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Goal: I wanted a backup camera on my 4C. The Pioneer foldout screen unit that other forum members have paired with backup cameras seemed like a nice display option so I purchased both Pioneer head unit AVHX7800DT and camera NDBC8. While I was at it, a navigation system seemed reasonable as I have a horrible sense of direction so Pioneer AVIC V280 was added to the cart.
Background: My car stereo experience is limited to tinkering with my parents’ cars decades ago in my late teens when lack of funds precluded other options. As such, there is no chance that I would have been brave enough to carefully disassemble / tear apart my still new car in order to install the equipment except for all of the extremely useful information kindly shared on this forum by Docron, prophizee, kmarei and others. I hope that some will find my write-up of what went according to plan, and what did not, helpful.
Disclaimer: As stated above, I have no real qualifications to tell anyone how to do anything to their car so please take what I say as a general guide, at best. As always, proceed with care and caution. If anyone sees something below that makes me a danger to myself or others, please let everyone know.
General note: Removing the passenger seat would likely have made my life a lot easier. Live and learn. http://4c-forums.com/15-interior/7218-seat-elevation-adjustment.html
Alpine head unit removal: After removing the faceplate, the black rectangular plastic trim piece pulled off without much effort. I found the “keys” to release the head unit from the mounting sleeve in the box for the faceplate. Problem #1: I had a heck of a time releasing the head unit. It took multiple attempts before I was able to get the keys to free the head unit, and I am still not sure why I had such trouble. If I were to do it again, I might have an assistant put the keys in while I pushed the head unit out from behind as there is not much to grab onto on the front of the unit once the faceplate is off. It is also possible that I had trouble because some wires were trapped behind the dash so there was not much play in them. Once I did succeed in getting the head unit released, I had to disconnect some connections from behind before I could completely remove the Alpine from the sleeve. The Pioneer head unit is secured with screws to an included Pioneer sleeve so the stock Alpine sleeve needs to be removed by bending up the tabs which have been bent down to hold the sleeve in place.
Wiring: I purchased the Pioneer to ISO harness recommended on the forum (http://4c-forums.com/13-electronics/33689-what-harness.html). The ISO connectors on the harness plug directly into the cars connectors without alteration. However as described by others here previously, some minor work is required on the Pioneer end. All wires are color coded so one can look at the stock Pioneer harness and move things to the proper position on the aftermarket harness. Blue / white wire had to be moved one slot over, reverse signal wire was removed from stock harness and added to where the blue / white wire previously was on the aftermarket harness and handbrake ground wire was also removed from stock Pioneer harness and added to the aftermarket harness. Problem #2: I did not know how to remove the wires from the harness so reconfiguring the Pioneer end of the aftermarket harness was actually much more easily said than done. I butchered the stock Pioneer harness until I figured things out. The underside (along the horizontal long axis of the Pioneer harness) of the metal connector on the wires has a rectangular cutout (picture attached) that a lever arm on the harness fits into in order to lock the wire in place. The wires are released by using a miniature screwdriver or similar tool to depress the arm. The wires are reattached by simply pushing them back into the harness slot with the correct orientation. For equipment connections, I tapped the yellow power wire from the harness to supply the navigation and the red power wire from the harness to supply the backup camera. Handbrake bypass (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019ERHBA6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ) was tapped into the blue / white harness wire and connected to the green handbrake wires of the harness. Navigation, camera and handbrake bypass were all grounded to the harness ground wire. I made liberal use of positap connectors (https://www.amazon.com/Lockitt-Posi...?srs=2598779011&ie=UTF8&qid=1477440314&sr=8-8) as well as https://www.amazon.com/Posi-Lock-Co...?srs=2598779011&ie=UTF8&qid=1477440314&sr=8-5) that I saw recommended by Docron. The only stock wire that needed to be molested was the gray / green backup wire in the trunk, which is tapped into with a separately purchased wire (I used 16 gauge) which is run to the head unit harness reverse camera wire; more on that later. Plenty of Tesa tape (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016ZMXLEI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 as well as https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EH6IZ6Y/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ) and generic zip ties gave there all for the greater good in the wiring effort. The Pioneer head unit is a perfect fit in the dash opening.
Navigation: I was surprised how straightforward this was. I mounted the navigation unit on the top side of the passenger foot well “shelf” that the pocket with the USB and auxiliary wires are stored in (pic attached). Using Docron’s a-pillar removal DIY ( http://4c-forums.com/15-interior/24633-diy-pillar-removal.html ), I ran the TMC antenna up to the roof. The TMC antenna did not want to stick to the underside of the roof so I secured it with Velcro to the underside of the headliner (picture attached still shows it on the roof). I positioned the GPS antenna in the center of the dash (picture attached). If you ever find yourself looking skyward from the passenger side foot well of your car, you will see a gap between the windshield glass and dash (picture attached) which is large enough to pass the GPS antenna wire through. I first put a wire up from below to see the general vicinity I was interested in and then probed with the antenna wire from above until I got it to pass. A long set of pliers used from below might help with getting the wire through. TMC antenna and GPS antenna wires are then attached to the navigation unit. Navigation power, ground and plug are then run to the aftermarket harness and head unit.
