anarchyx34

I've only had the car for a few weeks but I couldn't stand it anymore. I needed somewhere to plug my ipod in and the tape adapter wasn't cutting it. Not only did it sound like crap but the radio kept spitting it out. So I bit the bullet and ordered myself a complete setup after much research. Now I decided not to use the beatsonic adapter. Why? Well for one, cost. It's damn expensive, but the real reason is because you lose the ability to control the fader, and that was something I couldn't live with since I usually fade to the front a bit since that's the only way to have a proper soundstage in a car. I hard wired everything and it was a lot cheaper. Granted it was a lot more difficult but I enjoy doing things like this. I also subscribed to alldatadiy.com for access to all the wiring diagrams for the car. I highly suggest it.

Also, in much of the research I did I had a hard time verifying facts about the factory setup and just wanted to see pictures. I didn't come across any so I took a bunch myself throughout the process hopefully to help someone that might try and take this on. Well here we go. BTW this is for a 1998 Pioneer equipped car. The Nakamichi may be similar but i have no idea.

Here's the pile of parts


Since I now needed a new amp to power the subwoofer, I tried to find the smallest one that was still decent, or at least one that could fit in the factory location. I ended up finding this Audiopipe APSM-1150 for $75 on Amazon. It's actually smaller than the factory unit.


The center console/shift surround trim removed. This was easy. It's just held in by clips. Pry carefully starting from the rear.


The antenna cables and factory radio plugs. I had purchased the SCOSCHE TA02B 87 and up Toyota adapter which supposedly works. But it doesn't. Not even close. I didn't want to cut any wires (or at least as few as possible) but there was no going around it at this point. Turns out the only wire I used on the factory harness was the ACC wire. I decided to get the main power for the radio straight from the battery via the 8ga cable I ran for the amp since the wires in the factory harness are TINY. Since this head unit consumes a good amount of power and will be powering the door speakers I didn't want to run it off a 24ga wire. I also grounded the radio straight to the dash frame for the same reason.


I couldn't find the illumination wire in the radio harness. I think it doesn't have one. Pouring over the wiring diagrams it seems even the climate controls don't have an illum. circuit either. I went for the most obvious source and tied it into the fuse for the taillights. Kinda ghetto, yes. But the alternative was to remove the whole fusebox and access the taillight relay behind it and tie in there. That would've been a good additional hour's worth of time so I just did it this way.


Since this is a NAV radio it has a lead for the vehicle speed sensor. That was easy enough to find since the ECU is right behind the glovebox. I used an evil scotch-lock and tapped it in here.


Ran the power cable through this grommet


Things were starting to get ugly


Quite ugly indeed


Ok so now we move onto the amp and speaker wiring. Firstly move your passenger's seat all the way forward and tilt the rear up and you'll find a pair of floor vents. Remove that and here's what you find.


Here are the two connectors that will be used.


Go according to the diagram and one by one, cut the wire from the connector and attach it to your own, paying attention to polarity. Leave enough trailing from the connector so that you'll be able to rewire everything to factory easily in the future.


There' s a nice amount of room under the carpet to shove everything once you're done.


There's also the two subwoofer wires to deal with


Then just wire up the rest of the amp


If you pull up the carpet a bit there's a convenient grounding point right within reach


Then it was a matter of running the wires for the backup camera into the trunk.

First pick up your right rear headrest and lift the flap of leather behind it. You'll find this bolt.


Remove that bolt and then pull the seat away on the corner. You're not removing the seat, just bending it out of the way a little until you find this. I took the picture after pulling the center piece out. Just run your wiring through there.


This plastic strip just pops out and becomes a perfect channel for running wires


Tapping into the reverse light wiring to power the camera and give the reverse signal to the radio.


Didn't want to drill any holes but I guess it couldn't be avoided. I used a hole saw to make a hole big enough for the RCA cable and power jack to fit through, and then sealed it up with dum-dum. This camera isn't as stealthy as I would've liked.


GPS antenna under the rear window


Bundle of wiring running through the dash

anarchyx34

I mounted the hands free mic right here.This was easy to take out. Just pry gently from the side and it will pop out eventually.


After removing the 1980's cellphone hookup I wanted to run my iPod cable through here. This just pries out.


Flip it over and take out these 4 screws to separate the halves.


Run your wiring and put it back together. The bottom tray is held on by three screws behind plastic covers. The cig. lighter was impossible to plug back in without removing the cupholders. Just a warning.


As for the dash kit, i used the Scosche kit. Yes it was cheap and it feels that way. I would recommend something better if appearance is your concern. It does however fit just fine.


Tada!


Amp mounted


This unit, the JVC kw-nt3hdt, sounds excellent but if I must be honest, the factory radio and amp sounded a little bit cleaner in CD mode. I haven't really played around with the EQ yet though so I may be able to match the sound quality. I don't think anyone would be disappointed with how this sounds though .


Yay I can watch DVD's while driving (don't worry I'm not going to do that).


live traffic updates! WOOT!


And that's it. I'm pretty satisfied. Just exhausted, that was a lot of work.

RA40

iTrader: (6)

Good job...
How's the back-up camera?

anarchyx34

Works pretty good, although I haven't really aimed it yet. At first I had it installed upside down. I should probably take a pic of it in action.

dashan

Very nicely done. Is hikaru married?

1J0Z SC

iTrader: (7)

If you dont mind me asking where did you purchase that head unit and whats a rough estimate price wise. I really want one for my SC

deanshark

Damn, nice job dude. Gotta love those wiring jobs, I do. I wouldn't do it on somebody elses car though, just incase it's not right. And ya got paid to do it with all that change under the seats and everything.

1sWt2GS

iTrader: (6)

questions to why u didnt wanna go with a pioneer / kenwood? otherwise nicely done and awesome DIY

anarchyx34

I paid $599 for this head unit on Amazon. It's refurbished, but that's perfectly fine with me. I went with this instead of a Pioneer/Kenwood for a few reasons. There was a lot of complaints that the Kenwood's interface is horribly slow (which would **** me off to no end) and to get a Pioneer that does live traffic would cost a lot more. There's one other selling point for the JVC. It has a detachable face. Nobody else's does. Another reason was that this is the only head unit that can display east Asian characters. A large portion of my music collection is in Japanese so it was kind of a nice thing to have.

Apparently not. Go for it tiger!

NTRUDA

Very nice write up. I was debating on what to replace my factory Nakamichi (sp?) with. Glad you did this post because this gives me more incentive to use this setup...Much Thanks for this...

wjlevan

I am doing a double-din install too.
This DIY would have been super useful, but all the pictures are down.
Anyone have the pics still?

PureDrifter

iTrader: (10)

the OP didn't need a beatsonic because he removed the factory amp and installed a small single channel amp to power the sub instead, and ran new wires for all the speakers.

OP hasn't signed-in in almost 5 years, don't think there's much hope in getting those pictures sadly.