Mach 460 question

[jspear351]

I just recently bought a 98 Cobra. I love the car, it is everything I hoped it would be. The Mach 460 stereo is very good, but I really want to change the head unit to an aftermarket deck with MP3 capability. I have heard that you cannot put an aftermarket deck into that system and I have heard that you can. I put an aftermarket deck into my 98 Contour SVT and kept all of the factory amps working with it by using a deck with amp pre-outs then just clipped the small square plug with all of the speaker leads (assuming that the 460 uses the same plugs as ford premium sound package) and wired male RCA plugs onto the speaker wire so that my stereo was send a low level signal to the factory amps. Would this work? And if not does anyone have specifics on what will?

 

[97rioreddohc]

I have an Alpine CDA-7892 in mine and everything worked great, I think the only time you'll run into problems with the factory amps is when you start changing out the speakers themselves, atleast that is the only time I ran into problems, I later installed Alpine SPR-176A component speakers in the doors and tried to wire them directly off of the stock locations without using the cross overs that came with the spkrs, well the factory amps could not handle the spkrs so I ended up having to wire the spkrs directly off of the deck and having to use the crossovers that came with them, if that makes any sense.....

 

[seattlesweet]

Go to your local car stereo place and get a aftermarket to ford mach 460 wiring harness, it should not cost more than $30 maximum. The only problem is that the factory head unit puts out a lower preamp level than most aftermarket head units so you have a chance of getting distortion or worse blowing the input of the factory amps, one way to avoid this is buying a adjustable preamp send cable, it will have small adjustible controls for the preamp level and you will be installing it just after the aftermarket head unit and before the aftermarket to mach 460 wiring harness, after you get it togather you will need to turn the aftermarket deck up to about 80% of full volume and adjust the preamp send cable till you get no distortion. I hope this helps