OK, now *I* need some 'sound' advice

Hachi,

Don't have any advice for you, but please see my other post titled '91 Tercel ?'s'

Thanks,

Carl

Saw it Carl. The topics you asked about...I pay a friend of mine to do!!!

One thing you might try is Castrol High-Mileage oil. It seems to have worked on the valve seals on my Supra. I don't get the Blue Puff when I start up in the morning now! Hell of a lot easier than changing the seals!!!

Those Tercels are neat cars! And nice to see you back!

What ever happened to those guys who fancied this a political forum?

Carl

Hachiroku,

Still at the forum, I see. It's been a while hasn't it?

The factory radios do not have a line out but there is a kit you can buy that can convert it for you. You should be able to get it at any electronic store that sells radios (Sound Advice, Best Buy, Walmart,...).

The problem is the headunit itself is relatively poor in sound quality compared to your aftermarket ones. If you must use the factory unit, you'd want to use efficient speakers. The MB Quarts won't do the trick unless you use an amplifier for them as well. If theft isn't a concern, I'd use the JVC headunit that you have. If you can, I'd suggest to upgrade the headunit to the Pioneer Premier P880. That unit sounds tremendous with an amp and subwoofer.

...and it's "Frikkin fast"

(tC's are...camry clones??)

...

Um, still do...

you must have either Killfiled them, or successfully weeded out OT...

In which case you may miss a lot of ToyOTa posts!!

Yeah, after I posted this I did a search and discovered the PIE Toy-03 Line adapter.

The system really isn't *TOO* bad, you have to boost it to get any sound, and there are also a couple of interesting little buttons; one is right on the Front panel and says SSP. When you puch it you get Neutral, Hear and Feel. Feel works pretty well! With the Quarts it may be acceptable.

When I put a disk in, it sounded pretty tinny, so I wante to see where the Bass was set, and when I punched "A" (for Audio Select) there was a new feature called SRT. It also has two or three settings; I punched it and it expanded the sound *ALMOST* good enough.

I don't have the unit that's iPod ready, so I will have to get the input adapter to connect my XM. I read that if you use the Toy-03 Input adapter you push DISC 2x; this person may not have had the SAT ready radio.

I am going to have to get a harness anyway, since neither of my JVCs have a front panel input, and a special cable is required (at at LEAST $54...) so either way I am going to have to shell out $$$ to connect directly. It's like 6 to one and a Half Dozed to the other...

THe only unit I have that has a line-in is an AIWA, but it doesn't play MP3s. It IS a good unit, though.

DAMN! It's frikkin' FAST!!!!

I drove it on the highway for the first time on the way to work today. They have just repaved Rt 91 (Dubbed the "Autobahn of North America" some years ago by Car & Driver...) from the Vermont line to the first exit in Vermont. Whooooo Hooooo! A nice smooth car on a nice smooth road!!!

Yup...reminds me of the Good Ol' Days when my 'Hachiroku' was Brand New!

It is actually more of a Celica. I believe it has the better parts of the Celica suspension, with a 2.4L Twin Cam lifted from the Camry, and the body is stuck somewhere between the Celica and the Solara.

The electrical/charging system's good for that extra 25amp load + spikes of a 300 watt subwoofer amp right?

I ran 650 Watts in an '85 Corolls GT-S w/65 AMP alternator for 15 years and changed the battery, um...ONCE, and have been running 700 Watts in my Supra (70 AMP Alternator) for two. I also ran 500 Watts in a Tercel for

If you do most of your driving during the day, and you keep the stereo volume in the levels a sane person can stand at night, a stock alternator will take a healthy stereo no problem. You might draw 30A peaks for a few milliseconds at the bass thump, but other than that they don't draw as much as you'd think.

Where you get in real trouble is when you start adding auxiliary and emergency lighting, multiple two way radios, CB, scanner, etc., and it isn't fun when you run out of juice. Trust me, THAT'S when you really need the big alternator.

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I knew I forgot something! On the Hachiroku, I was also running Fog Lights with 50 Watts each, AND Driving Lights with 100 Watts EACH, (since I lived in a REAL rural area I used both of them, PLUS the regular lighting) and a scanner (just because)...

Now you know why California has a few rules - Fog lights must be interlocked to come on with the Low Beams only, and Driving lights must be interlocked to come on with the High beams only. All four at once, and tail/markers with either Fogs or Drivings only (headlights off) are prohibited. Besides avoiding blinding people, it also has the side effect of reducing the amp draw.

Oh, and there's another statute that high-end Mercedes and BMW drivers should know - Fog Taillights are supposed to be interlocked to the front fog lights, and have a separate switch & pilot light to remind the driver. And are ONLY to be used in actual heavy fog conditions, not just to be cool.

And you are right Hachi, with a killer stereo, and a scanner, AND both fog and driving lights, now you are getting into oversized alternator needed territory.

But a word of advice: Oversized alternators also need an oversized output lead from the alternator to the battery, or you will see smoke where you don't want it...

Abandon the factory Battery/Alternator lead in place in the harness

- you may need to insulate the alternator end and leave it connected to the battery if there are other items tapped off it, check the wiring diagrams. And run a nice chunk of #4 Welding Cable or better (with some corrugated loom for extra ground-out resistance) between the {+} battery post adapter and the alternator output stud.

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I guess you must be talking about amplifiers that make there ratings based on peak power ratings or something other than RMS.

But even at that I would have guessed all those cars would be going thru alternators for sure.

Presumably there also comes a point where attention must be paid to the battery's ability to accept/deliver amps?

Yep, a high end audio system these days will be powered by a secondary power source. That means a second alternator and everything else needed to have a second electrical system

Dan

NO - Not a "second" alternator, replace the one on the car or truck now with a unit with a higher output. If anything you go the RV route with one bigger alternator, one diode isolator, two batteries. That is proven technology and pretty hard to mess up.

First, I dare you to find me a new car or SUV out there where you can find the space and available bracketable location to mount a second alternator without removing something vital like the AC Compressor - or doing something off-the-wall like making two alternators back-to-back on a common shaft.

Even if you can make the room, then you have to find a longer belt that's just right and make the serpentine belt routing work when adding another item - may need to add an idler so the belt frontside and backside hits come up even, and that's yet ANOTHER thing you have to fabricate a bracket to hang it from...

And with all belts, the exact alignment is critical, I've seen what happens when they get it wrong. Get the belts out of line or parallel only a few degrees, and you start snapping fanbelts daily...

Then you get into the problem of paralleling two electrical sources never designed to be parallelable - If you don't spend the big bucks building a custom voltage/current regulator one of the two will put out slightly higher voltage, do most of the work and beat itself to death. Or you have to keep the two electrical systems on one car totally separate, which is a design nightmare.

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Nah...I've had systems 500 watts or more running off the standard setup for years! Never had any problems.

A lot of that aftermarket stuff is just hype; most people don't need it. If you have a couple THOUSAND watts and are doing competitions then they need the Gel Cell batteries and the 1 farad caps for the THUMP, but for the systems I install, I am just looking for nice, clean sound, and I get it without all the gimmickery...

I'm sure no expert but all these methods are used depending on the application.

There are lots of options. Here is the first one that popped up.