So has anyone installed an aftermarket head unit in the RX-8? The main thing I am looking for is how have you overcome the harness (or lack-there-of) problem.

 

 

nobody talks about the harness solution

 

The only way to do this as I understand it is to send the factory head unit to the trunk of your car and extend something like 54 wires back there since the HU is integrated with the heating/AC. A good friend of mine is an installer at Car Toys, he did this on one RX-8 and said that the work is sooooo extensive they won't do anyone else's 8 again. Good luck finding someone to do this for you, I hope it works out.

 

Been discussed several times... Search.

http://www.feast-power.com/rsf/parts/rx8_audiokit.htm

 

How and where do we get that kit? When I go to the website it doesn't display in english. I will search for it here but if you know info about it please post it here if you don't mind.

 

Figured it out. Seems like it is alot of money, and hard to communicate with a company in Japan. I hope thew can figure out something along these lines.

 

As far as I know, you will either send in your OEM headunit surround piece (faceplate) to them and they can modify it to be 2DIN (as shown in the Feast website), or pay them extra for them to buy the faceplate and do the same modification. The cheaper route will be to send in your faceplate instead of them having to buy the piece. The downside of course will be that you will not have the faceplate in case you want to go back to the factory headunit.

The factory headunit is integrated with the climate control, so it is not as simple as taking it out and swapping in your aftermarket unit. Unless you know which 'chunk' is the part that take cares of the fan speed/temperature settings, you will have to keep the entire piece somewhere in the car. Regarding about placing the factory headunit into the trunk is not gauranteed that your climate control will work afterwards. Extending the cables so that it reaches the trunk is tricky. The resistance created by the extension of cables will create problems and may render your entire climate control inoperable. The best solution I know is to either place it near the passenger footwell area, or knowing which circuit board controls the climate and dumping the rest so that you can push it as far back into the factory location.

I can be wrong, but that is what I have gathered from reading and researching. You should give that a try sometime.

 

I have actually ripped out the head unit, here is the best I can do to describe what it looks like:
Absolutely, the A/C and heat are integrated... The fan speed selector has its own plug that is separate from the stereo blah, blah.
The mode and temp selector are integrated to the stereo. Here's how:
There is a 10 or 12 wire connector on either side of the circuit board and there are corresponding plugs for these coming out of the faceplate from the climate controls.
The circuit board is integral to make the whole climate control and display work.
What would be easy is to relocate just the circuit board to get it out of the way, route out the faceplate, remove the CD unit, new HU w/ a harness. Done.
However, on the circuit board there are fins that fit into some slots on the box that is below the CD player. Which puts the circuit board right in front of where you would want to put a HU.
The climate controls and display DO work without the CD player unit.
So here is my theory:
Move it all to the trunk, making sure the circuit board and "brain" are connected. Run all those wires back to the console. The lynch pin is the harness. I need to find a harness that will work.
I will add some pics later to better illustrate this.

 

Where?

 

where