Has anyone on the list ever swapped out a stock Pioneer headunit for a Nakamichi headunit? All the plugs are the same and it seemed to work except for the sub stopped working. If this is a known problem I'd like to avoid the trouble shooting.

My original head unit sounded real bad only when the listening to the radio. That problem is gone with the Nakamichi head unit but now the sub doesn't work. It could be a few things. I didn't get one of the plugs all the way back in, I killed the sub amp or maybe the Nakamichi sub output is such that it doesn't trigger the original sub amp???? Do any of you guys have any ideas or thoughts????

The Pioneer head unit is from a '93 SC300 and the Nakamichi head unit is from a '92 SC400.

Thanks,
Justin

 

upgrade to aftermarket.

 

I will be in the near future. I just want to have decent tunes until then. I'm getting the Eclipse double din AVN 5435. I'm slow and hopefully methodical on my projects. It's too bad someone doesn't make a dash kit for our cars. I'll be taking care of that first. My plan is to gut one of my radios and fill in the faceplate holes to make a blank faceplace and go from there.
Justin

 

The first difference is that the Nakamichi system only uses one amp. So, my thought is that by putting a Nak head unit into a Pioneer system, one amp in either not being powered or is not receiving any output signal since your Pioneer setup uses 2 amps.

 

In the wiring diagrams I was looking at it appears that they both use seperate amps. Or maybe they just make it look that way for the sake of the diagram???

On the Nakamichi system are all the speakers different or just the sub?
Justin

 

The entire system is different. When you say "different" speakers, do you mean brand? Because that one is obvious. Sizes & placement stay the same.

What do you mean seperate amps?
The Nak system feeds from the HU, to the NAK amp which is located by the gas door emergency pull cord (right hand side, under the CD Changer.
The Pioneer system uses 2 amps (don't know locations). 1 for seperates and 1 for sub

 

I haven't compared the speakers but I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me they were the same other than the sub. What are the brands of the speakers. When I was talking about seperate amps I meant physically apart from each other. I need to check but I think the sub amp on the Pioneer system isattached to the rear deck. I'm not sure were the F & R speaker's amp is at but I think it is under the CD changer as well.

Keep in mind I've only had my SC for a little over a month and swapping the head units was the first time I've turned a screw on it. I have lots of plans for it in the future but have just been really busy recently. I was actually planning on going aftermarket sooner but the stock system sounded better than I expected it to so I wasn't in a big rush to do that.

Since you seem to be real familiar with these systems do you know if the wiring is in the harness for both the Pioneer & Nakamichi?? So if I found a Nakamichi amp I could just plug it in and install the Nakamichi system sub that I already have. Then I would be sitting pretty good except for my F & R speakers wouldn't be quite as nice as the Nakamichi system speakers??

Justin

 

The speakers you have with the Pioneer system are all Pioneers. The Nak system are all Nakamichi. That much I can guarantee you. As for the harness, I dont think so as the HU's are different as well. Externally, they look the same, but they are different. Since you have swapped out to a Nak head unit, with the Pioneer harness there.....I think that is the root of the problem. I don't have any fact to back this up though. Only a theory right now as I cannot confrim that the harness is in fact different for both systems.

Going forward......what I did, since I wanted to keep everything looking stock but still improve quality, is replace all the speakers. I also had to buy a replacement NAK amp since mine blew. I took out the original 8" sub and replaced with a 10" JL Audio, replaced 4.5" rear deck lid speakers with 6.5" MB Quart, replaced 4.5" door speakers with 4" MB Quart. I did leave the Nak tweeters in the door pillar though. Sounds 100 times better!!!

Here's the link to my gallery and you can see some of the install pics of the JL Audio Sub. Hopefully in the next week or so I will get the pics up of the rear deck and door speaker install. (Just finished the doors this past weekend)

 

From what I've heard, the speakers are not Pioneer/Nakamichi specific. To convert over to Nakamichi, you would need to replace the headunit, the amplifier, and the subwoofer. The subwoofer amp fo the Pioneer CD system is located in the rear deck. You merely need to redirect that wire to the trunk where the Nakamichi amp lies. I believe the wiring harnesses are the same, but I could be wrong. An expert will need to chime in.

Scott

 

mkorsu: I don't think your link made it through. I'm real interested to see your install. I've got a couple of questions for you. When you sau you got a new Nak amp...you mean you purchased a new unit from a Lexus dealer right? I've got MB Quart speakers in garage that I was planning on using. 4's & 5.25, F & R respectively. I purchased them for my GT-S Corolla before it was totalled. For the 6.5's did you have to cut any metal? Did you enclose the JL sub or leave it open air? Did you have to cut metal for the JL sub to go in? The more I ask the more I want to see your install. It sounds pretty nice.

