Wiring help reinstalling a CDR-210 post aftermarket head unit and speakers

I'm trying to replace the old Kenwood after market head unit with the original CDR-210. When I originally pulled out the Kenwood I saw two original wire harness plugs. A black one and a multi-colored blue-green-yellow. In addition to that I saw the speakers for Front (doors) and Rear where wired directly into the Kenwood. The front door speakers using what i believe are aftermarket wires and the rear using the wiring harness. The front dash speakers are disconnected at the speaker, with hardness disconnected and tweeter wires cut (no idea why). I haven't removed the door panels, but the rear speakers were replaced with Kenwoods, and the existing tweeter wires cut. So my assumption was the two harnesses just needed to be reconnected and plugged back into the new-to-me CDR, and the speaker signal being carried to the trunk amp (Nokia HiFi) and then to all the speakers. However, I'm now realizing there may have been a second wiring harness that goes into the B diagram which I see on the CDR itself. AND since the speakers after market, the Nokia amp may not even be able to power them. Can anyone A) confirm there should be a second hardness that goes in to the CDR-210 with HiFi option? The diagram shows B is Front/Rear L/R speakers. The colored harness has line outs so assumde those took all signal to Nokie amp. Additionally, the car has dash speakers, those MUST come from the amp (unless somewhere in there the Fronts are spliced to both door and dash). So does B-bank harness do anything on the HiFi optioned car? B) am I really going to regret going down this path, not that I'm concerned about the sound quality, but that it might not even be able to be rewired? And C) Can you help identify what is going on in these pics? #1 - These Front L/R wires are from the Kenwood, and are connected to what looks like aftermarket speaker wire. They lead directly to the speakers in the doors. If original harness reconnected, can these just be pulled, and I need to find the wires that lead to front as fed from the amp? ================================================ #2 - These yellow/green wires are connected to Kenwood's Rears. Were these in my missing B bank wire harness? ================================================ ​​​​​​​ #3 - This is a tough one, the blue/brownish wire is being spliced together with cut green/brownish and yellow/brownish wire, plus a single purple/brownish wire - no idea what is going on here ================​​​​​​​========​​​​​​​========​​​​​​​========​​​​​​​==== ==== #4 - The cut yellow and green wire (see #3) are cut away from the Yellow Wire harness block - why? ​​​​​​​ ================​​​​​​​========​​​​​​​========​​​​​​​========​​​​​​​==== ==== ​​​​​​​ #5 - Red/Black, solid orange, and brown - these are the only straight forward ones - they are matching to connected Kenwood, assume to just reconnect these. --- I realize that is a lot of questions - but have gone down the rabbit hole with this one and now totally lost. ​​​​​​​

I'd start by taking out the dash speakers and then do a continuity test and see what they connect to. My advice is work on just the dash speakers and get them working before doing the doors and the rear. Do you want to retain the Nokia amplifier?

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The dash speakers were unplugged when I lifted them out. One tweeter (driver side) had actually fallen out and was wired separetly. I need to follow that tweeter wire back into center console. The passenger tweeter is MiA, likely also somewhere under the dash. i was planning on reusing thr CD changer and Nokia amp, really just cause I thought it would be plug-n-play, but this Im starting to question. Especially since the rear (and likely door) speakers are higher powered Kenwoods, and unsure the Nokia is up to the task. I will try testing the dash disconnected speaker wire harness to see if it routes to thr center console wiring harness, if thats what you mean. I really hope this CDR-210 I got in mail today from eBay isnt DOA. That'd just be the kicker. hehe Does anyone know in the Hifi setup if the speakers are wired out from the head unit or from the amp? That will determine if i have to buy a harness to plug in thr B section of wires.

