I knew from the moment I bought my 06 GT that the shaker would be history soon after, but I wasn't sure how quickly or how much I wanted to spend right out the gate, so I figured I'd share what I learned, and perhaps make things a bit easier for someone else.

Right out of the gate, I wanted ipod & sirius capability so I settled on an Alpine 9857, but as long as you get a decent deck you should be fine. I also had an infinity 10" & RF 350.1 amp lying around, so I wanted to try and use those.

Next question was amps or speakers or both? I had read many folks saying they had great luck replacing the speakers and using the stock shaker 500 amps, but I wanted get a great sounding system. Not show quality, but great SQ. So, I did a ton of research, talked to some stereo shops locally, and thought I was going to go with Zapco or JL for the amps, Zapco front components, treo for the subs. Then I did a bit more research, and found out that the front speakers in the shaker are 6x8 panel with a 3 or 4" mid and tweeter, and the 8" subs in the doors. Lucky me, the 8" subs are DVC subs, so you can wire them however you want. After finding this out, I decided to go back to my local Zapco dealer, and have another chat. he suggested if I'm going full out, get the Zapco amps and dynaudio 3 ways. Or, if I didn't want to spend 1300$ on the three ways, get the amp first and try it out. Lets just say that now I can spend my $1300 on the suspension instead. I bought the DC360.4 Zapco digital reference amp. I like the fact that they are engineered and made in the USA, have a 3 yr warranty, and have some impressive heritage. For all you computer geeks, it has an onboard parametric EQ which is adjusted via USB port on the amp & your laptop. All crossovers, eq, everything is software based. Considering the price of a standalone EQ, this things is worth it's weight in gold. Oh, and it's 1/2 ohm stable too... Anyway, wired this baby up over the weekend, and it f-ing rocks. I would never have guessed that the stock speakers would sound this good.

So in a nutshell:
Zapco is driving the 4 channels in the doors,
Rockford amp driving the sub
Rear deck speakers are unhitched, since they don't matter when it comes to listening.
4-guage wire to the back, punched through an existing grommet in the passenger side footwell, comes up right underneath the battery.
Relay used to wire both amps to the remote turn on.
Both 8" ford sub amps are in the drivers kickpanel. Right one is cake. Left amp is jacked way up inside, and doesn't give you more than 3 inches of wire to work with.

If anyone wants pictures or has any questions, let me know. I'd be happy to help. Also have the wiring colors for the 8" door subs if needed.

Craig

Thanks much to Sideways Autosound in Austin,tx

 

I'm interested in the subs' wire colors for left/right & positive/negative

Thanks,
Steve

 

Right sub --

1 White / Light Green +
2 Dark Green / Orange -
3 Light Green / Violet +
4 Light Green / Orange -

Left Sub --
Orange / Light Green +
Light Blue / White -
Dark Brown(or blue) / Yellow +
Light Green / white -

Wired in series gives a 4 ohm speaker (or in my case each voice coil was 1.7, so it was about 3)
For example on the right sub:
wire 1 to + of amp
wire 2 to wire 3
wire 4 to - of amp

 

Thanks! That'll save me some headache down the road... Much appreciated.