Basically I'm going ahead and dropping the S/C'd 3800 motor in my car this winter, along with all the donor electronics from the Regal GS it's coming out of (ECU, PCM, etc.)
My question is this: I don't believe my Monsoon head unit with theft deterrant will work with any ECU but stock. Anybody find an easy way around this? Is it as easy as a trip to the dealership?
What year is the Regal?
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Then no... Monsoon won't ever turn on. There's no BCM in the 99 Regal to tell the Monsoon head unit to turn on.
Time to go aftermarket head unit, but keep the Monsoon amp and speakers... like I did
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Yay...yet another expense in gonna have to endure this winter (sigh)
So John...exactly how much fun was re-wiring the whole car to fully rid it of all the Monsoon junk? As much fun as I'm thinkig it's gonna be?
You want to pull the Monsoon wires out of the factory harness?
Its a pain... give it a few hours. Or I'll send you my old harness
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Aftermarket HU = a extremely good investment... the monsoon = garbage.
(stick to Alpine when you buy a new Head Unit
My Cav
I give up...
i'm buying a VW those people love trees, so they should love eachother too... "Andy"
As far as stock stuff goes... the Monsoon system is pretty good. But if you've never had it, how would you know?
I specifically put the Monsoon speakers and amp into my Cavalier (with an Alpine head unit to run it), because I didn't want aftermarket stuff taking up so much space.. plus I don't even run subs anymore... I'm old..
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John-
I didn't know you could run the Monsoon amp and speakers with anything but a Monsoon deck. On the flip side, it was my understanding that if you changed a Monsoon head unit, you also had to change out all the speakers and remove the amp.
So you just swapped another head unit in and everything works/sounds great?
you cant use a monsoon amp with a aftermarket deck. When you install a aftermarket deck with monsoon, you have to bypass the amp. Unless you figured out a way to use rca input to the monsoon amp (which iv tried) it wont work. You dont have to change the speakers, but you should. The monsoon amp has output for mid and tweet. When you install a aftermarket deck you have to wire the mid and tweeters in series. Thus bringing you a 8ohm load. Your radio wont have as much output at 8ohms, so just change the speakers. I wouldnt even worry about rears, just do a good set of fronts, and amp them seprate from the deck. You will be ok.
My opinion, monsoon systems are great factory systems. Almost as nice as the bose systems in newer gm trucks, and cady's. It sucks you cant use a ractory headunit with a monsoon amp after a swap. Because gm uses serial data to turnon the radio, and monsoon amp.
^^^ that's exactly what I was getting at--it's what I've always been told, but it seems maybe John found a way around it (?)
Now, am I correct in saying that the wires from the back of the deck/head unit run to the amp, and then there's wires going from the amp to the speakers? If this is that case, that's why I thought I would have to re-wire the whole car, seeing as how I would be taking the amp out altogether.
Yeah, I'm using an Alpine 9853 wih the Monsoon amp and speakers. So yes, it can be done.
But... you can't plug the RCA's into the Monsoon amp.. the levels are wrong, and all you get is "pop" "bang" "POP" "BANG" as you change tracks and turn the thing on and off.
I used the speaker level outputs... just used a regular Metra 70-2003 harness (of course, with the red wire to the fuse panel... windshield wiper fuse ;
). Works mint.
I have a Cavalier... so I had to ADD all the Monsoon wiring... it goes like this.... power & class 2 wires from the BCM down the driver's side of the car, to the driver's seat... then across the car to the passenger side... forward to the dash and up to the radio. From there, 8 speaker level wires off the Monsoon deck (for all four channels, + & -) run down the passenger side to the seat, then across to the driver's side.. then down the driver's side of the car to the trunk where the amp is. Then there's 16 channels that go forward from the trunk... 4 to the driver's door... 4 to the driver's rear... 8 go up to the driver's seat and cross over to the passenger side of the car... then 4 go forward to the passenger door, and 4 back to the passenger rear.
Fun, eh?
Oh yeah... from what I understand there's two versions of the Monsoon amp. One has a pink wire in the harness that goes from the amp to the deck, which is a true +12V switched "amp turn on" wire. I had that, and used the blue/white wire off my Alpine to turn the amp on and off. It's a PINK wire. The other version of the amp (apparently early 2000 & 01... but mine was 00 and was different... so.. check...) is on all the time.... no signal wire. Not sure on that one, like I said, mine had the pink wire.
Hopefully that makes SOME sense... I just woke up... heh
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