nice job man. i like it!
2002 Subaru wrx 6-disc indash installed in my car!
2
well, after trying to find a cheap CD player just to throw in my car so i can listen to my sweet-ass Techno, i gave up and i didnt want to shell out $150+ on an aftermarket unit thats probably going to eat my CD's or otherwise crap out in 2-4years, i decided to use a factory Matsushita Indash 6-disc head unit from the 2002-2005 WRX. It actually belongs to my Roommate but he has a roll-out in his car and doesnt need this. when he installed his roll-out, he cut the factory subaru harness off so thats what i used to create the radio install harness.
if you decide to do something like this, just get on electrogalaxy.com or something and find a Reverse harness for whatever donor vehicle supplied the head unit you picked. a reverse harness is usually only $7-$10 tops. i had to buy a Reverse/Repair harness for my car since someone jacked my CD player and rather than simply Unplug the harness, they cut the whole shit out. so what i did was solder the factory subaru harness to the Scosche Toyota radio harness i bought for $8 online. with all the speakers i have in the back, im running a less-than-4ohm load and the bass signal was stronger than it should be. I unsoldered the factory bass-blockers (capacitors) that are on the rear passenger shoulder speakers and soldered them inline w/ the Rear Postive speaker lines behind the CD player.
it retains the Stock/sleeper look i prefer w/o a shit load of gaudy, gimmicky lights and animations. i want an indash navigation/DVD player but $1200 is a little rich for me right now. this will do as its holds 6 CD's at once, plays Tapes (i dont think i have any anymore) and has twelve FM presets and six AM presets.
wiring was pretty straight forward. this is the pin-out i used to decode the stock Subaru harness.
http://www.geocities.com/svxdc/WRX-pinout.htm
EDIT: here is the 87+ Supra radio wiring diagram that i edited. i posted it in my other radio install thread but this should save some searching.
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since i used a genuine factory subaru plug, it didnt have the EIA color-coded wires like the aftermarket units do. so i had to decipher which wire went to the correct wire on the Scosche Toyota radio install harnesses. once that was done, it was simple plug and play of course.
as for physically mounting this radio, its not 100% factory. of couse, use your stock Radio mounting plates. the "bolt pattern" on the chassis of the Subaru radio does not completely line up w/ the toyota mounting plates. on the 2 rear screw holes on the Toyota mounting plates line up. there are no holes for the locating fingers/tabs on the TOyota plates to lock into the Subaru unit. i just screwed in the 2 rear screws and snugged them down. this forced the locating tabs on the Toyota plates to bend flat-ish. however, now the Front sides (closest to the radio face) are flared outward. just gently press them in. itll take a little finagling to get all 4 holes on these plates to line up w/ the bolt holes on the dash itself. just hold the tabs by hand as you get the screws started. but its not impossible or even really that difficult.
for the $16 i spent on radio connectors and a couple hours of my time, im VERY Happy with the form and function of this. i can pass it off as a Factory unit too since i polished off all the Subaru branding on the face plate, using Meguir's Plasti-X plastic polish
yet another way to make the MK3 evolve w/ the times and not making it gaudy or cheesy.
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it IS possible to put just about ANY double-din EIA headunit in your car. so if your friends new Civic or Accord or whatever has a nice headunit, chances are you can put the same thing in your car. im not an Audiophile so i dont need 2000watts of power and 72 speakers and 49 amplifiers. This Unit and a nice set of crisp components w/ bass blockers (maybe a single sub later) is All id ever need
if you decide to do something like this, just get on electrogalaxy.com or something and find a Reverse harness for whatever donor vehicle supplied the head unit you picked. a reverse harness is usually only $7-$10 tops. i had to buy a Reverse/Repair harness for my car since someone jacked my CD player and rather than simply Unplug the harness, they cut the whole shit out. so what i did was solder the factory subaru harness to the Scosche Toyota radio harness i bought for $8 online. with all the speakers i have in the back, im running a less-than-4ohm load and the bass signal was stronger than it should be. I unsoldered the factory bass-blockers (capacitors) that are on the rear passenger shoulder speakers and soldered them inline w/ the Rear Postive speaker lines behind the CD player.
