jsonkimz

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Okay, folks. Here is the DIY I promised I would do in another thread. I just completed this install in my car and it works PERFECTLY. It's LONG but hopefully it will be useful to you all. I know there are several DIY's for this mod out there but I hope that this will replace them. It's fairly detailed and I think it's pretty good, if I do say so myself.

PLEASE, if you decide to follow this DIY, read the whole thing BEFORE you get started. That way, you will know what to expect and what to look for. There's nothing more frustrating than getting into a DIY job and the next step not making sense because you don't understand the big picture yet. Reading the DIY before you get started should help avoid this.

Also, to those of you who have done this before and are smarter than me, please let me know if there's something I need to change. I was doing this all off of memory so there is a chance I missed a detail or two. Let me know and I'm sure one of our gracious Moderators will allow an edit.

Thanks!

Jayson

jsonkimz

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Okay, guys. I know I volunteered a DIY walkthrough but my camera battery is caput and so I couldn’t take pictures. I’m still going to write a walkthrough though, because this install is pretty straight forward and can be done without the pictures. I will try to be very detailed and clear in my writing so that it is easily understood. So here it goes. Sorry about no pictures, guys!

First, I need to give a shout out to Dave (dwb933). This guy is awesome. He offered to give me a hand with my install and answered any and all questions that I had. He even opened up his driveway to me and helped me do some of the wire connecting and such. This man represents what Acurazine is about. Generous, friendly, helpful, and cool as hell. THANKS, DAVE! Also, Aaron (sharksbreath) was around to give a helping hand, too. So a shout-out to Aaron as well! Thanks, guys!

Also, a thanks to all you guys who offered suggestions, answered questions, etc… to help me get this thing done. I’m really appreciative of this community and it’s an invaluable source of information thanks to you all!

Let’s get started!

This walkthrough would work for someone just wanting to install the USA-Spec device ONLY. All you will need is the USA-Spec device and a few tools and you’ll be set with your purchases. If you’re only installing the USA-Spec, follow the directions in blue. If you’re installing the entire DVD system, then follow the whole DIY.

I’m just going to list out everything I bought, the prices, and what I would recommend you to buy.

1. USA-Spec PA15 Hon3. $130 on Amazon. You need this for your audio input. The nice thing is that you can use it for both your DVD player AND your iPod/iPhone/whathaveyou. I really like this thing and would recommend it.

2. NAVTOOL. $180 on eBay. I just bid in increments until they accepted my offer. You may be able to get it for $175 but they rejected my offer of $170. As I understand it, this is the same thing as Dom’s TVandNavToGo. It was just easier for me to order NAVTOOL on eBay (I’m not sure if it’s cheaper).

3. Myron and Davis AD212 DVD player. ~$150 online. I bought mine used on eBay for $93 shipped. HOWEVER, my recommendation would be to just buy it new online. The eBay seller cheated me and the player did NOT come with a power cord or remote extender sensor, so I had to pay more money for the harness. Obviously, any DVD player will work though. I went with this one because it’s used by a lot of people on the board. You can go any route you want.

4. Remote Extender. $17. I bought this because my DVD player didn’t come with one and I thought it would work. Because I’m not putting my DVD player in the front (it will be in the trunk) I thought a good solution would be to run a remote eye extender to the front so that I could control everything with the remote from the front. The only time I would have to access the actual DVD player is to change DVD’s. WELL, it didn’t work. This was the wrong part, and I can’t find an aftermarket one online. It looks I will have to order it straight from the OEM. If you want to go this route then make sure your DVD player comes with one of these. The Myron and Davis AD212 comes with one NEW.

5. SPST Rocker Switch from RadioShack. $8/$3. I bought this online for $8 shipped. Save yourself $5 and buy it at a RadioShack location. Just get it when you’re buying your wire/connectors/cords etc…

6. Add-a-Fuse. $7. I got this at advanced/AutoZone but RadioShack may have it. I HIGHLY recommend this method for running your power source. It’s very easy to do and will keep you from frying your expensive electronics.

7. Dremel. $40. I just bought a cheap one at Wal-mart. Cordless, basic, but it works. The only thing I used it for was to drill for my switch and to drill a hole to put some cords through. This isn’t necessary for the install.

8. Wire. ~$10. Any 12/14/16 gauge wire should work perfect. Get at least 20ft. I think I bought 40ft. You’ll also want to get wire to run your switch.

9. RCA Cables. $??. I didn’t have to buy these as they came with my DVD player. You need the two audio (red and white) and one video (yellow) cable. This shouldn’t be expensive.

10. Connectors. ~$10. If you want to do the job well (I hate half-assing), get some wire connectors. You can use electrical tape but using connectors gives me piece of mind. I bought a pack of ring wire connectors, splicer connectors, and female end connectors. I like the heat shrink kind as well. Honestly, if you spend $400 on electronics you should fork over the extra $10 to do the job well. Just my two cents. Make sure your ring connectors are large enough to fit around the factory ground bolt, and make sure your female end connectors fit on the Rocker Switch.

