Delica Canada | Mitsubishi Van Club

I tried to get the current stereo in my 1995 L400 replaced with a North American model during my trip to Vancouver, but it didn't work out. So now I'm trying to do it myself. I thought I would share my experiences with everyone as I work through the process. I'm sure that everybody will get a kick out of my meddling. Hopefully, there will be some guidance offered as I am pretty new to this.

The current unit is a double-DIN unit. It looks to me like I won't need anything special to convert a standard double-DIN unit to fit in the dash as the current unit seems to have already done that for me.

I'm undecided on a stereo receiver. Really undecided. I'm looking at everything from $90 single DIN models to fairly full-featured PCs that fit into a single or double-DIN. I'll probably go with a cheaper model, but having a little mini-ATX box in the van would be pretty darn handy.

Last evening I removed the front bezel so that I could have a look at the stereo connectors and how the current unit was physically mounted. I followed JFarsang's directions here. You'll see what I found in the following attachments.

Currently, there is a CD changer under the passenger seat. My thinking is, "What's a CD?" I'll be pulling it out. I'm having a lot of fun tracing the cable from the CD changer back to the stereo.

The first problems I have to solve is which stereo receiver to purchase, which harness to mate the unit to the Delica, and whether it needs any special mounting brackets.

Heya! Ill do my best lending a tip but I don't own a Delica so help is kinda limited.

As to whether or not your going to find an adapter plug for the Delica > new head unit I doubt theres anything in north america unless its some kinda Mitsu. slandered plug.
So be prepared to do a bit of cutting, stripping, and splicing via soldering gun or crimps.

Now on to the fun part! The Head unit!
This is where you can get really creative or just grab a bland old crappy tire unit. Personally I'd go for at least a mid-end head unit from Alpine. This will usually get you all the features any basic user could want with a bit more tuning options. You also mentioned "Whats a CD?" so an Alpine unit in this range would be awesome as I'm pretty sure they all have some form of USB input. Personally in my Golf I'm running a premier/pioneer unit for now that has a USB input and it ROCKS! I load up the 2GB flash drive, plug her in, and call it good. Via USB if your an iPod person you can usually control your iPod this way or buy a cable for the head unit to do so.

Thats the basics really. I'm not sure if the Delica has amp'd speakers or not either. I know in my old Audi 90 that the rears we're amped and running the after market head unit through the stock wiring cause some issue with the rear speakers overdriving as the head unit was amping the signal then again when it reached the speakers...

Whatever you choose good luck getting her all wired up and good to go!

http://www.alpine-usa.com/product/view/cda-105
There's what I recommend if your an iPod user. It doesn't require any extra cables aside from your white apple USB cable. It's a bit pricey compared to a basic unit at $250 but I think its worth it. Have fun!

Backatcha! And thanks! I can use all the help I can get.

So Mr. Fibble's mentioning of the Road King 7 from ChinaVasion got me thinking. I priced out the components for a car PC and it starts to get stupid when you add things that you don't normally see on computers, like radios. Touch-screens aren't cheap either. Although I haven't fallen off the fence yet, my guess is that I'll order a RK7 myself...probably tomorrow. My intention would be to get Linux running on it, but a lot of my intentions never become reality. Would it ever be nice to be able to throw a wireless USB dongle on that unit and be able to transfer stuff to/from it over my home/work wireless networks. Success getting Linux running on some affordable random bit of Chinese hardware would get me huge geek points. Huge! But I'll return from The Land of Nerds now.

I took some time to explore the Delica tonight. Started with simple stuff like: Where are the cylinders on this thing? How about the glow plugs? Oil pan? Oil filter? I managed to find everything but the injection pump. At least, I'm not sure that what I was looking at was the injection pump. Its amazing what reading about diesel engines, turbos, and intercoolers on Wikipedia can teach a fellow.

Back to the audio system. I decided to rip out the CD changer. The stock system will confuse me enough without after-market bits thrown into the mix. And it's not like I would use the thing anyway. It was fun following the wires back to the stereo from beneath the passenger-side chair: Under the carpet, along the passenger-side door, across the passenger-side foot-well, to what looked like a small amp in the foot-well, and then up the "neck" below the stereo and air controls. That's where I got stuck. I couldn't get the plastic cover on the neck off, at least not before it was getting dark enough that wisdom kicked in and I decided to rip out what I could (without cutting wires) and put everything back together.

I'm now sure that those red clips on the stereo connector are there to confound me... or just to connect the CD changer to power. I've seen similar stuff. They'll be easy to remove, hopefully putting the van back in its stock configuration.

A small first step.

audi4life20v wrote:Heya! Ill do my best lending a tip but I don't own a Delica so help is kinda limited.

[...]

how about a double din at this price:
http://www.amazon.com/JVC-KW-XG500-Doub ... 001&sr=1-3

Ha! You read my mind. I spent about an hour last night perusing the double DIN units I could find on Amazon. Spent some time looking at the JVCs late last night, but fatigue set in. But your message got me motivated this morning and I just bought a very similar JVC unit.

Hopefully its a good physical fit and doesn't require any extra brackets. If so, it's just wires from there on out.

mdrive wrote:how about a double din at this price:
http://www.amazon.com/JVC-KW-XG500-Doub ... 001&sr=1-3

Take a look at http://www.sonicelectronx.com, had great experiences with them.

I will be starting an L400 stereo thread next week; doing a complete install; stereo, amps, subs (under rear bench) all speakers, dual battery with isolator and override switch..... blah blah.
Just got stereo head unit in couple nights ago. (finally a radio!)
I will try to include pics of all re-re; trying to highlight the tricks/quirks of the panels.

As for the head unit, just what I did...... I specifally went to a single DIN, and will utilize the remaining space to mount EGT monitor, battery bypass (duals), glow plug indicator lights etc........pics in other thread when complete. (will be slow ) As for other features, you have to decide what you are looking for. Myself I wanted excellent THD, high pre-out voltage, aux input and usb input, bluetooth with wired mic, 3 pre-outs.....

Rural wrote:which harness to mate the unit to the Delica

stereo will come with wiring harness, get some cutters (snippity snip the old connector off delica), meter wires (constant 12+, acc 12+, light dim 12+, and pair off speakers from there) actually I can probably take the time next time I have head unit out, and spit out all the wire colours and such. Get some "red" butt connectors and crimp in the stereos harness (properr way if can not get adaptor). Will post pics and wire colours next week.