MX-3.com

So I got my MX-3 seccond or maybe third hand, and some moron had wired in a 2 channel 180 Watt amp using the front channels as inputs, and the outputs routed to everything, right and left side of the car to each channel, and leaving the other deck outputs idle. That completely baffled me. the deck is 50W x 4. maybe they thought an aftermarket amp (its some sherwood thing) is better than the decks internal amp? I have no idea. but I was stuck with this harness that was redneck taped into the car's speaker wires(not soldered). over half of the wires from the harness were all cut and tied together (not stripped, just left useless) The result was the balance changing the fader and the fader changing the overall volume.(Also, they cable tied the power, ground, ins and outs together.) Naturally, this irritated me and I had to fix the stupid thing. Now the amp powers my two 6x9's in the back, and the deck powers my pioneers in the front. balance and fader works again, total gain of 40 watts per channel in the back. I'm wiring in an additional 500 Watt Alpine for my two little 8" subs soon, so my car is still in pieces(maybe sound deadener too?)... but this is what I made this for.

RED
+12V Ignition/Accessory power. On when ignition is on or in accessory.
YELLOW
+12V Memory. Always on even with ignition off. Keeps clock/radio memory.
BLACK
(-)Ground
BLUE
(+)Power Antenna. Antenna rises when radio is turned on. Also may be used for amp remote turn-on if there is not an extra wire for remote turn-on.
BLUE/WHITE
Power Amp turn-on. If there is no wire for remote turn-on, use power antenna lead.
ORANGE
+12V Illumination.
ORANGE/WHITE
Dimmer
GREY
+Right Front Speaker
GREY/BLACK
-Right Front Speaker
WHITE
+Left Front Speaker
WHITE/BLACK
-Left Front Speaker
VIOLET
+Right Rear Speaker
PURPLE/BLACK
-Right Rear Speaker
GREEN
+Left Rear Speaker
GREEN/BLACK
-Left Rear Speaker


That, I believe, is the EIA standard. It helped me because I didn't know what all the wires from the aftermarket harness were (and i didn't have the manual). Using this and the codes from the stock wiring, I was able to make everything work. (stock codes are found elsewhere on this site)
So if anyone has a similar problem as me... I know this helps.

50 watts x 4 for the deck is a very optimistic power rating. Nobody talks in peak power. It likely puts out 20 watts RMS per channel.

Also, the power antenna wire on an aftermarket deck only puts out 12 volts when the tuner is on. When you're playing a CD or whatnot, it doesn't supply voltage, therefore your amp would only be turned on when you're listening to the radio. A better way to do it if your deck doesn't have an amp turn on is the accessory wire. Pretty much any deck these days that has RCA pre-outs will have an amp turn-on wire. If your deck doesn't have a turn-on wire, then it likely has no pre-outs, and you're running high-level signal from your speaker outputs into your amp, which == crap IMHO.

Well for now I just fixed the balance/fader for sure, and I'm not sure what they used for a remote...I'll check today when I get home(just checked, I have one, and in hindsight, I realize that if I was using the antenna wire, since everything was through the amp, I would have no sound when I used the radio, which I did.). maybe I even have a remote wire, because it does have two RCA outputs. Can I just get an RCA splitter to put a signal to a seccondary amp?

I bought a harness adapter from crappy tire. After that its basic colour matching. No guess work, and a lot less hassle.

Makes it a nice plug and play solution too. I hightly recommend doing it that way rather than cutting up the stock harness and doing some in-car soldering work.

Never knew crappytire had harnesses. These days all that my store has is bloody lawn and garden. Now if only he knew what crappy tire is.