The initial point of all this, backup camera, to follow…..
Background: My car stereo experience is limited to tinkering with my parents’ cars decades ago in my late teens when lack of funds precluded other options. As such, there is no chance that I would have been brave enough to carefully disassemble / tear apart my still new car in order to install the equipment except for all of the extremely useful information kindly shared on this forum by Docron, prophizee, kmarei and others. I hope that some will find my write-up of what went according to plan, and what did not, helpful.
Disclaimer: As stated above, I have no real qualifications to tell anyone how to do anything to their car so please take what I say as a general guide, at best. As always, proceed with care and caution. If anyone sees something below that makes me a danger to myself or others, please let everyone know.
General note: Removing the passenger seat would likely have made my life a lot easier. Live and learn. http://4c-forums.com/15-interior/7218-seat-elevation-adjustment.html
Alpine head unit removal: After removing the faceplate, the black rectangular plastic trim piece pulled off without much effort. I found the “keys” to release the head unit from the mounting sleeve in the box for the faceplate. Problem #1: I had a heck of a time releasing the head unit. It took multiple attempts before I was able to get the keys to free the head unit, and I am still not sure why I had such trouble. If I were to do it again, I might have an assistant put the keys in while I pushed the head unit out from behind as there is not much to grab onto on the front of the unit once the faceplate is off. It is also possible that I had trouble because some wires were trapped behind the dash so there was not much play in them. Once I did succeed in getting the head unit released, I had to disconnect some connections from behind before I could completely remove the Alpine from the sleeve. The Pioneer head unit is secured with screws to an included Pioneer sleeve so the stock Alpine sleeve needs to be removed by bending up the tabs which have been bent down to hold the sleeve in place.
Wiring: I purchased the Pioneer to ISO harness recommended on the forum (http://4c-forums.com/13-electronics/33689-what-harness.html). The ISO connectors on the harness plug directly into the cars connectors without alteration. However as described by others here previously, some minor work is required on the Pioneer end. All wires are color coded so one can look at the stock Pioneer harness and move things to the proper position on the aftermarket harness. Blue / white wire had to be moved one slot over, reverse signal wire was removed from stock harness and added to where the blue / white wire previously was on the aftermarket harness and handbrake ground wire was also removed from stock Pioneer harness and added to the aftermarket harness. Problem #2: I did not know how to remove the wires from the harness so reconfiguring the Pioneer end of the aftermarket harness was actually much more easily said than done. I butchered the stock Pioneer harness until I figured things out. The underside (along the horizontal long axis of the Pioneer harness) of the metal connector on the wires has a rectangular cutout (picture attached) that a lever arm on the harness fits into in order to lock the wire in place. The wires are released by using a miniature screwdriver or similar tool to depress the arm. The wires are reattached by simply pushing them back into the harness slot with the correct orientation. For equipment connections, I tapped the yellow power wire from the harness to supply the navigation and the red power wire from the harness to supply the backup camera. Handbrake bypass (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019ERHBA6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ) was tapped into the blue / white harness wire and connected to the green handbrake wires of the harness. Navigation, camera and handbrake bypass were all grounded to the harness ground wire. I made liberal use of positap connectors (https://www.amazon.com/Lockitt-Posi...?srs=2598779011&ie=UTF8&qid=1477440314&sr=8-8) as well as https://www.amazon.com/Posi-Lock-Co...?srs=2598779011&ie=UTF8&qid=1477440314&sr=8-5) that I saw recommended by Docron. The only stock wire that needed to be molested was the gray / green backup wire in the trunk, which is tapped into with a separately purchased wire (I used 16 gauge) which is run to the head unit harness reverse camera wire; more on that later. Plenty of Tesa tape (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016ZMXLEI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 as well as https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EH6IZ6Y/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ) and generic zip ties gave there all for the greater good in the wiring effort. The Pioneer head unit is a perfect fit in the dash opening.
Navigation: I was surprised how straightforward this was. I mounted the navigation unit on the top side of the passenger foot well “shelf” that the pocket with the USB and auxiliary wires are stored in (pic attached). Using Docron’s a-pillar removal DIY ( http://4c-forums.com/15-interior/24633-diy-pillar-removal.html ), I ran the TMC antenna up to the roof. The TMC antenna did not want to stick to the underside of the roof so I secured it with Velcro to the underside of the headliner (picture attached still shows it on the roof). I positioned the GPS antenna in the center of the dash (picture attached). If you ever find yourself looking skyward from the passenger side foot well of your car, you will see a gap between the windshield glass and dash (picture attached) which is large enough to pass the GPS antenna wire through. I first put a wire up from below to see the general vicinity I was interested in and then probed with the antenna wire from above until I got it to pass. A long set of pliers used from below might help with getting the wire through. TMC antenna and GPS antenna wires are then attached to the navigation unit. Navigation power, ground and plug are then run to the aftermarket harness and head unit.
The initial point of all this, backup camera, to follow…..
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