Sorry about having to ask a stupid question but i was wondering about placement of speaker wire. I just recently pulled the carpet from my 78 and the guy who had it before me ran 2 sets of speaker wires to his rear speakers on top of the pad but underneath the carpet. I purchased a carpet set from Mid America and the pad is attached to the carpet.

My question is, is it ok to run the wire under the pad between the floor and the carpet pad or do you guys think it will be too hot for the wiring or will it cause any kind of interference? Would it be best for me to just seperate a bit of the carpet from the pad and put the wiring in there to provide some insulation to the wire?

I apologize if this question has been asked already. I tried different searches and couldnt find anything that would help. Thanks in advance for any answers you guys may have.

 

It's okay under the carpet. A few other good routes are under the sill plates, and in the center console and then over to the side. Speaker wire is pretty tough depending on brand.

Is it just speaker wire you are running to the back?

 

It will be the speaker wire and probably a couple sets of rca cables for 1 amplifier now and another one to be added at a later date.

The wire i have right now for the speakers is Rockford Fosgate 16AWG but it is currently unopened. Due to the amount of good advice you have given throughout the forums, Durango, i would most likely get another type of speaker wire if you recommend it.

As for RCA cables i have not purchased any yet so nothing is set in stone on brand i will use for those.

Right now i am learning that i most likely dont have a spot for rear speakers in my 78 so my next big job will be surfing throughout the forums for some speaker box ideas and placement. I have an old infinity basslink that i had on a boat for awhile that i will probably use in the back since it takes up less room and still seems to provide enough bass for the space i have and would still leave room for the tops in the back.

 

Thanks for the compliments and vote of confidence.

Honestly that Rockford 16 gauge is what I use with all my car audio products. It's one of the better wires available, made by Lightning Audio, and it's not too expensive.

When you run the speaker wire and RCAs to the back, run them separately. The signals will create fields that can interfere with one another. I would suggest the center console or along the side of the trans tunnel under the carpet. Choose a side for each.

Also, for a small budget system, I would suggest a good component set in the front and a small sub, maybe a 10", in the back for bass. If you use a 4 channel amp, you can use channels 1 and 2 to run the components up in the kicks and channels 3 and 4 bridged to power the sub.

You can get a 4 channel amps that has around 100 watts RMS per channel pretty easy, and that gives you a good 100 watts per component set and 200 watts for the sub. That's plenty for a modest system in a small car like our C3s.

I can suggest some equipment if you like.

 

For a little bit more assurance in the wiring, you could lay some aluminum foil tape under the wiring route. This will help dissapate some of the heat coming from below. You could also put foil tape above it and then ground the tape...but I think that might be overkill.

 

You may want to check out this from today
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show....php?t=1707126

 

Thank you guys for the advice about the wiring. I will probably use a 4 channel amp but will most likely end up putting a couple speakers in the back since i am addicted to having a rear audio stage.

When it comes to front stage in audio do you guys recommend the speakers in the dash or installing speakers in the lower kick panels? Right now i put two new speakers in the upper dash (think they were kickers if i recall) and it seems to put out nice sound without an amp but will probably sound much better with an amp. Just wasnt sure whether the upper dash or lower kick panels would present a better sound.

Thank ya for the link to the c3 sub page, ptroxx. Some very nice pictures there and they were pretty much all immediately saved to my hard drive to research the positioning.

Love the box you made and are selling at http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show....php?t=1681558 , Durango. If it would've had room for t-tops in the back and been in red carpet i would probably snap them up. I definitely saved some pictures of that speaker set up to see if i can put together something similar for my car. I wouldnt worry so much about t-top storage but for some reason i have a gift of causing a sunny clear blue day to turn freezing and rainy just by going 5 miles away from my house. It sucks for me but i am thinking about charging the farmers around here during the dry season.

If any of you happen to stumble across any other good pictures or ideas please feel free to PM me. I would love to see them.

 

The dash location is better for high frequency drivers like small mids and tweeters. If you have a speaker with any kind of size like a 6.5" then the kick panel is your best location.

I would suggest 6.5" in the kicks just because you can get that nice mid bass frequency and still enjoy crystal clear highs from the tweeters which you can mount next to the mids or up in the dash firing up at the glass.

Yeah the box I built is big but for a pair of subs I needed the air space and I never take my tops with me. I have one of those rain coats, that my Mom helped me make, that will fit over the top of the car down to the mirrors and is a fine shield for waiting out the storm if I can't find a gas station.

PM me or post any questions about installing your stereo equipment. I'm always happy to help.