Anyone replaced a 2003 Mach 460 head unit?

Has anyone out there successfully wired an aftermarket stereo into a

2003 Mach 460 rig? I only care about 2003, because somewhere between 1998 and 2003, Ford did something stupid that changed everything.

I have a 3-piece harness from Crutchfield and a FAI-3 box from Scosche that's supposed to be required in order to use the factory amps. This is virtually identical to what I had in my 1998 with a Mach 460, yet it simply doesn't work. I know I can run all new everything, but I don't want to do that. I've also searched quite a bit, and there's nothing on usenet specific to these new cars.

If you've done this successfully *without bypassing amps or rewiring anything*, please reply and let me know exactly what you did. I'll be eternally grateful for any help. Thanks.

- Ray

Reply to
Ray
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Check and see if you somehow didn't get the power wire for the factory amp hooked back up. Maybe it's just not coming on. As I recall when I put a different head in my Explorer I had to make sure to power the amp, I think I connected it to the power antenna wire but don't really recall anymore.

----------------- Jim '88 LX 5.0 (now in car heaven) '89 LX 5.0 vert '99 GT 35th Anniversery Edition - Silver Mods to date - Relocated trunk release to drivers side, shortened throttle cable.

Reply to
AZGuy

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This company might know how?

James

AZGuy wrote:

Reply to
James Fowler

I tried with my 2001 and gave up. I ended up pulling the amp/speaker rack, putting in four Polk Ex 368's and two 10" subs. In the 2001 and later Mach

460 system, the tweaters are powered by the amp in the head unit and the four 6x8's are powered by the two amps in the amp/speaker rack in the back. Initially, I bought a wiring harness, wired it to my deck and then plugged it into the only harness it would fit in. This resulted in sound only coming through the built in tweeters. I checked with every shop in town and no one could do it. I found a harness that plugged into the one that went to the amps, but they would not power on and the wiring diagram did not match up. It seems that the factory deck puts out a separate low and high signal to each of those harnesses. I spent two weekends on it before I gave up. The end result sounded way better than the factory system anyway.
Reply to
Tweek

Thanks all.

Damn, this sucks. I'd like to take this opportunity to give a giant middle finger to Ford for tieing its customers hands like this. Designing in an irreplaceable car stereo that doesn't play MP3s in the year 2003 is the epitome of stupid.

Thanks for the Visteon link. It looks like they make an MP3 player that could replace the stock unit. Of course it's four hundred freaking dollars, and doesn't do half of what an aftermarket unit would do for half the price, and is even uglier than the Mach 460 stereo, if that's possible.

Reply to
Ray

OTOH, the head unit directly supports the Phatbox:

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I had one in my '03 Cobra - it RULES!

Reply to
Scott in Aztlán

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