1993 Volvo 850 GLT - Need A System

[teklein 0]

Ok, I just bought my new car, a bright red 1993 Volvo 850 GLT with tan leather and a 5 spd. The cars great, but its lacking in the sound department.

Ok, I have a MINT condition Alpine CDA-7875 head unit (BBE, V-Drive, etc) that I want in this car, how do I hook it up? I have put this head unit in 4 different cars so far so im not an idiot, but Circuit City told me you couldnt put a head unit in this car without rewiring EVERYTHING in the car due to an internal amp. Now, my 240SX had internal amps and all I did was hook up the remote turn on wire to the one on the HU and it worked great.

Anyoen have a wiring diagram? Also, I pulled the Volvo radio out and I cant see how another HU would even attach in there... Its like 2 rails with locking tabs on the radio.

2nd QUESTION:

I have month old Alpine Type-S 6.5/6.75in Components. Will they fit in this car at all, or should I sell them and buy speakers that will work with the FACTORY Volvo amp. I dont want to rip out the factory amp yet.

Thanks!

Tim Klein

[Supa_c 1]

Welcome to ssa

The factory amp is probably weak.

You should just re wire the car,leave the factory amp intact.

You will want to amp those components as well

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

welcome to the site, what supa mentioned is a great start

[finebar4 0]

Hey man welcome aboard

Your car only has 4" speakers in the doors so your component set won't fit the factory locations without some modification. I don't know the spec's on the factory amp, but it probably isn't worth keeping if you are into SQ at all, so it is a judgement call on your behalf. Crutchfield sells mounting kits and wiring harnesses for your specific vehicle and have a set of 4" MB Quart components on sale that will drop right in, but I have to side with Supa_c and Denim and say drop in your own amp and rewire from there. You have a nice headunit, and with a kit it will drop right in, and if you are feeling lazy, the factory locations are amped and you could drop in some 4" components and leave well enough alone, but you will be lacking in the midbass and lower frequencies and will find yourself modifying from there. Any plans on a sub? With adding a sub you will have to drop in an amp anyways, so bite the bullet and spend a weekend running some power and RCA's to the trunk, and circumventing the factory system all together. Leave it intact if you want to switch back to factory later if you sell the car, but, while you own it, you may as well get some grins from it. You could put your speakers in the kick panels and skip modifying the doors...... honestly, you have lots of options

[Tirefryr 1,742]

You should easily be able to find a dash kit for this vehicle, or it may have the standard Ford MOCO mounts. If that's the case, it's as simple as transferring them over to your existing stereo and installing it as the factory one was. The Amp should either be a JBL or Sony./ Most of Ford's factory amplifiers were produced by JBL, but there is a rare Sony in there as they are the OEM HU manufacturer for 90 of FOMOCOs' vehicles. You can easily bypass this amp by first finding it, deciphering what wires are what and then jumping them together. The amps use a speaker level input most of the time, but in this case you may have a bus cable which is just a pain in the butt to deal with. It may be easiest to just run new speaker wire or buy an adapter so no cutting/splicing will ever be necessary.

[teklein 0]

Thanks for the advice, I didnt know Volvo was owned by Ford this early.

Now I gets to hunt for an amp

This is gonna be fun, im really considering paying CC to do it, they said it would be 100 just to find the amp, and rip it out, then splice all the stuff up. Then they said that the radio would have to b hardwired in (BS, I found the connector) and that would be 65-75.

My radio will not be hard wired in, over my dead body. I want the connectors that came from the factory

And it seems I have speakers in the:

dash (tweeters maybe)

front doors up top

rear doors on bottom

above back seat

So thats 8 speakers, how would I wire that up to an amp?

[Supa_c 1]

You dont have to wire each speaker.

Volvo goes way over board with speakers, the one car they have has 16 !

[teklein 0]

So I would just use the stock speaker wire, but how would I would I hook up everything to the amp.

Do they even make an 8 channel amp? Or would I need two 4ch?

I doubt my lil 7875 would sound nice pushing 8 speakers...

I take it dash and front door will be front signal, and rear door and backseat will be rear signal...?

[Tirefryr 1,742]

It depends on your system goals really. You could do something as simple as a 2-wa front stage with no rear fill, maybe add a sub, maybe sopme attentuated rear fill. You see what I'm getting at? Take a little time, sit down, come up with a plan and go from there. You can do anything you want to. Don't ever let something stop you from accomplishing your goal.

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

I don't think that Ford had done any design changes or adjustments to the 850

[Tirefryr 1,742]

I don't think that Ford had done any design changes or adjustments to the 850

Until you start taking things apart and realize each screw is a different size. Then you realize they did. Man, do I hate that!