alright stereo experts i need help

i have a brand new nautique 211TE that i just bought, from the factory it had:

Polk MMC 650 cabins
Polk MMC 650 Deafcon III tower speakers
Polk sub
Clarion four channel amp
clarion two channel amp

the towers ran off of the two channel
the sub ran off of one bridged four channel
the rear cabin speakers ran off of the other four channel

I removed the two clarion amps, and replaced with my Kicker amps out of my supra. equipment is:
1 kicker zx400.1
1 kicker sx900.4

i am running:
sub off the mono amp
the sx900.4 has two amps (lets call it amp 1 and amp2)

amp1: the tower speakers on their own channels
amp2: the 4 cabin speakers sharing the other two channels

the sx900.4 is overheating, i noticed that on the nautique the factory wires from the cabin speakers run like this: (when i say front i do not mean bow speakers)

left front and left rear parrelled somewhere besides the amp connection


right front and right rear parrelled somewhere besides the amp connection

another words the amp connection points for the two speakers on either side are only one pos and one neg, no parrelel at the amp which i assume would represent a 2 ohm load. i think something fishy is going on with my cabin speakers that is overheating my amp (this amp never overheated in my supra and is in the same location. should i re-run the wire from each cabin speaker and run in parralel at the amp?

I would also like to know the best place to fish a y adapter for my ipod from the head unit to the drivers side for permanent mounting on a nautique.

any help is appreciated the boat is on the lift and i do not want to pull it out to take it to my local stereo guy.

Check yoru speaker connections...the amp could be seeing a 2ohm load, or possibly an 8 ohm load (series) , both of which may cause it to overheat. What is the gain set at?

But I've seen quite a few amps that claim to be 2ohm stable but in "our " environmetns don't fair to well. We're you running this amp in 2ohm stereo in your supra? Not to be an smarta** but yrou amp is not in the same location...it's in a diff. boat. I'm going thur a similar ordeal. I have an amp that used to overheat in about an hour in my boat...sold to a friend in his boat ( same general location) and he has no overheating issues???

what voltage are you seeing at the amp? low voltage can increase current draw which will increase heat.

Last but not least look into an aux. cooling fan if all else fails.

adam it is 14.4 volts from what i can see the sx amp is totally digital readout. I was running it at 2ohm load on the supra meaning the front left and rear left cabin speakers were wired individually and then twisted in parralel together at the amp. how would i get an 8 ohm series load?? I thought if it was a 4ohm speaker ran with another 4ohm speaker that it equtes to two ohms. gain is digital and set as it was in the supra.

Gary, if you wire two 4 ohm speakers in series you'll get an 8 ohm load. Google search "series car audio wiring" for pictures.

soudns like voltage is good, if you haven't touched the gains you can rule that out.

double check the wiring off your cabin speakers. Make sure they are wired in parallel. Most car amps dont' like to see an 8 ohm load....even though it's the "flip" of a 2 ohm load.

Your amp is overheating do to improper ohm load. IMO you should not add fans to "fix" the problem. Correct the problem and add fans just to help out the long term life of the amps, the cooler they run the longer they last. But if the amps are overheating by themselves, they need to be wired properly. Here is what you need to do:
1. Get a wiring schematic from nautique to find out where the splice is made.
2. Find out what ohm the speakers are, it should be stated on the back of the speaker itself.
3. Find out at what ohm load the amp operates most effciently.
4. Wire accordingly

Your amp should MORE than push the speakers you are using.

alright i have a wiring schematicfrom nautique, i would like some help understanding it. it seems all of the wires run into this 12 pin connector then into the amp. i want to know more about why they go to this connector?? the speakers are four ohm speakers, and the amp runs stable at 2ohms.

anyone that can dignose this diagram? should i just ditch the stock wire and replace with new for the cabin speakers or would i have to do the towers also? I did not wire the boat like my supra it came from the factory so i am flying blind here.

Upload UpgradeStereoWiring.pdf (31.9 k)

Looking at the schematic:

"Tower speakers connect to amp 1 with front cockpit speakers"

This statement alone tells me enough to start tearing into the factory wiring.

There are two pairs of wires to the four Polks on the tower which means they are wired in parallel, 2 ohm load.

There are two more pairs of Polks in the cockpit, another 2 ohm load.

Your 900.4 doesn't like the 2 ohm loads, it may in part be due to weak power wiring or poor orientation for mounting of the amp causing it to collect heat instead of dissipate heat.

If it were my boat I would put the Clarion 4 channel back in to run the cockpit speakers. Then I would rewire the tower so the speakers were in series and run them to the 900.4 bridged to two channels (putting it at design load instead of max load). This will definately require additional power wiring but the end results will be significantly better versus what you have now. You also need to enable all crossovers and direct the appropriate signals to the speakers. Run everything but the subs in highpass at 100hz, run the sub in lowpass at 80hz. This will allow you to push everything harder without getting distortion.