Quotes source post: 18672826

Well it ended up not being so simple... the door speakers were hard wired directly into the back of the kenwood with standard speaker wires. The dash speakers aren't even connected to factory harness, which i think goes to amp in frunk. The rear speakers were connected to the factory harness in center console and wired to kennewick, which makes no sense as the factory working should be wired from amp, and not the center console. the wiring colors are also totally different than all the diagrams i've found and likely because mine is an early build. so far i've only managed to reconnect the ground, the switched, and the constant power to the old connector and got the radio to turn on. oddly, it turns on with no key in ignition. Not sure if that is normal... I'm at a loss of how to continue though because i can't make sense of what they did to the original Yellow harness, nor what wire is what as the colors don't match. Or why the rear speakers are routed using factory yellow and green wires, but the fronts/ or dash are not sigh

Honestly it all makes sense. The factory audio is garbage...head unit, amp and speakers. The door speakers out of the amp r low pass only so they bypassed it. There r plenty of wiring diagrams online or in the Bentley manual to help u put it back together. Basically they powered the 4 out of the six speakers with the radio and bypassed the amp and it probably sounded better. Good luck because i think u r going through a lot of work to make it look factory and u will never turn it on.

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The Rear and Door speakers are actually also aftermarket Kenwoods. Which means it saves me having to pull the door apart which I'm grateful for. (The rears are Kenwoods, so i assuming the door speakers are too, because they ran new speaker wire to them and spliced the factory dash tweeter into the circuit (cutting away the OE dash speakers). Trust me, I have looked at every wiring diagram possible. The colored wires I have from factory harness don't match the colors of other builds (like pelicans' chart) that just makes it more of a head screw. And the part I don't understand is how the rear speaker twisted pairs that are coming in through the center console when with there Nokia 490 setup, the rears should go to the amp. And looking at that harness in the frunk it is intact. I appreciate the vote of confidence that it is straight forward, but something is just very off AND I'm new to this, which doesn't help.

I may of missed it but what year car and what factory radio option did it have? Ill try to dig into it a little.

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It's a 98 build C2 with cdr-210 and 490 amp. Not bose. I have the FSM with the full schematic of 490 wiring which I'm going off of now. The pelican Parts list of wires doesn't match (nor do the Fuse locations he notates), luckily I checked the included fuse layout in the fuse box and found also a web page with the fuse list for 1998/1999 builds vs later models where they changed the fuses a lot. Confirmed constant power is off via multi-meter. Right now I'm trying to wrap my head around why the rear speakers are wired up to the center console using twister pair Yellow/Brown+Yellow/Red and Green/Brown+Green/Red wires (see #2 pic above) - WHICH coincidently match the Yellow+Red and Green+Red wiring colors to the YELLOW Becker harness, but can't be the same. Those yellow harness wires were cut by the aftermarker installer, but I can NOT find where they went. This is what is confusing me. They should go along with factory wrapped wires to frunk. The rear speakers use those same colored wired too, but they go into the dash, wrapped in black bundled to the factory wires, then somewhere and connect to just the rear speakers (tested with battery to activate speaker). I could understand if the Front factory wires were also present, but with 490 it should only have Line out Left and Line out Right, right? Note the yellow connector cut wires do NOT match the colors of that black shrink wrap splice job. Trust me, I feel like a lunatic trying to explain this in text format, it's so much... Oh wait a minute - Am I misunderstanding the diagram here below? Is the boxed 1S7 (I think that's what it says) on the top section of the schematic ALL the negative leads for the ONE single Br/Bl from the Yellow Block and shrink wrapped together? In which case that is a factory shrink wrap splice - but why did someone cut the yellow wires away from it? Or did the factory do that? Gah I'm so confused... Still don't know where the Line Out R and L wires disappeared to.

Maybe this will help if you have not seen it. Go to page 14.

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Yes, that's what my pic above is from. It doesn't indicate however why the Rear L/R are twisted yellow/brown+red and green/brown+red - and in my center dash wrapped lines. Nor the issue with the cut away other yellow / green wires. It's like some magic they used the Line Out to the Amp, and repurpiosed them for the rear, without cutting the factory wrapping or the amp. I'm just perplexed.

Was the amp in the car still with the aftermarket radio? If not they may have used the line out (from factory radio) and tied them to the speaker out in the frunk (from amp) with a connector so the signal would travel all the way to the back? Ill study the pics and drawings when i get back home and try to figure it out.

