Installed a hardwired bluetooth music adapter in my 987.2 Cayman CDR-30

I really missed the bluetooth music streaming from my previous car so I looked into potential solutions. I discovered a product called a Tranzit Blu from a company called iSimple. This adapter is intended to be hard wired into a stereo and can either tap into the FM signal (not so good quality) or tap into an AUX in (much better quality). Luckily for us, the CDR has AUX in. There is a company online called Discount Car Stereo that sells the Tranzit Blue and will include a properly wired plug to just slot into the AUX input on the CDR-30 . Total cost, less than $100. This is what's included: At the top is the cable you plug into the back of the radio. The two RCA plugs plug into the adapter and the black connector plugs into the radio. The receiver box in the middle has two RCA plugs, wires for tapping into an antenna feed (we don't need those) and red/black (power/ground) wires. The red cable at the bottom is an optional power switch which simply plugs into the red power line. (more on this later) Here's a closeup of the cable for the CDR30 And a closeup of the Tranzit Blu adapter itself. Notice how I kept the antenna cable tied up. Again, this isn't used for this installation. The only wires we care about are the red power and black ground wires. OK. Now remove your radio. This is by far the biggest pain in the a$# of this entire project. There are plenty of guides online for how to do it. Take your time. The one word of advice I can give is that the two locking screws on the top sides of the radio can actually be turned with your fingernail. There's no way you can get a hex wrench up there (especially the driver's side one). If someone wants some pointers on how to do it, just ask me. Hey look! our radio is out! The things we care about here are. #1 that green plug at the top. That's our AUX in. But.. But... we're going to lose our amazingly awesome errr I mean useless AUX plug in our arm rest. Yep. This is going to replace that "feature" #2 there are two wires in that bottom part under the blue plug that are noticeably fatter than the others. One is a Brown/Red and one is solid Brown. The Brown/Red is a 12V power. The solid brown is a ground. At this point you will probably ask yourself "should I unplug the battery? I didn't. It's really up to you though. OK, I've hit the image post limit. Continued in the response below.

Re: Installed a hardwired bluetooth music adapter in my 987.2 Cayman CDR030 Now, if you look at the top of the wiring harnes you'll see something that looks like a hinge. This is useful. If you pull that hing down you can pull out the entire harness! makes working on the thing easier. Also, if you turn over the harness you'll see the pin out numbers! You so tricky Porsche! But Cysco you may ask, what do those number mean? well here is the wiring diagram for the CDR-30. Next step is to tap into that 12V power and Ground with the Tranzit Blu adapter. Go to Home Depot and grab some Tap Splices. These little things allow you to insert two wires into them. You then clamp down with a pair of pliers and it taps the two wires together. No splicing of the wire or anything. Super easy and clean. Just to be safe, I secured the splice with a little electrical tape, but it's probably not needed. This photo show the power splice complete and I'm about to splice the ground wires. Note: I've labeled the proper wires. Don't screw that up! At this point you can pull out that green plug in the wiring harness and insert the one provided with the kit. Put the harness back into the radio. Plug the RCA's into the Tranzit Blu and you should be off and running! If you look inside the Tranzit Blu you should see a blue light. This will confirm it's getting power.

