crazymonkey16

So, I was trying to figure out how to wire my ipod into my stock head unit, and it had a LOT more wires than the other head units that this was demonstrated on... after probably 4 hours of trying to find info online, I had an idea to figure out which wires I needed, and I think it might answer a bunch of people's questions on "hacking" their own head units. In my case, I wanted to fool my head unit into thinking I was playing a tape, and instead run my iPod through the HU. All I needed to do was find the wires that delivered the left and right signal FROM the tape deck TO the HU. To do this, I plugged everything in (with the guts hanging out, of course), started a tape playing, found the wire set that led to the tape deck, and started trying to ground individual wires to the body by shoving a paperclip into each connector hole and touching the other end to the HU. When the I ground out my white wire, the left side cut out; when I ground out the orange, the right side cut out. I made the assumption that the audio cut out because the resistance was less between the paperclip and the body than through the rest of the head unit to the body. After doing a crappy, cheap, and quick wiring job to test it, I was pleasantly surprised to find out this *was* in fact the case. Not sure if this is relevant to anybody, but it woulda been *awesome* to know about 8 hours ago... so, summing up, all you need to do is GROUND THE WIRES to the body and wait til the audio cuts out on one side.
AS a side note... I just realized this could potentially fry something if you hit the wrong wire... is that correct? If so, i guess this might *not* be the way to test things... :[

stereojnky

iTrader: (2)

Ipod capable head units are so cheap nowadays, IMO it's not really worth the

trouble. Not only do you gain a cd player, more power, and I'm sure the tuner

is better but possibly countless other features as well .

Are you are performing a restoration?

crazymonkey16

More or less... I'd been looking up info, and saw probably 15 different posts on the subject and people asking for wiring diagrams for their specific stock radios, so I figured I'd post my findings. The reason I wanted to do this to my stock unit is because the car *had* an aftermarket unit, but it was pretty crappy. I've use a lot of head units, and never really found one that the features outweighed the drawbacks... and I'm not about to spend hundreds on a head unit. I like the looks of the stock unit, too, and I hadn't found an aftermarket unit with a 5 channel EQ. *shrug* this was the closest to what I wanted.

stereojnky

iTrader: (2)

Have you looked into the 1/2 din eqs available? You could use a loc for the radio and most of them have aux inputs. This would require an aftermarket amp but those are pretty cheap used.