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Yes amp intact in frunk just not used. Wiring to it looks in tact too (as least from what I can see). So this is the only thing I've got going for me right now: Current Setup Yellow Brown = Rear (R) Neg Yellow Red = Rear (R) Pos Green Brown = Rear (L) Neg Green Red = Rear (L) Pos Original Wiring Yellow Brown = Rear (L) Neg - Line Out Yellow Red = Real (L) Pos - Line Out Green Brown (and/or Brown Blue) = Front (L) Neg - Line Out Green Red = Front (L) Pos - Line Out So they cut the Yellow Brown and Green Brown wires away from the Brown Blue bundle grounds. They paired them to their red counter parts. Then cut them maybe somewhere in the dash and connected them to the factor rears wherever they came out of the amp?!?

Pull the carpet back in fhe frunk and see if they split the harness between the bulk head and plug. U can also pull the pass side plastic next to the bat and see the harness where it comes through the fire wall. Its just 1 torx scew.

So i deep dived the harness for u. Based in your first post 1. Yes but double check continuity. U can use a meter or a d-cel battery and put the speaker ground negative on the bat and tap the positive. It will make a scratching noise. If u use aftermarket speakers in the doors and the factory amp it sounds like crap because that chanel is low pass knly 2. Yellow/red is the rear/drivers + (radio to amp) yellow/brown is the rear/drivers - (radio to amp) Green/brown is the front/drivers - (radio to amp) green/red is the front/drivers + (radio to amp) Now u say these run to the back so its possible my schematoc is wrong and those greens r rear pass? Again that battery trick would tell u. 3. Factory splice 4. They r cut so the kenwood speaker grounds r seperate and only go to 1 speaker. Factory uses a common ground...no clue y? 5. Red/black 12v+ fuse b2 orange 12v+ switched fuse e1 brown ground. All of the twisted wires from the amp r direct to the speakers, this is why i think the radio to amp wires r tied into the kenwood plug and they r jumped together ubder the carpet by the amp? All of the wires under the center consol r for power/ground and signal to amp. There is nothing there direct to speaker.

The CDR-21 has speaker outs if you want to bypass the factory amplifier. Keep going I'm all about originality!! Do you have a multimeter with a continuity setting? That's going to be the easiest way to determine what wires go where. I think if you have the amplifier no speaker wires should be near the head unit they run from the amplifier to the speakers. Also to answer your question you can turn the CDR-21 on without the key in the ignition.

I think I sold you that stereo. Hope it all goes well. If you end up needing it for any reason, I also have the amp that was with it, and the original Nokia speakers.

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I think we have a winner. I pulled carpet behind the amp and found they spliced the wires and grounds into the rears that came from the amp. So if i want to use CDR-210, Im going to need to reconnect this, then rewire everything, and somehow find a way to tie the door speakers in. i also discovered a Boston crossover for doors which explains why tweeters were reused. For now i want to just remove the Nokia because the screws that hold it in are shot as the rubber mounted female threads are torn, so its just flopping around. but i can't figure out how to remove that blue plug!

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Hey! Thats funny. I had no idea what i was getting myself into ! haha

I just replaced (today) an old aftermarket double-din with a factory CR-210 (bought from eBay) in my 996 1/98 build date. Took some work to figure out what the installer clipped and so forth after I opened things up on the dash. On mine the B connector now feeds to dash speakers and the C connector (I bought one with RCA jacks on it) connects to the line outs which lead to the aftermarket amp (which I kept). The amp powers the rear speakers and pseudo sub speakers by way of a setting on the amp. I am still figuring out the doors and I think I have that solved and see aftermarket wires which in theory will connect to the wires from harness B. What I would do is take each harness, A (you've that already solved) B and C and just map to way the old head unit was wired. By the way, I bought a CR-210 just because I wanted an old school cassette player.

The "hifi" part of your question I do believe refers to an AMP option. Here's a picture I found of how they installed the hifi AMP way back then. To the left would have been a CD changer if it came with one.

