Hi Everyone,

I have a 1998 Acura CL 2.3. I have been having trouble installing a Pioneer Head Unit. Seems there is no sound output. Someone from Pioneer Tech Support mentioned something about a factory amp under the front seat. I checked and there is a small black box about 5" x 5" under the passenger seat with two wire plugs.

Does anyone know what this is?

Thanks,
Jim

 

Are you using a metra wiring harness ?

 

The 2.3's did not have any factory amp, only the 3.0's. I'm not sure what that box is for myself, but it has nothing to do with the stereo.

 

It's the factory alarm under the seat. Only the 3.0's have an amplified system and it's located on the passenger side of the trunk. Make sure the internal amp on your pioneer unit is turned on,and that you dont have any blown speakers or shorted out speaker leads.

 

Thanks to All,

OK, ...factory alarm...makes sense.

I'm not sure what Metra wiring is? Also how would I "turn on" internal amp in the pioneer head unit? As far as I can tell there are no switches or settings to turn it off or on.

Trying to eliminate a speaker or wiring problem I did connect an external speaker directly to the head unit's left front speaker connection and still got no sound. Four new speakers also were installed so I doubt it is a speaker problem. New speakers were wired to existing factory wiring.

I'm thinking the amp in the head unit is defective.

Any more thoughts?

Thanks, Jim

 

Is this a brand new headunit or used, if used, was it in working condition beforehand ?

Were there any wires you weren't sure about..? If my memory serves correct it's something like the Pioneer uses red instead of yellow or the other way around..

When you connected the wires did you use a aftermarket harness or did you just tap into the factory harness?

This is a Metra wiring harness so you don't have to hack your factory harness:

 

If you have the premium bose system, the amp would be in the trunk next to the jack behind the carpet, I had to rewire and bypass mine in order to get my pioneer to work, i have a 97 cl.

 

Depends on the pioneer unit you have as to if you can turn the internal amp on or off- just check your owners manual to see if there is a setting for it. The metra harness is actually a 701720 not 21. try only connecting your external speaker to the radio while having all the other speakers disconnected. If that works, it means you have a speaker grounding out- that can have nothing to do with the age of the speakers- all it takes is a terminal or pinched speaker lead hitting bare metal, your radio detects this and will cut the amp off. If that doesn't work and you're sure there isn't an amp cutoff setting, the radio is most likely dead.