power/ground wiring

The H/U wiring in my 93 cougar is shot.... I plan on running new power and ground wires from the battery. What would the recommend wire guage to use from the battery to the dash ? Is there a certain fuse size i should use ? anything else needed (resistors etc..) I've never had to redo the wiring for hu before, just wanna make sure i dont fry my new h/u, thanks in advance.

never run power and ground wires directly from ur battery to ur head unit. there are a million different wires under ur dash that u can use insted of what u propose to do. go to this website:      http://www.bulldogsecurity.com/.   look under vehicle wiring diagrams u will find ur car and all the wiring u need. use 12v constant wire at ignition harness for ur memory wire and use ignition 1 for ur other power wire. then u can ground the head unit to any ground. hopefully this will help you.mario

i would use an 18 ga wire like mario said from the ignition wires and make sure u use inline fuse holders with probably a 15 amp fuse on the memory wire and 10 amp fuse on the acc wire. just make sure u are using the correct wires by testing with a meter b/c wire diagrams arent always 100% accuratethe best part of a job is seeing the bumper get smaller over the horizon

what would the difference be between running power wire from the battery with in line fuse's instead of tapping into a constant power from the ignition wiring ? (just curious) Hopefully Ill be able to check it out this weekend, I had one stereo shop quote me $125 just to check it out.... (said hell no :P)

marioelchino wrote: never run power and ground wires directly from ur battery to ur head unit. there are a million different wires under ur dash that u can use insted of what u propose to do. go to this website:      http://www.bulldogsecurity.com/.   look under vehicle wiring diagrams u will find ur car and all the wiring u need. use 12v constant wire at ignition harness for ur memory wire and use ignition 1 for ur other power wire. then u can ground the head unit to any ground. hopefully this will help you.

There is nothing wrong with running power wires from your battery directly to your h/u or any other component, so long as the wire is properly fused. In fact tapping in to an existing wire is not as desirable as the fuse for it is not rated for the added stress.

Any thing below 18 gauge will be fine and remeber to fuse it properly.