11. Extra fuses. $5. Always handy. I intended to buy only 5 amp fuses, but they were out so I had to buy a small variety pack. It came with two 5 amp fuses which should be more than enough. It had a few other amperage fuses which are nice to have for the future.

12. Miscellaneous. ~$20. For anything I forgot. You’ll need tools like screwdrivers, wire cutters/strippers/crimpers, zip ties, etc… Hopefully you’ll have a lot of this, but the $20 should cover any inevitable Wally World runs you WILL encounter.

This brings MY total for the whole job to about $550. Yikes. Don’t tell my girlfriend. However, hopefully my mistakes will be your learning experience. Determine what you need to buy and shop around. I had to buy a bunch of random crap like wire crimpers, dremel, connectors, ect… which really adds up. I think it’s completely possible to do this job for around $400.

jsonkimz

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jsonkimz

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If you’re doing the whole DVD install, your work has just begun. Leave your USA-Spec plugged up, but leave your trim and covers all undone. Your next step is to run some wires. Start with your Add-A-Fuse. Wire it to the wire that you bought using a splicer. Terminate the end with the Add-A-Fuse attached at the fuse box. Run that wire along the floor underneath where the trim was. There are existing wires and tubes there; I kinda wedged it between all those wires. While you’re running your power wire, you should run your switch wire as well. Terminate this wire to where you will want your switch to be. I put mine in the blank spot next to the VSA and mirror switches and I have to say that it looks PERFECT.

Keep running that wire beneath where all your trim would be and you should be able to see a little ray of light if you try to look in the trunk from where you stopped removing trim. I basically just shoved the wires towards the light until I would walk around to the trunk and pull them through from the other side. Once you get them through, take the wires and run them ABOVE the cover at the top of the trunk. You’ll see what I mean. You will have to pull out tabs to get the cover to pull down if you haven’t done so already. Run the wire from the left side of the car (if you’re at your car doggy style) to the right side to the navigation brain. Be careful to run your wire such that you don’t get it pinched in anything when you close the trunk.

Once you’ve finished running your wire, get your NAVTOOL ready. If you’re planning on installing a back up camera, I apologize, but I can’t help you. In the interest of time (had a long vacation drive coming up) I elected not to run a back up camera; maybe someday in the future. If you don’t use a camera, then you’ll have no use for some of the wires running from the NAVTOOL. All the wires are labeled so it should be very straight forward. Just cut the existing switch and splice your switch wire to them. Then, TAPE your power wire to the NAVTOOL power cord (DO NOT SPLICE YET: you will have to splice later when you add the DVD player. This is simply to test your power). I would connect the two wires close to the place where you want to affix your NAVTOOL. Next, ground the negative wire. You can use the factory ground bolt using one of the ring wire connectors. If my memory serves me right, everything else can be grounded except for the power cord and switch cords. Hook up your NAVTOOL to the navigation brain by the same “method” you used with the USA-Spec (unplug from brain -> plug into device -> plug back into brain). Once you’ve connected it (leave the power cord out for now) attach the NAVTOOL to the vertical crossbar in the car using zip ties (the bar is vertical and is somewhat behind the navigation brain. You should understand when you see it). Wrap the NAVTOOL in the towel to prevent rattles. I fastened it so that the end of the NAVTOOL with the color adjusting buttons faced UP. Once you have it securely fastened you can plug in the power cord. Run to the front of the car and plug the Add-A-Fuse into fuse #32. I believe you should have a 7.5 amp fuse and a 5 amp fuse plugged into the Add-A-Fuse, and the 7.5 is the “primary.” Once you have that plugged up, if you wired everything correctly, you should have power to your NAVTOOL. Crank your car or turn on the battery and run look at your NAVTOOL to see if it’s on. If you’re using DOM’s I’m not sure if there’s an indicator light, but with NAVTOOL there is. Just look for that little red light. If you attached your NAVTOOL like I did then you may have to use a mirror to see the light because it will be at the bottom. If it’s dark you can just look for the glow. If you have power than you’re one step closer to completion!

Time to wire up your DVD player. You will have to choose your location, and do any work involved with installing the DVD player in the location you choose. I decided to simply put mine on the floor of the trunk. It’s simple and not too fancy, but it is effective. Someday in the future when I put in a sound system I will create an enclosure for the DVD player to clean it up, but for now I am satisfied. I have my DVD player facing the front of the car sitting just inside the rear seat pass through. This will allow any passenger that I have (which will probably be the only time I’m playing DVD’s) to access the DVD player from the inside of the car.

jsonkimz

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I’m just going to write this portion of the DIY with respect to the DVD player in the location I chose. However, all the wiring will be the same, the only thing that will change is how you run your wire and how much you have to use.

