# Do you guys use factory door speaker wire?



## JLS24 (Jul 7, 2006)

Im on the fence about this one. I have my lotus mids that Im about to install in an active setup. And from what Ive read on my cars forums its a pain to run speaker wire into the door. It will be getting about 120W. It would be much easier to tap into the factory harness behind the HU. What have you guys done?


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## Chaos (Oct 27, 2005)

Depends what gauge the OEM wire is. For 120w, anything bigger than 18 ga. should be sufficient.


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## npdang (Jul 29, 2005)

It's fine. I went through alot of trouble to swap my wiring, didn't make a bit of difference.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

It will work but I usually leave factory wiring in tact in case the system gets pulled. It's never fun to snake the wires thru but there are easy ways to do it, I'd rather snake wires thru a door grommet than have the cludge behind an already crowded dash.

Will you hear a difference? Probably not.....

What kind of car?

Chad


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## jay (Sep 12, 2005)

npdang said:


> It's fine. I went through alot of trouble to swap my wiring, didn't make a bit of difference.


x2


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## JLS24 (Jul 7, 2006)

Its an 06 mazda3, I believe it 20-22AWG, not sure.


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## mikemareen (Apr 20, 2006)

another one of car audio's "awg" myth.

look at some of the home tweeters, see how there is only a tiny microscopic hair thin strand that is connecting the tweeter to the leads ?

what does that tell you ?


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## DS-21 (Apr 16, 2005)

I use the factory wire. Well, my car's previous owner actually cut the wire on both sides of the grommet and attached 16AWG stuff to it, so I guess I use that. (He ran the tweeter off of a Pioneer component set with Kicker RMB8's using the Pio passive crossover, with predictable results. But hey, he ran all the wires I needed ran very competently, so who am I to complain that I needed to change the amp and drive units?) But if he hadn't taken that step I wouldn't have, either.


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## cotdt (Oct 3, 2005)

my car has 20 awg wire stock and it works just fine powering a set of Dayton RS180's. if it was awg 24 or thinner i think i might replace them. i use awg 16 for my home audio, so i'm sure there is no reason at all to go any thicker than that.


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## KingSVT (Jul 30, 2006)

also useing stock wire, 50rms or so, works fine


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## Antnee77 (Aug 1, 2006)

I run 12 awg. through the whole system, although it's truly not necessary. I have 200 ft. of it lying around from doing large sub installs, so I just use it up!


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

mikemareen said:


> another one of car audio's "awg" myth.
> 
> look at some of the home tweeters, see how there is only a tiny microscopic hair thin strand that is connecting the tweeter to the leads ?
> 
> what does that tell you ?



It tells you that wire loss is a factor of length, notice how short those wires are 

Chad


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## 3.5max6spd (Jun 29, 2005)

My factory wire is intact, but I ran new wire into the doors and every other speaker location because I had plenty of 14ga& 12ga laying around.So I ran 12gauge for my 8" Lotus (which barly fit in the spring loaded terminals)and same to subs, run 14ga to midranges and tweets . But I figure there is not one connection between the amplifier and the speaker that I would ever have to question should I need to troubleshoot a problem, one straight run. I also had a ~300-400rms going to each midbass coming from the trunk at the time, so I figure it couldn't hurt.


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## edwelly (Mar 29, 2006)

For me it depends on how difficult it is to get the new wire in the doors. If I can I will, if it looks to be a lot more trouble than it is worth, I won't...


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## ocuriel (Oct 7, 2005)

Well, if your running active with mid & tweeter on the door, you will need to run new wires anyway. 1 for the mid & 1 for the tweeter.


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## B&K (Sep 20, 2005)

I find it easier to run new wires exclusively since my amps are usually in the rear of the car. It takes me less time to pull new wires than splice into the old. And every car I have I take my gear out and revert it to stock before selling. Much easier if you don't hack anything. In the case of my M the speakers can't go back to stock since the 5.25 is now a W18 but some real cheap 7's will go back in with the stock HU/amp.


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## JLS24 (Jul 7, 2006)

ocuriel said:


> Well, if your running active with mid & tweeter on the door, you will need to run new wires anyway. 1 for the mid & 1 for the tweeter.



You know what I have never thought about that......There are stock tweeters in the sail panels, and I was going to use those wires too however, I havent even taken out the HU yet (new car) but where would those tweeter wires be connected to, b/c usually there are only rear and front wires on the harness?


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

In my car the stock woofer was allowed to naturally roll off and the tweet had a simple 6dB/Oct cap crossover on the back of it, they were wired in parallel in the upper door.


Honestly a stiff piece of 12GA wire stripped out of Romex, some electrical tape and Dawn dishwashing detergent is all you need to slip it thru. My boot was pretty tight and had a draw boot inside to keep air/moisture out, I had it pulled thru in less than 5 min per side. Just loop the leading end of the Romex as to not damage the boot.

You can also use KY, don't laugh, it's water soluble, they make lubricant for pulling wire thru conduit too, it's simply non sterilized KY in mass quantity... We even call it KY at work 

Let the jokes begin......

Chad


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## JLS24 (Jul 7, 2006)

Well in the mazda3 the factory wires dont run through the door boot they are connected by a plug, basically the plug takes up the entire speace of the door (hole) I either have to make a new hole or some have drilled a hole in the plug (there is some space where the wires arent pinned) But it just seems like too much trouble however it looks like Ill have to anyway b/c of the tweets in my active setup.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

That SUCKS! Lemme guess the plug is a multi pin that carries Power window/lock/speaker/etc? Any spare holes in the plug to add a pair of connections? Could be a tricky but slick retrofit.

Another problem with plugs is that tweeters receive such low power that any oxidation on the plug can cause intermittent output. It even happens in higher power apps like in live audio, no horn then BAM it's there all night after it blows thru the crud, a good connector cleaning is all it takes to remedy it.

Chad


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## ocuriel (Oct 7, 2005)

It shouldn't be too bad. There is a tool called a fish tape used to ease routing wires through that boot thing. I don't think I could of fished my wires through without it. Seemed overwhelming at 1st, but was surprizingly easy enough. Just takes patience.


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## Stewart (Jul 14, 2006)

It's probably not a one piece plug, meaning you can get it out. My 05 mustang has a simmilar deal and I could pull off the rubber sleeve and get it out enough to hit a little tab on top that separates it from the back it snaps into. With the back off you can then get a wire through there. Albeit you can't snap it back in and the seal wont be 100% watertight anymore it is doable.


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## chuyler1 (Apr 10, 2006)

Running wires through the rubber gasket in the door is my least favorite part of installing. If I am only putting one speaker in the door (a midbass or a full-range) then I will just attempt to use the factory wiring and worry about upgrading it if I notice poor performance. If I need to run more than a single set of wires (for example, a mid and tweeter) then I just run both and ditch the factory wiring. The only case where I would never consider using the factory wiring would be if the car was more than 10-15 years old.


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