Well, it was a lot of work, but now it is done, and I have no regrets. The installation was fairly smooth, for the most part, and I have taken a lot of pictures along the way, especially when installing the rear camera.
Here is what it looks like inside:
NICE...post if you have any troubles with the unit. I am curious if
Pioneer
got better with this year's models.
I had installed the rear camera several weeks in advance of getting the AVIC-X90BT, and ultimately the AVIC-Z110BT.
Here are some shots of the rear camera installation. Basically, you have to contort yourself to fit in the back seat area. I pushed the front passenger seat all the way forward, dropped the back seats down, and then sort of sat on the rear console lid while doing all of the initial interior work on pulling the back trim and getting to the engine compartment grommet.
One note for anyone who is going to pull the interior of covering the interior back wall of the car...make sure you take a picture or memorize where all the little soundproofing batting pieces go, and how they are arranged. They are like a jigsaw puzzle once you take them out, and figuring out how they were arranged is pretty damn tough all things considered. I had to sit there and figure out how one of the pieces was arranged, and it took longer than just about any other step.
At any rate, you'll see in the first couple of pictures, I dropped the back driver's side tail light, and tapped into the reverse light. I put all this in a small loom, to keep it neat (I don't like seeing wires hanging out) and ran it into the engine compartment, and over to the other side (passenger) to find the engine firewall grommet to the interior. I mounted the camera directly in the middle of the license plate area so it wouldn't appear offset in the image on screen. Since I didn't have the aftermarket head unit at this point, i hooked up an LCD monitor in the garage to make sure the signal was passing correctly, since I didn't want to run all these cables only to find out it didn't work! That would have sucked BIG TIME!!
From the
next
set of pictures, I've already pulled the passenger side rear panels, and I've pulled the
BOSE
subwoofer. After pulling the
BOSE unit
, you simply pry up the main carpet foam covering, and then pull out the two smaller pieces from either side of the
BOSE
mounting bracket.
Next
, unbolt the aluminum covering to get to the wiring harness, and tap the illumination and reverse signal cables for later connection to the head unit.
You can see from a couple of the pictures, the actual grommet from which I passed through the RCA cable of the reverse camera. This thing is tough to get a hand into, unless you have small arms. I managed to run a snake through there, and then commenced pulling the RCA cable through. I made the mistake of not making the puncture in the grommet big enough, so as a pulled it, it pulled the grommet off, and through! NICE!! :hilarious:
So, now I had to stuff my friggin' arm in there and shove on this stupid grommet until it popped back in place. Not a big deal, but something I could have avoided if I'd just make the initial puncture a little larger. So, now I pulled the RCA and my illumination and reverse lead together and coiled them up (after testing again!) under the carpet until the head unit came in.
The main reason I took these pictures was to help out anyone who is having problems visualizing how this grommet deal works. It's not a huge deal, and most of the time was spent dealing with unknowns. It took me about 3 hours to do all of this from start to finish. If I was doing it again tomorrow, we'd be talking 2 hours. Definitely a time savings, knowing what you're getting into and where the stuff is at, but it is still a small space and you need to take your time, especially making sure the wiring is clean and in pulling the interior trim.
It is VERY easy to break some tabs on the interior trim if you don't do it right. There are a few articles / post on pulling the back plastic trim, so I'm not going to go into that again, but definitely take your time, and it should go just fine.
-B-
Here are the rest of the pictures from the rear camera installation.
-B-
Face Plate for AVIC
I've had a few inquiries, so here is the 411:
I did buy the ebay "kit", but decided not to use it for several reasons. The main two reasons were:
1. The coloration of their fascia just does not match well enough to the volcano grey trim of the car. It is close, but not close enough. It's one of those things that would just bug me to no end.
2. The eBay kit does not center the HU vertically in the opening. Now, this may be nitpicking to some, but again, it is one of those things that would just bother me.
Frankly the eBay kit has great mounts that bolt onto the sides of the HU, but that's about it. The fascia (plate) piece is really, really flimsy. I mean to say, you could break it if you aren't careful. It is really thin. Also, it doesn't mount, in a way that makes it really secure.
So, they took it back as a return, which was cool. They have great customer service, and are really available to help the layman with the install. But, it just wasn't my cup of tea.
So, I ended up buying the unit from Nexxia in the UK, and getting it shipped in 2nd day air. The total, with shipping was around $80 or $90. I didn't really care about the plug adapter, as you only need to tap 2 of the wires, I just did that. I'm comfortable doing that sort of thing. It would make absolutely no difference if for some reason you wanted to disconnect and go back to original. I mean, just disconnect the taps, and your good to go. The EURO antenna adapter can be had on Crutchfield or eBay for between $10 and $20.
Now, I will say this, mounting the double-din bracket that comes with the Nexia kit is not for the faint hearted. There is NO easy way to mount it in the vehicle, and it will require a bit of work. My solution was fairly straightforward. I did the following:
1. I drilled and tapped a screw through the double-din cage and the plastic wall of the Porsche console. Then I put in a flat head, allen bolt into the cage. This was step one of initially holding it all in place.
2. I noticed that there was still a little bit of droop, with the unit mounted with the one-bolt method, so I ended up lining up the unit, and putting a super small amount of epoxy on the double-din lip on the left and right sides of the Nexia cage. Holding in place for about 4-5 minutes, and it was solid as a rock. If you want to remove it later, it should pop off with a heat-gun and a small amount of elbow grease...not that I plan to ever change it back.
Once the double-din cage is in place, and I put everything back together, the fit and finish is nothing short of perfect. It truly looks like a factory fit. The color is absolutely spot-on perfect. The vertical centering is perfect. The offset of the HU is perfect. There is no gap, or overhang with the face plate and the other volcano gray pieces.
So, it is quite a bit more work, but it is less money and, at least to me, a better overall fit and finish are possible with the extra time invested.
Basically, if you want the easy pre-fab no extra work method, go with the eBay kit. If you are a perfectionist and want the absolute best finish, with quite a bit of extra work, they go my route. It just depends on the level of involvement you are willing to invest in the project.
-B-
Does that mean you'll be posting a how-to article in the 997 section of the Articles area??? :kiss:
Bump, are you going to make this an Article?
Is it possible to put aftermarket navigation in a 2005 997 with
bose
?? Does anyone did it and can share information?
In
cayman
forum someone did it without rewire the car....is it possible to do the same? thanks a lot
Did you even look at the information above, where I clearly state that this was done on my 997, with
BOSE
? Please refer to the information above.
Yes I see you did but I wanted confirmation and may be to get more informations about what and how you did it.
Porsche
dealer here in Italy told me they don't do because they are not sure all go fine and work. In a japanese website where they sell the kit they wrote it is necessary to rewire all the car with
bose
while it is almost plug and play with normal audio. In
cayman
forum one person put an aftermarket on a caiman with
bose
without rewire the audio sistem. I want to understand if I can to avoid to rewire all and if a part of the
bose
audio system can work with aftermarket navigation or if I had to change almost everything. I think all what you can say us about how you made the work can be helpfull for a lot people. Thankyou
You will not have to rewire anything. You will have to add some new wire, to support the installation of the new head unit, but no rewiring of speakers / etc. is necessary at all.
Were you able to connect directly to the
bose amp
or did you bypass the amp and install also an aftermarket amp?