Re: Installed a hardwired bluetooth music adapter in my 987.2 Cayman CDR030 Striking up my iphone, Success! It recognizes the Tranzit Blu! When you pair the new Bluetooth device you will probably get a prompt to download the Tranzit blue iOS/Android app. There are a couple settings you can change on the Tranzit Blu, but you need their app to access the adapter. My phone paired with the Tranzit Blu without issue. I selected AUX on the radio, turned on some iTunes Radio and success! Super clean, quality bluetooth audio streaming! A quick bluetooth phone call using the CDR-30 phone interface validated that there was no issue with phone bluetooth. so everything appeared to be working fine. One supposed feature of the Tranzit Blu is that it is supposed to switch itself off and "listen" for the bluetooth device and turn itself back on. I ran into problems when testing this. The Tranzit Blu would turn itself off, but would not turn itself back on. I wonder if this has anything to do with the iphone. If anyone else installs one of these, i'd be curious to see if you can get this to work. The solution to this problem is to plug in that power switch that comes with the kit. There's a simple plug in the red power line of the Tranzit Blu that you plug the end of the power switch into. I ran the switch wire behind the radio hole, down to the driver's foot well, then under the edge of the center console. The wire is completely hidden. The wire isn't long enough to reach the arm rest, so i'll extend the wire at some point and place that switch in the arm rest. That will probably require the removal of the center console. For now, I just have the switch down by the edge of the driver's seat. I'm pretty confident that the Tranzit blu is turning itself off fine, I just need to turn that switch on/off once to wake it up. I'm going to update my phone OS and see if that makes a difference. All in all, this is a pretty easy install and the sound quality is really good. I highly recommend this upgrade to anyone who wants bluetooth music streaming in their cayman. Cheers!

Re: Installed a hardwired bluetooth music adapter in my 987.2 Cayman CDR030 Great work my friend. Maybe the device does not power down because it is connected to the battery (red-brown) wire; which means its getting power at all times. What if you were to connect the red wire to either the white (*antenna control) or Green (wake up) which i believe would supply power only when the radio is on. * some antenna control wires are active only when in AM/FM mode -- if you decide on this wire make sure its also active when radio is in "AUX" mode. Thanks for the write-up

Re: Installed a hardwired bluetooth music adapter in my 987.2 Cayman CDR030 Hello, I am assuming this will work for the cdr-24 unit as well? Are there any updates on whether the tranzit blu can auto turn on and off without the need for the power switch? I am surprised this hasn't blown up. This is the simplest and cheapest solution for quality ad2p streaming. Thank you cysco.

Polandgreen, Not to hikack the thread, but I am in the same boat with my CDR-24 (with Bose ). I was looking at harness adapter from QuickConnectProducts.com, but in response to my interest email they told me they dont make them anymore and forwarded me to adapter by audicom.it I have email audicom asking if their adapter will allow me to connect Parrot MKi9100 for bluethooth phone functionally via cars speaker system and allow bluethooth music streaming, aux and usb in. Do you have bose as well? KM

Great post! Good instructions,thanks for sharing.

I was attempting to do this through the aux using a cheap $15 airplay adapter, no success. I in turn drove 6.5 hours back from ABQ listening to the speakers on my iphone . I really should have tossed in the $.99 headphone cable I had in my hand before I left I'll be treking down this line with you soon.

The only problem with the cdr-24 is that there is no aux input that I am aware of. That means you need to stream the music to the FM station. Therefore the music quality will not be as good. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I realized this after posting. Indeed if that is the case, there are easier options of getting bluetooth streaming through FM.

Thanks for the write up cysco. I'm adding this to my mod list and your write up is going to make it much easier. Eddie

Just a follow-up on this thread. RE: switched power, I was under the impression that the wire I tapped into for the power was in fact switched. (at least that's what my research online said) The issue the transit blue is having is that it does in fact turn off, just doesn't auto awake. Honestly, it's not a huge deal. Installing the switch is trivial and guarantees that the thing won't automagically stay on one night and drain the battery . RE: CD24, I believe this would work but you'd have to hard wire it into the radio antenna. I don't think the CDr-24 has AUX in support. You'd have to do some research to see if you could potentially replace your cd changer with this. maybe that'd work? So far this has proven to be a worthwhile mod. I don't use it every day, but have taken some road trips where it's worked out really well. It's by no means as integrated as some of the bluetooth systems that come with new cars these days, but the sound quality is really good and it does work as advertised. I'd recommend this for anyone who wants to keep their factory head unit and get music streaming that doesn't suck.

Re: Installed a hardwired bluetooth music adapter in my 987.2 Cayman CDR030 Not true, for $37 you can get a BT jack that plugs right into the AUX and power it via USB cig lighter. I've used this in a pinch and Amazon has a handful of OK units from Scotche to "new comers". Thing being I like my cars phone integration even if it's really just answering via the 4th stalk.