I placed my DVD player in my chosen location and drilled a hole in the spare tire floor cover to run all my wires through. Once you run the power cord and audio/video cords through the hole let’s go ahead and hook up the DVD player. Depending on what DVD player you purchased you may have different wires, but once again I will write this using the same set up I had. The Myron and Davis DVD player had 4 wires (blue, yellow, red, and black). Blue is nothing. Cut it; tape it up; leave it loose; whatever you want to do. Black is your ground. Yellow and red are your power wires. Go ahead and start with your ground (make sure the car is off and the Add-A-Fuse is unplugged). You can attach the ground to the factory ground location. For this simple and low power install that ground location should suffice. NOTE: The first time I did my ground I used a ring connector to wire my ground (like I did with the NAVTOOL ground). However, this caused some interference and my video quality wasn’t quite as good when the car was running. With my setup running off the battery only it was perfect, but starting the car caused interference. For this reason, you want to make sure your ring connector is on the factory bolt with perfect metal to metal contact, OR you can abandon the ring connector and just attach the wire itself to the ground bolt (strip the wire so you have about an inch at the end and wrap that puppy around the bolt). The ring connector should work, but if you have interference that is a likely problem.

Once you have your ground set up, we’ll attach the power cords. Un-tape your NAVTOOL power cord from the fuse power. At this point you will be splicing together the red and yellow DVD power cords, the black NAVTOOL power cord, and the fuse power wire. Once again, the blue DVD wire is useless. Make it all neat and pretty and make sure you have a good connection. Once you have the power wires connected and the grounds done securely you can test your power to the NAVTOOL AND the DVD player. MAKE SURE YOUR GROUNDS ARE GOOD. Plug in the Add-A-Fuse and turn on the car battery. Check and make sure you have power for both. If you do, well done! If you don’t have power, check all your connections. Make sure your fuse isn’t blown as well (this is why I suggest getting a few extra 5 amp fuses in case you blow one). This is a simple install, however, and you shouldn’t have any problems. Once you have established power to your NAVTOOL and DVD player you can shut the car down. Unplug the Add-A-Fuse. Now run your RCA video cable. Make sure it’s a quality one and that you don’t have more length than you need. The more efficient you are with the amount of cable you use the more you decrease your chances of interference (my first attempt I used a video cable that was iffy quality and WAY too long. Getting a shorter and better cable helped fixed my issue of interference). Run your video cable from the DVD player to your NAVTOOL (video input #1). Plug in your Add-A-Fuse and let’s give it a shot!

jsonkimz

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Now, because you have already plugged up your NAVTOOL to the navigation brain you will not have a video signal at your navigation screen. With the NAVTOOL plugged in and no rocker switch wired up your screen will remain blank. It still has power, and you can even use the touch screen, but you will not have any video. This is because (without the switch wired) your NAVTOOL is automatically putting the display in DVD mode. If you want to access your Navigation, simply touch the two switch wires together. Touching them together signals that you “flipped the switch” and you will have your Navigation screen back. So at this point, wires connected = navigation and wires not connected = DVD.

If you have power to the NAVTOOL and DVD player, your grounds are good, your Add-A-Fuse is plugged in and functional, and your switch wires are not connected then you SHOULD see the DVD screen!! If you do then congratulations! It’s a good feeling. If you don’t, then you suck. Nah, just check and double check all your power, grounds, and fuses and you should be fine. I don’t know if I was just really lucky but it worked for me the first time. I think that is a tribute to the simplicity of the job more than my mad skillz, yo. Once you have a working video, enjoy it for a few minutes and let’s get back to work.

jsonkimz

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Time to run your audio. This part is…. fun?? If you have everything in the same location as me, then follow my directions exactly. If not, then your wires will run in different places, but again, the wiring itself will be the same. You will run your red and white audio cables in the same place you ran all the other wires. If you have a remote eye extender (REE) with your DVD player then run that wire at this time (unfortunately, mine did not work so I don’t get this convenient feature ). Plug them all into the DVD player and wire them through the left side of car. Start in the trunk, aim for the light, and pull it through by the rear seat on the driver’s side. However, instead of running it along the whole side of the car, stop right at the bottom of the rear seat. Now take the cords and shove them beneath the rear seat right at the base where the bottom of the seat and the carpet meet. Stop at the middle of the seat right on the hump (IT’S MY HUMP! I BELIEVE THE HUMP IS MINE!).