I was really surprized at how good the the speakers in the rear deck sound sharing the same air space. It's obvious they spent a lot of time matching everything together.

My hunch on the harness is that the harnesses are all the same. That is based on dealing with other Toyotas in the past. I think the Japenese are so into being efficient that they figure it's more economical & efficient to add a few extra wires to the harness than to try to have multiple part numbers bepending on whether the car is Auto/Manual, Nak/Pioneer plus any other options they might have. Just with the tranny & radio would require 4 different wiring harnesses. I'll try to confim this the next time I get the chance to look closely at my car. It's a SC300 MT and I have access to a SC400 harness as well. '93 & '92 respectively.

Thanks for all the feedback so far, this has been real informative for me.
Justin

 

Thanks Justin!
Lets try to gallery link again, in case you didn't find it on your own. MInd you, it's not a ton of pictures and it's pretty much just the beginning of the sub install.

https://www.clublexus.com/gallery/sh...0/ppuser/25727


Thye Nak amp I purchased was used and I bought it from a member here on CL. You DO NOT want to try and get replacement stereo stuff from the stealer!!! Ready for this....When my stereo first started crapping out (before any changes were done-everything was OEM), I thought I was losing the HU. So, I talk to my neighbor, who is a parts manager at a Toyota dealership and ask him to price a new Nak HU. This will sound unbelievable, but he told me $2000!!!!!! WTF?? He even looked into a refurbished unit...$600!!!! No F'n way!!! Needless to say, I didn't look down that avenue when it came time to replace the amp.

For the MD Quart speakers, yes, had to open the stock openings more. The OEMs are 4.5" I believe, so to go to 6.5" required the holes to be widened. Also, the rear deck lid has so many kinks, bumbs, creases, etc, it becomes impossible to get the speaker to sit flush. I currently have them mounted directly to the deck lid, but I have already cut out wood baffles to use to lift the 6.5's and ensure they are sitting flush. Right now they must be very slightly tweeked in there. Under full volume I get a bit of......don't really know what to call it.....PPFFVVVVVTTTTT....that's the best I can call it. Make that noise and that's what I hear. Only at certain frequencies....which indicates to me that the woofer is slightly out of round. Gotta get this project done in the next week or 2!!

You'll have to do some more custom work for the MB's in the doors. I found it out the hard way. I had mistakenly believed the doors were 4", but they in fact were 4.5" or 5"! So, my new speakers were too small for the enclosures in the doors (You'll find that the doors already have ported enclosures there stock! ) So the Jesse James in me fabbed some sheet metal gaskets to reduce the size of the opening and had new mounting holes. Those I did last weekend and I am VERY pleased with the outcome!

Now, the JL sub. I went with the discontinued model, IB4, which is free air. So, no enclosure there. Plus, if you are using the stock sub location, there is NO way to enclose it anyway as our gas tank it directly behind the rear seat and the sub practically sits on top of the tank! I ended up finding that my car, 92 SC400, had an 8" sub in it , confusing I know, but that's what it had. So, in order to get the 10" in, I needed to widen that hole and make a baffle for that one as well. Much more complicated than the 6.5's since the rear deck is shaped around the size of the original speaker and that prevents the 10 from sitting correctly (or at all for that matter).

The reason I went and changed everything in the first place is that the rear 4.5's were blown, then the fronts started to go. Plus I wanted a little more bottom end but I didn't want to go with an insane setup (been down that path before back in the late 80's early 90's and the hearing is kinda shot ) End result now......Fantastic sound and entire thing looks absolutely stock, and no changes in the trunk at all.


Scott,
They are specific, at least on the Nak setup. Every speaker I removed was a Nakamichi speaker. I haven't worked on a Pioneer system but in the classifieds section I see the stock Pioneer sub up for sale often along with F/R speakers. That would indicate to me that they are in fact brand specific.

 

Ok thanks for clearing that up. He wouldn't need to swap out the speakers though, as they are the same impedence.

Scott

 

Correct. The only differences I could even think of there being would be power handling and sound quality. And I'm sure the sound quality is not really discernable to most users.

 

what is the impedence of the stock nackamichi speakers? Also, is there a seperate Xover for the front mid and tweets? Thanks.


Dan

 

Fairly certain the 4 inchers and the tweets are all 4 ohm. The Nak sub is 6 ohm though.