Re: Installed a hardwired bluetooth music adapter in my 987.2 Cayman CDR030 I recently installed a Tranzit Blu HF. It is very similar to the OP's unit, but it is intended to be either hardwared into the FM antenna (works great with CDR-24), or it can be plugged into a 3.5mm aux input. It included both wires to do this. It uses switched power and reliably turns on when the car is turned on and it senses the bluetooth signal from the phone or other device, and switches back off when the car is turned off or there is no longer a bluetooth signal present. It also has a button that controls Siri (or android equivalent) and can also skip tracks when playing music, answer or hang up calls, etc. The unit has worked flawlessly so far and the sound quality is near perfect. It is so much better than the Alpine iPod interface wired fm modulator I replaced. The only issue I had was after updating my iPhone to iOS 8 from iOS 7, my phone would only stay connected for a few seconds, then disconnect, then reconnect, then disconnect, on and on. I reset the iPhone's network settings, paired with the Tranzit Blu HF unit, and all was well again. Hope this helps someone else that might be having this same issue.

Re: Installed a hardwired bluetooth music adapter in my 987.2 Cayman CDR030 I have a question on the Tranzit Blu. I currently use a simple FM transmitter (GoGroove Flexsmart) which allows me to quickly swith between an FM broadcast station and the adapater's transmit frequency by simply hitting the correct channel selection button on the CDR-24. With the Tranzit Blu, it looks like if I was listening to an FM broadcast station and a call came in, I'd have to hold down the control button for six seconds to switch in the unit, and also make sure the FM radio was set to the correct frequency. That 6 seconds seems like a long time to hold down the button. I noticed in the iSimple youtube video , the demonstrator only holds the button down for a couple seconds before it switches, but they may have cut some time out of the video. Am I understanding the switching time/behavior correctly? Dan

Re: Installed a hardwired bluetooth music adapter in my 987.2 Cayman CDR030 Dan, This is directly from the user guide for the Tranzit Blu HF. I have not tested this out enough to comment on what exactly happens when a call comes in while listening to a regular FM station. The ISFM2351 will automatically reconnect with your paired phone when entering the vehicle. This ensures that your hands-free calls will be routed through the FM radio, or Aux input in your vehicle. In order to stream your music through the vehicle, you must first engage the ISFM2351 for music streaming. To do this, simply press and hold the control button for 6 seconds. A series of beeps will play through the FM frequency, or Aux source. Now begin playback on your smartphone, and the audio will play through the vehicle. If you would like to listen to the regular FM station, simply disengage the ISFM2351 by pressing and holding the control button for 6 seconds. Note, when “disengaged” the ISFM2351 is still connected to your Bluetooth device for hands free calling.

Re: Installed a hardwired bluetooth music adapter in my 987.2 Cayman CDR030 In preparation for a road trip next week, I installed the Tranzit Blu HF in my 2007 Cayman yesterday (also bought a set of all-weather tires in case I hit some snow). Based on numerous fine articles on CDR24 removal, all went fairly well – no real issues. I think I spent the most time trying to find a good place for the mic, and ended up with it at the top of the a-pillar. I hooked up power to the white wire, which seems to work well. It is powered when needed, and seems to turn off some time after exiting the car. I at first thought it was going to stay on permanently, but when I came back a few minutes later the unit would not link with my phone so presumably had turned off, maybe along with the interior lights which stay on for a few minutes. The phone immediately links when I open the door. I tried to tidy up the wires as best I could before pushing everything back in behind the radio, but it took a few tries to position everything OK. The Tranzit Blu comes with very long wires for the mic and button, which are way too long for my application, but difficult to shorten. I did not spend much time evaluating sound quality for music or phone calls, but the one phone call I made worked OK and I could hear my music. It will be interesting to see how the unit performs on the road.

