Gang,
I've decided to upgrade the stereo in my '04 Ram QC!! I can't take it anymore!! Whenever I think my sounds decent enough to get by I hop into my wife's Touareg and am blown away by how the sound is so much cleaner and staged than my truck. Plus I want bluetooth and ipod controls.

It has the 7 speaker Infinity stereo. I'm upgrading all speakers with MB Quart components, Alpine head unit, Q-Logic box, MB Quart Amp, and MB Quart 10" Sub. I plan on leaving the Infinity amp in the truck as I don't see a reason to remove it.

I've heard I need to purchase a Metra adapter ($100+!!) to install a new head unit which doesn't make sense to me. All I need to install a head unit is a 12V Batt, 12V switched, ground, and illum/dimmer as long as I'm running all new speaker cable, right?? Help me out here. I tried to find this topic in the seach but can't find a difinitive answer.

 

My 03 didn't need anything to switch out the head unit. You can use the cheapo $10 wiring adapter to wire the head unit but you can't use its speaker connections since you want to run your own amps.

FWIW, I added a sub and CD player and I'm very surprised at how good the rest of the Infinity system is. The CD player has a built-in crossover so I've cut the bass going to the stock speakers. It's a night & day difference. You can feed the stock highs with speaker-level outputs from the head unit if you want to hear how it sounds on something other than the stocker.

This is all assuming they didn't change anything from 03 to 04.

 

you dont need the harness if your able to just hard wire the head unit it. Just find the constant power, switch power, ground, the illum/dimmer doesnt work n my alpine cda 105 so you dont need that and don't forget to run the remote for your amps. I would solder your connection but crimps are fine since your only using the HU for a signal and not to power speakers.

here is my setup.
https://dodgeforum.com/forum/3rd-gen...m-buildup.html

I have alpine cda105 HU, kicker 700.5 for speakers, 2 alpine mrpm500 amps, 2 10" type R's, 6 1/2 type X components for front and type S coaxials for rear, i ran all 4g power wire, I have a capacitor just for looks haha. Then my whole truck is all sound deadened. The sub box is custom made by ME.

 

You do not need the expensive adapter for any RAM up to 2006. It is only for the CANbus system in the newer trucks ('06+).