it retains the Stock/sleeper look i prefer w/o a shit load of gaudy, gimmicky lights and animations. i want an indash navigation/DVD player but $1200 is a little rich for me right now. this will do as its holds 6 CD's at once, plays Tapes (i dont think i have any anymore) and has twelve FM presets and six AM presets.
wiring was pretty straight forward. this is the pin-out i used to decode the stock Subaru harness.
http://www.geocities.com/svxdc/WRX-pinout.htm
EDIT: here is the 87+ Supra radio wiring diagram that i edited. i posted it in my other radio install thread but this should save some searching.
since i used a genuine factory subaru plug, it didnt have the EIA color-coded wires like the aftermarket units do. so i had to decipher which wire went to the correct wire on the Scosche Toyota radio install harnesses. once that was done, it was simple plug and play of course.
as for physically mounting this radio, its not 100% factory. of couse, use your stock Radio mounting plates. the "bolt pattern" on the chassis of the Subaru radio does not completely line up w/ the toyota mounting plates. on the 2 rear screw holes on the Toyota mounting plates line up. there are no holes for the locating fingers/tabs on the TOyota plates to lock into the Subaru unit. i just screwed in the 2 rear screws and snugged them down. this forced the locating tabs on the Toyota plates to bend flat-ish. however, now the Front sides (closest to the radio face) are flared outward. just gently press them in. itll take a little finagling to get all 4 holes on these plates to line up w/ the bolt holes on the dash itself. just hold the tabs by hand as you get the screws started. but its not impossible or even really that difficult.
for the $16 i spent on radio connectors and a couple hours of my time, im VERY Happy with the form and function of this. i can pass it off as a Factory unit too since i polished off all the Subaru branding on the face plate, using Meguir's Plasti-X plastic polish
yet another way to make the MK3 evolve w/ the times and not making it gaudy or cheesy. 
it IS possible to put just about ANY double-din EIA headunit in your car. so if your friends new Civic or Accord or whatever has a nice headunit, chances are you can put the same thing in your car. im not an Audiophile so i dont need 2000watts of power and 72 speakers and 49 amplifiers. This Unit and a nice set of crisp components w/ bass blockers (maybe a single sub later) is All id ever need
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2
Night shots... i forgot that the Subaru stuff used Red/orange back lighting. im not sure i like it like that. id rather it be stark white, like my Climate control is... but whatev.
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my Climate control isnt in the car yet, still waiting on my replacement LED. ill get a shot of it all installed once that gets here in a few days.
On an interesting side note... there were alot of bugs to work out in my stereo. i never knew if everything (speakers, wiring, connectors, enclosures, etc) was in good shape untill now. once i had this radio wired up, it needed some finishing touches. my rears were all fine, no problem there. a 4.0 Ohm load on both rear channels after switching from the 8ohm bose things. the Fronts were the problem, as well as my Illumination/dimmer circuit.
Front Left channel: i had a Rockford/Punch component in there. something was fried in the speaker itself. it had a LOT of distortion even at lower levels of volume. i put the DVM on that channel and it had 25ohm's of resistance... WTF right? i took it all apart, and checked the enclosure itself. it had 25ohm's still, so the problem was at the door. took it all apart, measured the terminals/wires inside the enclosure, only 0.6ohms. good there. took the speaker out and measured across the terminals; 24.5 ohms of resistance. speaker was shot, dont know how... i put a spare Infinity Reference 2-way i had laying around. Front Left channel OK!