Re: Installed a hardwired bluetooth music adapter in my 987.2 Cayman CDR030 Just adding another voice to the conversation... I installed a Tranzit Blu HF on my 2007 CS (CDR-24 with Bose) a couple of months ago. I have been very happy with the unit. A couple of notes: - As mentioned above, it does require the antenna adapter, but it's cheap and works fine. - You definitely want to use the white wire for power, otherwise the unit is powered on all the time. - There is plenty of room behind the CDR-24 to stash the Tranzit Blu and the bundle of wires. - I am using the control button; stuck it on the dash behind the windshield wiper stalk, just to the left of the console side panel. Completely unobtrusive. - Not wanting to get into a bunch of wire routing/interior teardown, I stuck the microphone between the steering column and gauges. Wedges in there and stays put. - Installation was easy and the unit worked perfectly the first time. - The bluetooth connects to my iPhone 5s very quickly; it's ready to go by the time I start the car and strap in. The unit does use the FM tuner, BUT this is not like the types of devices that broadcast an FM signal and require you to find a "quiet" frequency. Using the antenna connector, it injects the FM signal directly onto the antenna port of the CDR-24, rather than transmitting a signal over the air. BIG difference. Still not as good an aux input like you can do on a CDR-30, but very good nonetheless. iPhone note: you will probably find that the bluetooth music signal is much quieter than the cars FM radio. To fix this, connect to the Tranzit Blu and play some music on your phone. While it is playing, make or receive a call on the iPhone (you can even call your voicemail). While on the phone call, use the side buttons to increase the volume - you'll notice that the display on the iPhone shows "Bluetooth volume". Put it up all the way. I can strongly recommend the Tranzit Blu for all 987 owners who don't want to spend many hundreds of dollars replacing the head unit. :cheers:

Re: Installed a hardwired bluetooth music adapter in my 987.2 Cayman CDR030 Yeah, installed one in my 2007 cayman about 6 months ago and it works OK. The low volume annoys me a bit- any time I switch between an FM station and my phone (HTC One) I have to adjust the volume. The quality is a step down from FM broadcast, probably due to additional fidelity loss in the bluetooth connection, but on the road it is fine. Bad news is mine just died. Worked fine a couple weeks ago when I took a 2000 mile trip to the east coast and back, but now it is dead. Guess I'll have to pull the radio out and figure out what's going on.

Re: Installed a hardwired bluetooth music adapter in my 987.2 Cayman CDR030 Yay - got it working! Just had to delete the device from my phone's bluetooth list and re-establish the connection, and now it's working fine again What was odd is the log for the profile I deleted said it had last paired in April, which is clearly not the case since I used it a couple weeks ago. Anyway, working again.

Re: Installed a hardwired bluetooth music adapter in my 987.2 Cayman CDR030 Just want to make sure that those who have a 987.2 with the built-in Bluetooth, outgoing or incoming calls are still being automatically routed to the car's built-in Bluetooth even after the Tranzit is installed.

Re: Installed a hardwired bluetooth music adapter in my 987.2 Cayman CDR030 Yes.. works for me, at least with my iPhone.

Re: Installed a hardwired bluetooth music adapter in my 987.2 Cayman CDR030 Why didn't you just plug it into the C-1 fuse tap like the manual says? That would probably solve your powering issues.

Reviving an old thread here... I've just ordered a bluetooth kit to install into my CDR-30 , but as it comes the cables are not in the right pins for the CDR-30 . I'm not the best with electrics, so have a few questions that I would appreciate some help with! - Does anyone have the pinout diagram for the CDR-30 , I'm struggling to find it? - My kit consists of a bluetooth device and a microphone for calls. I assume the black wire (with gold tab on the end) is ground? The thicker red wire is the 12v + (the black cylinder is a fuse!) That leaves a thinner red wire, a white and a yellow. They must be L/R and mic, does anyone know which is which, and where the Mic goes? I know L/R go into 2/7 on block C. It is this kit: 12pin Bluetooth Music Radio Adapter Compatible for VW Audi Skoda RCD RNS 200 210 | eBay Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 12pin Bluetooth Music Radio Adapter Compatible for VW Audi Skoda RCD RNS 200 210 at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products! www.ebay.co.uk I assume I can use the tap splices to join the + and - to the existing radio connections? And the bluetooth won't stay on and drain the battery? TIA!