My 97 Protege Install

Car stereos always seemed to be a big pain with all the wires that hang out of the back. Once you seperate (All) the speaker wires there is really only 3 or so left over! After looking at these wires and wiring on the harness this is cakewalk people. The hard part is running the wires for the amp etc..even that isnt tough on a 97 protege.

Unplug Negative battery cable.

Remove Ash tray and look in the empty spot. There is a phillips screw screwed into a mounting braket. Remove this screw.

On a 97 Mazda Protege there is a black trim around the stereo/AC control section. Use two thin butter knives and gently pry the trim away. Work both sides from side to side and top to bottom. Switch sides and directions. If you try to remove one side to hard it may crack. Once you loosen it up enough you will hear a snap, Simply remove housing, remove lighter connector plug.

Now you will see the stereo. On the left and right side there are small black covers. Use your fingers and try to feel the outer edge of each side. You can simply pull these covers off. Once you do that you will see two holes on each side. You need a special tool called a DIN Tool. (You must use this, dont try and use any other tools!) If you dont want to buy one then go to your local circuit city, pull around the back and ask one of the stereo guys to remove it for a couple extra buck$. Once you use this tool you can pull the stereo out and unplug it. Plug in your harness you bought and seperate all the speaker wires and you will notice there really isnt much left! Amp wire, Ground and Power, Accessory..Use what ever connectors you want. I connected the speaker wires first. I color coded everything fro easy removal if needed later on. Then I matched power to power, ground to ground. etc..Turn on car and see if stereo works. Make sure you check that the accessory is working properly and that the unit shuts off when you remove the keys!

Installing Power Amp:

Remove Battery

This is easy too. I spent $43 on a AMP Installation Kit from Circuit City. This came with all the wire I needed and a fuse, fuse holder etc.. The battery is on the Driver Side. There is a small rubber cover (plug) on the firewall. The easy way to see this is to look at the bottom of the battery from the negative side then turn your head towards the firewall. it's a black Circle just sitting there. Then go into the car and look (use a flashliight) above the clutch pedal you will see the same thing. Go back to the engine area and use a knife or wahtever and punch a hole in this. Run your wire, pull it through. I ran mine on the Drivers Side Door to the back of the trunk. It was super easy. The back seat of 97 Protege's have a push button on the top and after pressing it you can pull the seat down to reveal the trunk! Simply lay your wire there making sure nothing is pinching.

Another cool thing about these Amp install kits is that they come with a bad ass fuse and fuse holder that you can mount on the firewall. It came with one screw.

Take a look at where your battery sits, look towards the firewall on the drivers side. There are a few small holes you can use. I simply mounted the Fuse Holder and used the one screw that came with it. I then went back into the car and Ran the RCA Cables through the center of the car. My Sony Stereo's RCA Outputs were on the left side so I had a problem before when I tried to run the RCA Cables on the passenger side because the stereo wouldnt fit all the way into the dash. After running the cables on the left side of dash and through the center the stereo fits in fine and it's perfect and keeps the noise level down. I ran the reciever amp wire on the Passengers side all the way to the trunk. With this setup I have all wires seperate and a clean install. I connected the Ground Wire to the Trunk Area..There's all kinds of spots in there for it. I then connect my AMP and my 2 12' Cerwin Vega HED Series Subs and Kenwood 400 Watt 4 Channel AMP. f**king Pounds! and it looks clean.

Hope this helps,

Blacky