I have a set of pioneer ts -a6964r that i purchased for the rear speakers on my 1986 ta. It has the performance package and has 2 speakers per side back there. do i wire these new 3 ways up to the top speaker wires or do i hook up to the bottom speaker wire that i believe is being driven by the booster slider on the dash. Or do i wire all together. Tys for any help

 

The top speakers are wired directly to the HU. The bottom speakers are actually subwoofers, and feed from the 20 watt amplifier under the kick panel on the front passenger side of the car. Your best bet will be to wire your new speakers to the wiring from the top speakers. The system is wired so that if you remove the amplifier from the circuit, nothing will work, as all four speaker outputs from the HU pass through the amplifier.

 

Thanks you were right. Now that I removed the insert for the old speakers I am left with a 7 x 9 hole is there a kit for mounting 6x9s or do we just get creative? Thanks again for the wiring info

 

Non performance sound equiped thirdgens of the same vintage have an adaptor plate for a 6x9 speaker. Those should be easy to find. You could also make something fairly easy.

 

Do you know the colors of the wires top and bottom?...I have the same sound system but my factory subs blew years ago and I would like to get the system working like original again.

 

My 86 has the same color wires for the subs and for the speakers. I can't remember the colors, but will look at first chance. The plugs are reversed, so that one can't get the wiring confused. One has the male on the pigtale and the female on the harnase, and the other has the female on the pigtail, and the male on the harnase.

Ian Kee at Kee Audio in Atlanta has my speaker boxes right now. He is rebuilding the speaker boxes and retrofitting them with new custom made subs. We are replacing the speakers with new custom made 4x6 speakers. We will be documenting the build with text and photos when he finishes the boxes and sends them back to me. This sort of retrofit is a good option for anyone wanting to maintain thier car in stock condition.

http://keeaudio.com/

 

When the factory speakers blew I replaced them with 6x9's and didn't keep the original speakers or enclosure ...the factory plugs are still attached to the body panel but I don't know which is which!



My car has the same color for two plugs and different colors for the other two...my car's colors:

Passenger=
Dk. Blue/white stripe
Lt. Blue/Black stripe
Dk. Blue
Lt. Blue

Driver's=
Dk. Blue/white stripe
Lt. Blue/Black stripe
Brown
Yellow

Right now my back speakers are hooked up to the Dk. Blue/Lt. Blue and the Brown/yellow...I hooked up speakers to the remaining plugs and tried the boost/gain but nothing.

 

It seems like mine are pink/black & red/black, however I will have to look again.

I got word yesterday that my speakers boxes are all done with the custom made subs and speakers installed. The items are in transit, so in a few days when they arrive I will unload Amanda from her enclosed car trailer and get a good look at the wiring. I can't get to the inside of the car with it inside of the trailer. Maybe I can help you more after seeing it again.

Give me a few days. My work schedule is brutal, 70 hours + a week, and I am in the process of buying an original 1983 WS6 with 24K actual miles in it.

My guess is that if you connect a three way speaker to the sub outputs you should get some sort of noise. It will not sound normal. Your speakers should work normally when connected to the appropriate speaker outputs. Be careful turning the HU on with no speakers connected, as you can blow the output transistors, and everything will be dead.

Charles

 

I worked on the 86 some last Wednesday. My speaker boxes have two pairs of red/black wires coming from each box. One set is for the subs, and the other is for the speakers. These are the OE speaker boxes. The car however is wired differently. The driver's side speaker wires are yellow/black, while the sub is light blue/dark blue. Simple enough... The passenger side is the one that is screwy. There are two sets of light blue/dark blue wires, one is for the speaker and the other for the sub. Of course since my car is original, there were no problems getting it connected correctly, as the plugs are reversed from the speakers to the subs, so it was just a matter of plugging them in to the correct plug. Why GM chose to use the same color wire on the passenger side for the speaker and the sub is beyond me? However there is no doubt that this is the OE wiring, as we have full history of everything that has ever been done to this car from the build sheet to current time, and the wiring is done in OE style. Have you figured out anything on your car yet?Charles

 

Not yet!...I checked the boost/gain connector and it is securely hooked up...there are no broken connections in the radio wiring and the factory amp is connected and the wiring is in good condition...the boost/gain system worked when I bought the car that is how I blew out the factory speakers. I am no good with automotive wiring so I may just have to live with it.

I forgot how the speakers are wired in the factory box?...are they wired separately or are they wired together: for instance the + wire on the speaker wired with the + on the sub woofer etc.

 

The speaker wires are separate from the subwoofer wires. Each has a + and a -. There should be four wires to each speaker box. One set is for the sub, and one set os for the speaker. If you have no output on your subwoofer outputs you may have a blown amplifier. If an amplifier is powered on with no load it can blow the output transistors in the amp.

 

Never thought of that...the amp probably went when the speakers blew...guess I'll comb the auction sites to see if I can find one...Thanks!!!

 

I hate to see you start throwing money at it, if you are not certain which parts you need. If you have blown both subs, the subs could be shorted out inside which would ground the amplifier, shorting it out. You may want to try disconnecting both subs, so that if they are shorted they are out of the circuit. Then connect a known working sub to the one output on the amp. If the amp is any good, it should power the sub. Those amps have a few seconds warm-up time, so give it a minute or so to see if it powers up. I have single subwoofer from a Fiero that I use to test amps. The Firebird and Fiero use the same amplifier. The thing sounds like crap, but it will rattle and thump, so I know when it is getting power. If you have no speaker outputs in the rear of your car, you may have other problems with your system. I am not sure if the speakers will continue to get power if the subwoofer amplifier is bad? The radio has basically two channels, left and right, that are divided into four outputs, (4 + an 4-) for front and rear fade control. All 8 output wires enter and exit the subwoofer amplifier. The subwoofer amplifier has a low pass bridge filter inside, and it basically screens the bass signals out, amplifies them and sends them to the subs. It is a pretty crude system, and was probably designed the cheapest way that Pontiac could make it work. If my car was not a show car and I was not trying to keep it totally stock for that purpose, I would scrap the Performance Sound in a heartbeat and go aftermarket.

 

Right now there are two 12" subs/enclosure in the rear and two 6 inchers in the sail panels hooked up to the "top" speaker leads...a Pontiac Monsoon H/U powers these and two dash speakers.

 

Has the system ever worked with the currect speakers and subs?