Skip down if you don't want my radio situation update, although it gives backstory for the question.

So I'm looking for solutions...plan on temporarily go back to my stock head unit and throw the eonon unit from my defunct F-150 in the nav slot since it's a perfect fit. Doing this because the stock radio is needed to keep the top display functioning(deduced from looking at the factory manual and talking to Alpine).

Later I'm going to cut the radio faceplate in half (just below the 1-6 numbers on the front, the white circles on the pic for the board) and, with a ribbon connector, relocate the nav selector buttons elsewhere keeping the stock radio down where the selector button currently is and putting a Double Din android unit above where the radio was. I'm debating on using the android faceplate that came with the scammers unit for this or just install it with kydex partitions between and the factory trim.

If the climate controls can be ported via OBD2 to the android head unit and I can somehow bypass the radio codes, I'll probably just remove the nav selector knob altogether and just run stock radio minus the cd changer box, assuming it can be removed, although if it isn't in the way back there I'll probably just keep it.

And now to the question...

A little worried about radio codes and I'm seeing YouTube videos where they say you can bypass the radio code on ANY Acura by holding the power button for thirty to forty seconds.Problem is all the cars they're showing in the videos are newer models of MDX's and such. Can anyone confirm this technique working on the 2005-2008 RL?

If I can bypass the radio code with this technique I won't need the nav screen or the nav functions to make my system work seamlessly. With the hard mount 2010 RL climate controls and the climate control app for the android unit I should have all the functionality with the climate control that I previously had with the stock setup without needing the stock nav screen for display of the codes or the climate control stuff.

 

There's one of the YouTube videos for reference...there's half a dozen of them...

 

According to the dealer this one's a myth...apparently there are workarounds for 2013+ for the radio codes, but not the RLs. Fortunately the prompt for the radio code is on the top display and not the nav screen, which is convenient.