached the speaker wire to the coat hanger and pulled it through, it took some time but it worked great no wires showing.

 

Or if you're lazy like my (and not an audiophile), just hookup to the wiring harness in the dash. =) That's what I did for the fronts (though I connected directly to the rears). Saved a lot of time and it sounds fine.

 

Depending on the amount of power used the speaker wires can be spliced in the kick panels. The length of wire from there to the speaker will not hinder performance too much. This is easier than fishing the wire into the door. But if youre an audiophile, I would take the extra time and run the wires directly into the door.

 

If you are just installing a deck or a small amp that's located in the front of the car (say under a seat) then this is fine. In my case since my amps are in the trunk I had to run new wiring to the front locations anyway so it wasn't such a bother to run the extra couple of feet necessary into the doors. Also splicing 12G speaker cable (a little overkill) into 20-22G factory wiring would have been a lame idea in my case....

 

My amp is also located in the trunk. I didn't want to go into the doors myself not because of the distance, but rather because I didn't want to mess with the existing wiring going into the doors and have to keep dealing with crimped/busted/worn cables a few months down the road.

I used 16 gauge speaker wire, so the crimping wasn't as bad. Also, even though it is cut down to the car's 20 gauge or so, it made most of the distance at 16 gauge and so probably lost less signal/voltage. 16 feet of 20 gauge would probably be poorer than 12 feet of 16 gauge and 4 feet of 20 gauge.

But I'm not audiophile so it's all wash in the end to me. It sounds great imo. =)

 

Yeah agreed....it's all fine.

The 2-3 feet of 20G wire won't affect the sound system much. At least you a used sufficient guage to get the power up there. In my case with my crossovers also located in the trunk I ran 3 sets of wires per side, 12G for woofers in the doors and 14G for the midrange and tweeters that are in the kickpanels....

 

here is another way that i figured out:

starting with the rear speaker wire, make that wire into the front wire:

go behind the radio where the speaker wire comes out to the radio. Take the rear speaker wires (purple/green) and link them up the thr front speaker wires(white/grey). Now the speaker wire that ends in the trunk becomes the lead for the front door speakers.
Then all thats left is to run new wires from the back speakers to the 4 channel amp.

Even though iam using the stock wiring i have NO loss in quality whatsoever!! Prior to this i ran test speaker wires (14gauge) through the car into the door panel to see if i loose any quality and not a bit of difference to my ears or my boys ears either. Iam using a Kicker 4channel 90x4 amp to push Eclipse components front/rear.