Amazon Amazon Amazon Amazon Amazon

Amazon Amazon Antenna adapter

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I have a 1/98 build as well with a double din, were you able to re-use the center radio/climate frame as it has been modified, when going back to a single din......might you have a parts list to share. Much appreciated. Paul

I bought another frame from eBay. In the area above the radio I put cup holders (from Pelican Parts) and it needed the structure. You might be able to use the modified double din set up. Depends on what you have planned for the area above single din radio. The parts are in this thread. There wasn't many and depending on how the install of the double din was done you might not need any. Hopefully the installer of the double din left behind the OEM wire connectors intact and not snipped from the speaker system.

The plan is to do a GT3 delete (sure wish I bought one last year, prices have skyrocketed), move the HVAC back up and put a Conti in, Thanks for the reply.

So I think for my issue of finding how all this wiring went, I've got it all sorted now at least in where every thing went to. Thanks to everyone who took time to chime in and help, I'm going to have to make some decisions on what to do going forward but for this issue of finding the wires I think it's solved. To sum up, they had cut two random line out wires (yellow connector) and used them as Rear L and R tying into the common ground also on yellow connector. Then in frunk right before the amp, they cut the same wires from the Yellow connector and also cut the rear out wires and spliced them all together so they didn't need to rewire all the way to the rear (though odd they ran that super thin line-out wire and connected it to much thicker rear speaker wire). For fronts they ran directly from head unit with new wire to Boston crossovers in footwell. Then wired in the original tweeters and discarded the dash speakers entirely. Then somewhere connected the lower frequency from the crossover into the door original wiring and put in Boston speaker into the existing door cabinets.

I'm also trying to reinstall a CDR-210 on my 99 C2. Speakers and everything else is stock from what I can tell. It currently has a Panasonic CQ-C7413U/C7113U which is hooked up with Sirius Satellite Radio and a cable for iPod (think the old 30 pin ipod cables). I was able to take the Panasonic head unit out but am confused about how to plug in the harnesses into the CDR-210 as I don't readily see any factory harnesses. Wanted to inquire here first rather than starting my own thread as it seems like there is already an ongoing discussion. The Panasonic head unit was connected via 4 connections below: - Grey harness (white circle): per below pdf its supposed to be power lead, ground lead, battery lead, external amp power lead, motor antenna relay control lead. - What Panasonic calls a 'system up connector' (red circle) - Pre-amp out connectors front and rear (green circle) - Antenna (yellow circle) Here is also a more detailed description of the wiring for the panasonic head unit ( https://panasonic.ca/viewing/NAOT/CQ...413U_print.pdf ). These are the questions that I have: 1. As I understand it, the connections to the CDR-210 should be atenna (easy enough) and a factory harness to A and C to the diagram in the op (inserted below again for ease of reference)? Should C be a multi-colored harness? 2. I'm not certain if the installation for the Panasonic resulted in any factory harnesses being chopped off or if they just added additional wiring for the satellite radio and ipod cable, etc. I suspect that these might be the factory harnesses but not certain. Does anyone know if these may be the factory harnesses? There is a (factory?) yellow harness connecting into a red harness which leads to the pre-amp connectors (green circle below; connection also shown to panasonic unit). I believe this goes into (C) in the diagram above? Should this be a multi-color harness? There appears to be a (factory) black harness in the back which is connected to a larger black harness (blue circle below). If it is, I believe this goes into (A) in the diagram above? If it is and I disconnect can I just leave the larger black harness in the back? 3. This grey harness below per the panasonic manual sounds like it was mainly for power. Is this needed for the factory CDR-210? Do I need some type of harness adaptor to fit it into the CDR-210? 4. Does anyone have any idea what this wire is for? It was left loose inside when I disconnected it. 5. I don't see a connection for the Satellite radio at all. Any idea where this could be in the harnesses? I presume it won't function with the CDR-210 regardless? Any help would be appreciated. Not familiar with this at all. Thanks!

