L400 Royal Stereo wiring

[Green1]

As the general consensus appears to be that I do not know what I'm talking about, and cause more harm than good, I am removing this post so that others are not tricked in to following my ill-advised instructions.

[Mitsuballistic]

Just curious, why did you change the stereo? Is it because of the lack of FM stations?

I thought the JDM stereos generally have good sound? Or are you adding something such as an MP3 player which didn't come with the stock radio?

[Green1]

drawbacks to my stock stereo:
- can't receive our FM band
- can't properly tune our AM band
- CD changer was broken

This left me with.... a tape deck. and while it sounded good... it was still just a tape deck.

the new stereo:
- plays AM
- plays FM
- plays CDs
- plays DVDs
- plays MP3s
- plays from USB memory
- has built in GPS navigation
- has auxiliary inputs
- has reversing camera inputs
- has iPod inputs

and it still sounds good... (I guess I loose the tape deck feature though...)

[mosquitocoast]

It sounds like your hard work paid off. That's a good trade off - congrats.

I've noticed on the L400 stock stereo that, in addition to the problem with receiving any FM stations (I believe one can only pick up CBC FM, and the Vancouver tourism station, due to the frequency range), there is also a problem with AM stations, as you alluded to. You cannot, for example, tune in directly to say, 1040. It has to be 1035 or 1043. Or something like that. Besides swapping out stereos, is there a workaround on this?

[tonydca]

Yep - different frequencies for AM and FM; their AM is spaced in 9kHz increments; our is 10.

For the record, I went to the Future Shop on Broadway/Burrard here in Vancouver, and they were prepared to do the full-on "Too bad it's a JDM, that'll cost ya extra" treatment. Claimed I needed a special custom wiring harness, etc., etc. To install a $160 simple deck was going to be $420 total plus tax.

So I goes to Best Buy at 7th and Cambie. "No problem - we do Delicas all the time!" says he. "Standard $19 wiring harness" says he. "Do it!" says I. Got a better deck installed for $275 all-in, deck, install, parts, taxes included.

I highly recommend Jeff at this Best Buy location. Knows his stuff and took the extra time to fit things just right.

Tony.

[Green1]

I've noticed on the L400 stock stereo that, in addition to the problem with receiving any FM stations (I believe one can only pick up CBC FM, and the Vancouver tourism station, due to the frequency range), there is also a problem with AM stations, as you alluded to. You cannot, for example, tune in directly to say, 1040. It has to be 1035 or 1043. Or something like that. Besides swapping out stereos, is there a workaround on this?

no work around, the frequency steps are simply different in Japan.

For the record, I went to the Future Shop on Broadway/Burrard here in Vancouver, and they were prepared to do the full-on "Too bad it's a JDM, that'll cost ya extra" treatment. Claimed I needed a special custom wiring harness, etc., etc. To install a $160 simple deck was going to be $420 total plus tax.

So I goes to Best Buy at 7th and Cambie. "No problem - we do Delicas all the time!" says he. "Standard $19 wiring harness" says he. "Do it!" says I. Got a better deck installed for $275 all-in, deck, install, parts, taxes included.

Well, had you had a Royal they probably would have been a little (or a lot) more frustrated... that amp under the driver's seat really throws a wrench in to the works, but hopefully anybody else trying this will be able to dig up the colour codes here and make it work. (like I did)

of course I'm not sure what I want to do about those extra speakers... seems a waste....

[tonydca]

Perhaps a silly question, but if the amp under the seat is just that - an amp feeding the powered signal to the speakers, why remove it at all? Might it not be possible to just wire up a new stereo feeding its 4-channel outputs to the original amp (mimicing the factory head unit) and letting the factory amp do its magic? Or does the amp under the seat do more than just power the speakers?

[Green1]

hard to say what the amp does, I don't have a full pinout for it, and the wires are a weird connector, not RCA like the amp outputs on the new stereo...

All in all, that looked like a MUCH bigger and more challenging project than I felt like tackling!

[tonydca]

Wire colours of signal cables from head unit to amplifier [both ends the same]

Front left Green/yellow +
Brown/red -

Front right Yellow/red +
Red/blue -

Rear left White/green +
Brown -

Rear right Red/white +
Yellow -

In addition to the above, the wiring on the "main" connector is only 3 wires:
Always On Power Red/black +
Ignition Power Blue/white +
Illumination Green/white +

What I was trying to say was, could one use the cabling for the 3-wire "main" connector as-is, and wire up the 4-channels from the new stereo to the 4 channel input to the factory amp listed above (FL, FR, RL, RR)? Seems to me like the amp is decoding a standard 4-channel output that'd come out of any deck and sending it off to the 10 speakers, so I'd leverage that capability if I could.

[Green1]

What I was trying to say was, could one use the cabling for the 3-wire "main" connector as-is, and wire up the 4-channels from the new stereo to the 4 channel input to the factory amp listed above (FL, FR, RL, RR)? Seems to me like the amp is decoding a standard 4-channel output that'd come out of any deck and sending it off to the 10 speakers, so I'd leverage that capability if I could.

I get what you were trying to say, the thing is, you can't connect speaker level outputs from the new deck to line level inputs to the existing amp, you'd have to use the line level outputs from the new deck, and those are RCA, now theoretically that shouldn't be a major issue, you could convert RCA to standard wire, but I have no idea what levels they are expecting (3V? 5V? something completely non-standard?) beyond that, the factory stereo has a bunch more wires running to that amp that wouldn't be connected anymore... what do those wires do? I don't know...

theoretically what you're talking about is do-able, but it's a whole lot more work than just hooking the 4 speaker outputs to the 4 amp inputs.

[Manitoba deli]

On my older BMW's with factory amps, they are the actual speaker outputs that feed the factory amp, and work well by hooking up the speaker outputs of an aftermarket stereo. Can't say if it is the same on japaneese stuff, but worst case is you'd fry an amp your ditching anyways.

Jason

[Green1]

I have to believe that if it was accepting speaker level outputs it would be taking them from the same connector that the speaker outputs are on in the lower model vehicles, the fact that it is a completely separate connector with slightly smaller gauge wire tells me it is doing something different.

And no, the worst case is that I destroy my brand new head unit... not something I want to risk.

Beyond that, the amp has a bunch of other wires hooked up, I have to believe that they are doing something... but without knowing what it's rather difficult to hook them up to the new stereo.