[bashew]

Hi everyone!

Add: I currently drive a 2000 Ford Escort ZX2, forgot to mention that in my post.

I've got a bit of an issue with my car after I recently installed an amp. I bought a (i believe) 8 gauge wire that I ran from the + terminal on my battery to my trunk, where I threw my amp.

(for those curious, the amp I purchased is this: http://www.crutchfield.com/p_575R3004/R ... tml?tp=115)

I also installed a set of new speakers as well, so the only stock thing in the car when it comes to audio is the HU, which I'm not using.

Now, yesterday I mounted the grounding wire to an exposed metal surface on the side of my trunk, and then wired up the + wire coming from the battery. I had asked one of my friends about where to hook the "remote control" wire, and I ran it to a 12V lead that went to my stock HU. As far as the stock HU goes, I unplugged it, and am currently just running a headphone-to-RCA wire from a MP3 player in my car to the back as a temporary solution.

Now here's where the problems come in. I noticed my car started just fine, the amp worked perfectly. No audio quality issues from what I could tell. So I drove down the road, and parked, and saw that my dome light would not turn on. I figured that it was acting funny and it'd "just fix itself". So much for that... Then today I drive to school, go to lock my car with the key fob. No luck.

As I drive home I then noticed another issue with my car. Normally I can sustain ~2.1k RPM on my tach, but I had an odd issue as I was driving: my car would drop down to about ~1.2k, then speed back up like normal.

So i get home, and pull the amp fuse, and I still had the dome light issue and the keyfob issue, so I check the fuses and the Room fuse is blown.

Does anyone have any insight as to what I should do from here? Or if there's something I really screwed up with? I double-checked my connections, and I'm not tooo car-savvy (I'm more of a computer geek).

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and I apologize in advance if this message seems a bit jumbled, heh.

Thanks!

(For those wondering about my interestingly wired configuration with my mp3 player: I plan on installing a computer in my car)

 

[LOWETGT]

I say unplug your recent additions one at a time and use a new fuse and see if it blows... If it doesn't blow when the new stuff is unplugged, I'd suspect something there. I believe I had an issue blowing that fuse in my 2nd gen, the plate light wire rubbed through and was shorting the circuit. Doubt that is your issue, but if the wiring is the same as the 2nd gen, you may also have lost the dash and exterior marker lights.

 

[yournamehere]

what the hell is a "room fuse"?

 

[NorthCoastEscort]

sounds to me like you attached the amp trigger to the dome light fuse. I would recomend finding a 12v key switch circut for the amp trigger.

 

[bashew]

Well, I unhooked everything, replaced the fuse and what not and it's been happily working since :\ I guess I was a bit paranoid at first.

@LOWETGT: Thanks for the tip!
@yournamehere: No idea, but I swear it's labeled that way in the fuse box
@NorthCoastEscort: I'm not sure, I used a connection on my radio harness kit that was labeled to connect to my amp's REM connection.

 

[yournamehere]

bashew, whatever you wired the remote wire to, just disconnect it. Then splice it into the yellow wire coming from your new headunit.

 

[Dave94LX]

You should have either a fuse or circuit breaker on the power wire for the amp. It should be close to the battery, so that if your amp wire should wear and touch ground, it wont take out your whole system.

As for the remote wire, I have always used the power antenna wire on the head unit. That way the amp is only on when the head unit is on.

Keep in mind though, I haven't built a system since 1997. I am sure things have changed since then.

 

[silverton]

ROOM fuse is for the interior. usually lights and junk like that, pretty sure if it's not in the radio won't work either.