I bought my
Cayman
a few months ago. It came with the
CDR24
and
Bose system
. It worked, but sounded dead and lacked hands free for the phone. Because of the
Bose system
I had 3 options - Use a $300 Connect2 adapter (only powers the front speakers, hard to get), Replace the amp, or go with the $650 NAV TV Kit 210. I did the math - replacing the amp correctly with even a basic 4 channel main to run the front and 2 channel kicker for the rear, mating connectors, cables and paying myself $10 an hour cleared the $650 for the NAV in a hurry. I swallowed hard and ordered the Kit 210 997 HUR kit directly from NAV TV. 3 days later it was waiting on my front porch.
The head unit I went with was a
Kenwood
DDX6903S from the scratch and dent bin at
Crutchfield
- the wiring harness had been trimmed back to about 12". That was it. Something I would have done anyway, and the head unit was reduced over $275. I also told them that I had the non-
bose
car - this triggered their system to send the dash kit, antenna adapter, and wiring harness adapter.
Tricks from my install - There's several videos on how to get the old radio out. After flatlining all modes for bass, treble, fade and balance it took all of about 15 minutes. I ran the
GPS
antenna through the firewall. There's a large grommet behind the
battery
. Remove the
battery
hold down clamp, take off the negative and slide the
battery
over a few inches - You will get a PSM error when you power the car back up. This goes away after driving a little. Using a long flat blade screwdriver I pushed the outer lip of the grommet down, put another one in behind it and removed the grommet from the car so I could work on it at the bench and cut a small X in it to feed the connector and cable through. The carpet already has a slit in it - I used an 18" zip tie as my fish tool, it pops out in the drivers foot well above the gas pedal.
Putting the grommet back in - wrap a piece of string (I used marking cord - about 1/16" in dia) all the way around the groove on the grommet and cross the ends, cut it long enough to leave enough to use as a grip. The grommet was installed with the larger lip on the inside of the car. Standing in the frunk, push both lips of the grommet through the firewall with the ends of the string at 12 O'clock. The carpet holds the grommet against the metal, carefully pull the cord - As it comes free it rolls the lip of the grommet into position.
I mounted the NAV box with adhesive backed velcro on the flat shelf behind the climate control unit. Fiber input on the passenger side, wiring harness on the drivers. The fiber extension wasn't needed. I can get the the micro USB port if I need by removing the sub and trim panel, and I'm not flexing or stressing the fiber if I take the radio out. The Metra adapter
crutchfield
sent has an error for this car - the constant power wire is the red one, not yellow as the package says. Refer to the pin out for the radio, verify with your
multimeter
or test light... You need 3 wires from this harness - Ground,
battery
, and antenna. I de-pinned the rest of the connector (I hate loose wires behind the dash...). I also trimmed back all of the unused leads for the NAV and
Kenwood
harnesses, gathered them up and put a piece of shrink sleeve around them.
Switched power needs to come from the fuse box - I grabbed a fuse tap, took out the three screws in the fuse box and routed the lead. Fuse B-9 works and is already a fairly low AMP fuse (7.5), so adding a 3 AMP fuse for the radio is plenty safe. NOTE - The NAV unit will power when you insert the key, but... If the key isn't turned to the run position it will turn itself off after about 10 seconds.
Overall - replacing the head unit woke the system right up. It sounds a lot better - knowing that the
Cayman
is a loud car to begin with and I wasn't looking to build a sound stage... Hope this helps!
Great write up.
How do you like the new NAV TV kit?
Do you have photo of the DIY install?
Sent from my
SAMSUNG
-SM-G935A using Tapatalk
It works well, sounds a lot better, and adds a phone, bluetooth, etc. But loses some of the features that come with the stock radio. The RDS in the tach now has dashed lines instead of the radio data - there's no output feeding it. When the key is inserted the radio will turn on, but only make sound for about 10 seconds. The radio will stay on, but the NAV Kit turns off - the key needs to be at least in the on position.
I took the time before tearing into the car to sit down and draw up a schematic. I had harnesses for the head unit, the NAV adapter, the existing power and ground, and a parking brake simulator. I've learned the hard way through the years - 3/4" strip on both wires, twist the strands, bend them in a U, link them, twist the U's shut, solder on the bench and heat shrink.
For the install - You need to run a wire from the fuse box, under the knee bolster, into the radio pocket. I bought a fuse tap, jumped into fuse B-9. The cover comes off with 3 Phillips head screws, and there's plenty of holders to cleanly route through - This switched power is needed for the head unit and the adapter (the instructions for the adapter mention this for the
Cayman
in a small note off to the side - it took me a while to figure it out...). For the CAN Hi and LO I had the right size pins to insert into the existing connector body - I'm a pack rat with stuff like that and hate to cut into the cars harness. So, I soldered and heat shrunk the leads, heat shrunk a trimmed zip tie in a U between the two leads, inserted them into the cars connector and electrical taped them in place.
