broly

well people may ask "why would you want this"?

because the 04 RL supports the "orange dvd" and if you try to purchase one from the official acura website, you'll notice it shows both a US-only and North American-wide DVD, with the latter not being for sale.

i think that has to do with the fact the 2004 RL was not sold in canada with navigation, but the system clearly says that DVD should work. i don't think the computer will reject it.

anyways, i need to find out how to get the "ON" signal through the wire harness since the RL unit does not have it. the other pins line up perfectly (save "mute" and power for the amp, but these are only necessary for voice guidance, which i don't care about).


was pretty excited that the "force picture" mode work flawlessly and the colours are right (it's a red background for the password screen).

the navigation display unit pinout for both the 2004 RL and TL are identical and they even have the same A/C buttons. i am pretty sure if i can get past this hurdle i'll have something that's truly one of a kind.

the funny thing is i would really like multichannel audio like an 04 TL, but that's a feature most 3G drivers don't even use. and frankly, i can live without it since the hertz speakers really kick things up to a whole new level.

i would appreciate if anyone was able to share information on the "ON" pin for this series of cars, as much of a longshot as that may be.

whitetiger5

pretty cool! which Hertz speakers did you go with?

broly

the hsk165.

broly

i think i found the "problem".

the good thing: the 03 TL and 04 RL have an identical pinout (pretty much) for the "A" connector on the audio unit

the bad thing? it's not really bad, but, this explains everything: the 04 RL is the first of the vehicles to use the "GA Net BUS" (not just GA Net), so what's happening i:

• the signals sent to the navigation computer (from the display) are encoded into the proprietary "GA Net" protocol through the audio head unit, before being passed to the navigation computer.
• in other words, the audio head unit on the 04 RL processes the commands from the screen into "GA Net" before sending them off to the computer, which is why the buttons/touch do not work, but we can force a picture on.

i've been very curious about the 2004 RL head unit anyways, since it seems to have the identical dimensions (without hte face plate) to our cars.

kind of frustrating but also awesome. the GA net bus in this thing would be amazing. it's a shame the 3G TL have a different assembly that makes any interchangeability difficult.

broly

looks like i may have found a solution that doesn't involve this specific navigation computer

broly

the solution was correct, and it's been done.

see here.