Front Right channel: dead. No voltage going to the door speaker harness. no continuity thru the enclosure w/ the speaker installed. i pulled the speaker, immediately checked resistance. this one was still ok, 4ohm resistance. so i checked the enclosure's internal wiring. positive circuit had 0.6ohm resistance. Negative ciruict was OL... until i wiggled it. i tugged on the spade terminal and it broke right off. VIOLA! i brought it inside, resoldered the spade back on, 0.6ohms! i reinstalled the pod, wired the speaker and got Sound as soon as i plugged the door harness back in! Front Right channel OK!
Illumination circuit. the subaru radio operates on the same Illumination principle as the stock toyota. aftermarket radios usually use only ONE wire, the Ill + wire to dim when the headlights turn on. Subaru and Toyota use an Ill - return path routed thru the dimmer switch to vary voltage from 12v to 6v. my Scosche Toyota install harness did NOT have the ILL - wire (orange-black) so i didnt wire anything up, even though the subaru radio harness had the wire dangling. since i have a spare Scosche harness, i unpinned it, soldered an orange/black wire to the pin and inserted it into the Radio install harness, soldered it to the Subaru Ill - wire. once plugged in, the radio buttons dim in unison w/ my dash lights. (before, with only the Ill + connected, the LCD screen backlight was on w/ the lights Off. with the lights on, the LCD backlight turned off completely and the face buttons were at minimum illumination)
btw, the Line-output voltage on the Subaru Deck is 6.0v. does anyone else know what aftermarket radios have for Line-output voltage?
my Climate control isnt in the car yet, still waiting on my replacement LED. ill get a shot of it all installed once that gets here in a few days.
On an interesting side note... there were alot of bugs to work out in my stereo. i never knew if everything (speakers, wiring, connectors, enclosures, etc) was in good shape untill now. once i had this radio wired up, it needed some finishing touches. my rears were all fine, no problem there. a 4.0 Ohm load on both rear channels after switching from the 8ohm bose things. the Fronts were the problem, as well as my Illumination/dimmer circuit.
Front Left channel: i had a Rockford/Punch component in there. something was fried in the speaker itself. it had a LOT of distortion even at lower levels of volume. i put the DVM on that channel and it had 25ohm's of resistance... WTF right? i took it all apart, and checked the enclosure itself. it had 25ohm's still, so the problem was at the door. took it all apart, measured the terminals/wires inside the enclosure, only 0.6ohms. good there. took the speaker out and measured across the terminals; 24.5 ohms of resistance. speaker was shot, dont know how... i put a spare Infinity Reference 2-way i had laying around. Front Left channel OK!
Front Right channel: dead. No voltage going to the door speaker harness. no continuity thru the enclosure w/ the speaker installed. i pulled the speaker, immediately checked resistance. this one was still ok, 4ohm resistance. so i checked the enclosure's internal wiring. positive circuit had 0.6ohm resistance. Negative ciruict was OL... until i wiggled it. i tugged on the spade terminal and it broke right off. VIOLA! i brought it inside, resoldered the spade back on, 0.6ohms! i reinstalled the pod, wired the speaker and got Sound as soon as i plugged the door harness back in! Front Right channel OK!
Illumination circuit. the subaru radio operates on the same Illumination principle as the stock toyota. aftermarket radios usually use only ONE wire, the Ill + wire to dim when the headlights turn on. Subaru and Toyota use an Ill - return path routed thru the dimmer switch to vary voltage from 12v to 6v. my Scosche Toyota install harness did NOT have the ILL - wire (orange-black) so i didnt wire anything up, even though the subaru radio harness had the wire dangling. since i have a spare Scosche harness, i unpinned it, soldered an orange/black wire to the pin and inserted it into the Radio install harness, soldered it to the Subaru Ill - wire. once plugged in, the radio buttons dim in unison w/ my dash lights. (before, with only the Ill + connected, the LCD screen backlight was on w/ the lights Off. with the lights on, the LCD backlight turned off completely and the face buttons were at minimum illumination)
btw, the Line-output voltage on the Subaru Deck is 6.0v. does anyone else know what aftermarket radios have for Line-output voltage?
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