crazyass21

Hi everyone,

I know at least 2 people have posted on this.

There is a post that I have searched for repeatedly but can not seem to turn up yet. It has pictures of how to modify the boards so they can be stacked together. In stock form they for a "T" which is hard to hide in the dash somewhere.

I put an Alpine single DIN in my car. It is great, much improved sound. Will probably change that for a double DIN Pioneer Premier or Alpine in the next year.

I know about the kit that japanparts.com and corksport.com sell. I would prefer not to give them my $500 since this can be made to work with out that kit.

I am not concerned, yet anyway, with it looking pretty. Right now I have the Alpine just sitting in the dash screwed into the stock metal radio sleeve. That piece is not screwed in or being held by anything. I may modify the stock trim panel if I have too. It looks like japanparts.com now sells the Kanatechs kit without the control box but I don't think they are for the RX8. That is nice but still about $125.00. Don't mind spending the money on the car, but would rather it be for something else for the car. Dare I ask, but any word from Metra?

Anyone that can offer help it is much appreciated.

jstkilntim

Rumor has it that Metra will have a kit this year. Don't hold your breath.

crazyass21

Ok, I have someone at my job working on this for me. I am a salesman at a custom AV installation and retailer. A tech I work with is going to solder extension cables to the boards so that they are connected but I have flexibility about where to hide them in the dash.

I will try to post pictures when he gives me everything back. Doesn't seem difficult for those with soldering skills and the know how.

Hopefully with those two boards connected and grounded, and the temp controls hooked up everything will work. Others have done it. I am really going to need AC and defrosters soon. I am happy that the weather hasn't been too too bad.

I have to say though that I disagree with those that say it is not worth the effort. I think the stock radio is crap. I know what good sound is. Even using the stock speakers it sounds immediately better. My alpine has the high powered circuit build in, so near amp quality. The amp on the stock radio board is a joke. I really don't want any part of the stock radio in the car, taking up room or just being a basically half dead piece in the dash. But that is me, and if you can not afford to, or are too scared of breaking something than don't attempt this.

Next question once this is resolved is what's next. Sub and amp, or Speakers and amp , or just good speakers.

crazyass21

Updating. Ok scary moment. Guy that took the stuff from my radio got tapped on the gardern state parkway. He was able to keep his Forester on the road, but I am almost lost all that stuff, and he would have been seriously injured if the car had flipped or hit a barrier.

Of course as soon as I post on here we get a hot rainy day. I was wiping the windows with a rag every 2 seconds to get rid of the fog. Anyone have a car without AC? What do you do in the rain? I guess it is worse bc basically heat comes out the vents. Oh well, it will be fixed next week.

crazyass21

Modding stock dash trim?

What kind of tool should I cut it with.

I am going to reattach it to the stock radio cage with my alpine in it, and mark what needs to cut. I am only going to remove a tiny bit at a time. I will worry about filling in the holes etc later, but I need it to hold everything together. Today I am going to see if I can get "the bolt" back in just to hold the cage in place. Although it really doesn't even move with no screws in it.

crazyass21

Ok, I am almost done. I have the radio board and temperature control wires extended. The boards are back in the car and hooked up with AC and the display working.

I have figured out that I will have to split up / share wires between the stock boards and my Alpine head unit. I need to check the wiring diagram but I am thinking right now that this is just for the power and ground wires which is not a big deal.

Since I do not have navigation I am going to try to fit both boards in the top of the dash. The main radio board ( the one with the amp and tuner on it) could go under my Alpine if I wanted it to since I am using a Single DIN. However I may put in a Double DIN later on so I am going to relocate it now while everything is apart.

The only real problems I have had doing this is that it is time consuming. I did blow a fuse, but that was a quick fix once I realized that was what it was. I also put some minor scratches in the trim. I'll fix them later but be careful with yours when you are working and you won't have to deal with it later.

Basically what was done is the stock connectors that the two boards were removed and replaced with connectors that can accept the ribbon cables you see in the picture. For the temperature controls the wires were cut and extended. That is it.

I will try to get info on where the parts can be bought, and what type of wire to use from the Tech that did that part for me.

More pics to come of everything in the car.

canaryrx8

iTrader: (3)

Spoke with several metra reps today, you can squash that rumor right here as it's not going to happen. They claim there is no demand so they're not tackling it, even told my installer to "walk away" from the project. (thanks!)
So from all the searching I've done on this topic, and from taking apart my car today and tinkering anyone who wants an aftermarket radio basically has 3 realistic options,
1) give up, live with stock/blose and plan for your next car
2) keep the radio hooked up somewhere else, w/o getting the wires stretched too long as then you encounter resistance issues anyway.
3) order the kit from corksport/japanparts and then limp around walking funny afterwards since we're getting raped for5-700 bucks or a piece of plastic and a "magic box" that still doesn't give us 100% functionality sans radio. (they list several issues on their site, some of which are no brainers, some of which seem kinda' crazy considering how much the parts cost, maybe they're resolved now?).
I know this has been discussed to death, but I'm having a hard time locatiing definitive info so if I'm being captain obvious please excuse me.

So I'm going with option 2 at this point, and I'm trying to find some of threads where people have done this already. Judging from the pics there's 2 boards that have to be connected and relocated? I saw one inside the radio, is that other one the same one that's underneath the vents? I'm almost 99.9% certain I could get us our own "magic box" manufactured for about half the price (or less) if I could locate the pinout for everything. (that's just to say, the a/c deal, we'd still have to come up with a plastic piece for the dash) Can someone direct me to a wiring diagram or something that would give me what all the different wires do? I've looked all over, but with all the clutter on google etc these days so far my searches have been dead ends. Thanks for creating this thread, I'm very interested in doing this with mine, but it's very hard to locate specific details on this topic. (or I just plain suck at search criteria, which I can accept as well)

crazyass21

I don't have them on this computer, but I have pdf files of everything you would need as far as the wiring diagrams. I'll get them too you as soon as I get a chance. Haven't checked my thread in a while.

There are too circuit boards you need for everything to work. One is the main board that houses the tuner and amp chips. It sits underneath the CD drive. The CD player in the stock system looks like a computer drive. It is a separate metal cased piece that is attached to that main board with a multipin connector.

The second board is located behind the plastic face you see when you look at the stock stereo. As far as looks go it seems like it is just made to house all the buttons for the system. It also has the connectors that need to be hooked up to the temperature controls.

The only thing I need to do is get power to these boards. I do not think they need anything else, but have not tested this yet. I need to just feed them power and ground and verify that everything works. At the moment I decided I needed the CD player more than AC so the Alpine is working, hehe.

I took the cover off the top of the dash and put some foam in there to protect the circuit boards and keep them from hitting anything metal. I think I can just squeeze both of them up there. I am hoping I have room to run wires in front because my friend that did the extension to the AC controls made them about a foot long. If they were about 2 feet long they could run down the back and around. I would suggest doing it that way, as it will be easier to get everything back together without pinching wires.

Also I have seen an install were the whole radio was left together and was somehow wired back to the controls in the dash from the trunk. So people running into resistance issues may be using the wrong type of wire?

Number 1 and 3 are unacceptable to me. 2 needs to be modified because I am only keeping what is absolutely needed. I would get rid of the led display if I could but it is the only way to tell what settings the vents are on. I also want to try to get the auto temp controls from the euro parts bin and see if it works here.

Good luck and anyone with ?'s please post and pm me. Happy to help if I can.