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You've got your work cut out for you. Are you sure you have factory speakers, did you pull the door panels and rear speaker covers off and check? From what I remember the Porsche speakers are 8ohm for the CDR-210, so wouldn't work on the standard 4ohm aftermarket head units. On my system that replaced the rear and door speakers and wired the doors directly to the Kenwood head unit, but the rears they used the factor harness to route via the frunk amp, and cut the wires there as well, .... it's not really worth trying to explain and confusing, but in your situation they probably did something similar by using the factory yellow harness to tap into the existing wiring, which you'll need to undo in order to reconnect the cdr-210. I'm still dead in the water on my project, as I need to find an amp now to jerry rig to the CDR-210. The amp will drive the aftermarket speakers --- OR I replace all the speakers back to factory (crappy) and patch all the wires, not ideal. If they cut away your factory connectors entirely you'll need to buy ones and rewire it all back to the Porsche harness. The CDR-210 uses two connect main connectors, one for the speakers (if the car didn't have an amp) and one for all the elect and accessory wiring. Then it has the yellow,green,blue multi plug which has the CD-changer, the L/R line outs, etc. Mine still had the factory connector so I cut the after marketing and reconnected the wires. Problem is the speaker situation is going to be a mess to figure out. I also found that on a 99 (early vs late build) the color codes you'll find on line, even on Pelican parts, are not right and must have changed after 99. Even the fuses used do not match.

I would check the colors on a 993 for that early car... Didn't they build them together??

Finally getting back to this project. I'm going to just rewire everything back to stock. Does anyone have wiring experience and recommend best practice for these tiny wires? I have these two little nubs of wires that are very thin, I have such little room to strip back the wire. Is there any "you should have" before I try and strip them? Plan on using solder and a shrink wrap (haven't used a solder iron in 20plus years... Also, the main Red/Black ignition power wire is spliced with a higher gauge (thinner) wire to lengthen it. I want to remove that small piece of thinner wire and add back in the right gauge. I could use a little wire gauge tool, but does anyone know for certain what gauge wire I should buy to lengthen the red/black wire?

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Follow this to return it back to factory.

Thanks, I've definitely been keep track of the wiring diagrams. My question is more of a "how to". Gauge of the hot red/black wire so I can make sure I'm measuring it right. And tips for how to splice those tine line level wires, especially with that tiny piece I have to work with.

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Um... I usually use a step-down procedure on my wire cutters, starting low gauge (large opening) then down to high gauge (smaller opening) until I find the right fit. Here's an expanded cheat sheet on repairing the YELLOW plug. Constant and Switched 12V+ power is on ISO Plug A (black). The yellow C1 plug is for LINE LEVEL output to the amplifier.

Here's a expanded cheat sheet for wiring ISO PLUG A.

Dumb question... are those little numbers preceding the color codes, the gauge in mm? 2.5mm = 14 gauge, .5mm = 20 gauge?

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I believe you are correct, but honestly I ignore that information because it's not uncommon that factory wire sizes may change with newer models like torque values and so I would use caution when striping the jackets off the wires. Again, I prefer a step down process and once I identify the right gauge on the wire cutter, I know it's correct for other similar sized lines.

Quick follow up- I think this thread is "solved!". I dusted off my solder skills and rewired the tiny line outs that are part of the yellow connector. It was hard to braid those tiny copper threads together, but got a nice solder and shrink wrapped them all up. Reconnected the antennae, the power harness and the tri-colored hardness to back of CDR, put the battery and fuses back and OMG it turns on and sound comes out! Granted I still need to rewire the frunk before the amp (to undo their solution of wiring into the rear speakers), but the line out that is currently hooked up the rear plays the radio, but that is just a 1-to-1 rewire (the the prior speaker gut nicely put connectors on all the cut wires). I have put this off for so long, and am so glad this portion is done. I do have one problem, and that's when they cut the door speakers they cut the wire SOOOOO far up to the grommet from the side wall, I don't think it's going to be possible to cut away any wire sheath in order to rewire the doors back. But that's for another day, and another thread I have open ....

Picking this thread up for one last question, whoever did the after market install cut the side door speaker wires so close to the harness i don't know how to reconnect the wire. I can't get a tool up there and that harness is so tight i can't pull the wire through more. Any suggestions how to get access to that nub (the cut green wire)?