This part is awesome… You want to run all three wires (2 audio and the REE) beneath the carpet on the hump. Take a metal clothes hanger and bend it so that you can shove it under the carpet. Start with the center console end, not at the rear seat. Push the hanger under the carpet along the hump until you can fish it out at where the rear seat and carpet meet. Once you get the coat hanger under the carpet and hanging out both ends (it might take you a while) then attach your 3 cords to the hanger and pull the coat hanger through. Good job! Pull your audio wires to where it will reach the USA-Spec hub as it sits in the location it will be affixed. Pull your REE to wherever you would like to attach it (as I said, I didn’t get to do this part so you’re on your own. I would put it in the cubby). Plug your audio wires into the USA-Spec hub and put it on the following settings: 1-on, 2-off, 3-on, 4-off. This will make XM preset 2 be navigation unit control, preset 5 direct mode control, and preset 6 your auxiliary (or DVD) control. Do a test run (don’t forget about how your switch wires work and double check everything even if it’s functioning). If it works, congratulations!! The confusing part is now over. You have a fully functioning DVD player wired through your car. Sit back, relax, and take it in for a second. It’s a good feeling of accomplishment.

jsonkimz

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Let’s do one final test run before we start putting the car back together. Check and make sure you have power to your DVD player and NAVTOOL (obviously you do if it worked, but it’s better to be safe than sorry). Check, double check, and triple check all your connections and make sure they are solid. CHECK YOUR SWITCH WIRE TO MAKE SURE IT WILL GO BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN DVD AND NAVIGATION. Check your grounds and Add-A-Fuse, too. Now put in a DVD, if you haven’t already done so, and watch for a few minutes. Check your picture and make sure it’s clean. It’s not HD, so don’t look for quality of the picture, but make sure the picture is clean and there’s no interference. There shouldn’t be any lines in the picture. Check the quality with the car running off of the battery only AND with the car started. The picture should be clean both ways. If the quality is worse with the car started, you need to check your ground and the video cable. But if you follow my directions in this DIY you should have a clean picture with both the battery and running.

jsonkimz

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Even though this is the “easy” part of the job, it is definitely the hardest. The wiring and stuff may seem confusing at first, but it is really simple and easy to do. To me, the removal and reinstallation of the trim and covers is 1000x more difficult and I really hate it. It tests my patience. Good luck – I feel for you.

Now you’re ready to put the car back together. I would start in the trunk, taping down and wrapping up any loose wires. You don’t want anything loose because it could cause rattles (even more than you probably already have in your TL). Also make sure that nothing gets pinched when you put the covers back or when you close the trunk lid. You can be as thorough as you want here, but I took my time to make sure everything was neat and organized. Put the covers back on in the trunk and make it all 100%. Check your DVD player install again just to make sure nothing came loose while you were reinstalling your covers. Next, I would do the center console. Make it all neat and pretty and button it back up. Again, be careful not to pinch any wires.

Once you have the center console back up you can move to the side trim. Get it all back together EXCEPT for the single cover that goes under the steering wheel. You want to make sure that you don’t pinch any wires and that your Rocker Switch wire is still running where it needs to run and that it will reach your switch location.

jsonkimz

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Once you have the whole car together (except for the cover under the steering wheel) it’s time to wire up your switch. I put my switch in the blank spot next to the VSA and mirror switches. If you have a TL you know exactly where I’m talking about. In my mind this is the absolute best place for it, and you can make it look very good and 100% factory if you take your time. Pop out that little plastic piece. You will want to dremel/drill a hole for the Rocker Switch to sit in. Depending on what year TL you have this may be easy or difficult. My TL’s (2005) plastic piece had a lot of plastic on the back of the piece, so it was difficult. I had to basically dremel it all out so that it was empty behind the switch so that I could drill a hole for my switch. In any case, once you get the piece to where it will clip in and is only a single-layered plastic cover you can drill your hole. You can use a spade drill bit to cut a perfect hole if you want. I just used a dremel. I really took it slow and was careful, trimming bit by bit until my switch fit firmly and perfectly. I don’t know if I got lucky but it looks amazing and I was really pleased. Just take your time.

Now, leave your newly affixed switch and plastic piece out and start putting the cover back on the car. Just make sure that the Rocker Switch wire is coming through the hole where the switch will go. Once you have the cover back on, use the female end connectors and attach the wires to the switch. Test it… it should work. If not, then you’re SOL. That’s why I suggest checking everything so often so you don’t get to the end of a project and find out something doesn’t work. Once you find that your switch works like a charm, sit back and enjoy!!

RJANACONDA

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thanks for the this although there are others i havent seen the usaspec under the cupholder which is where i planed to install mine but was unsure if there was room i couldnt remember if there was enough room. but now that i know i can proceed as planned. i just got my hon3 for 114 @ http://www.electotronics.com/usaspec...ecthondas.aspx

but it took a long time to get mine as when i ordered it they ran out.

jsonkimz

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No sweat. It fits with room to spare and in my opinion is the absolute best place for it. The ONLY downside is that if you ever need to get to it you have to take apart the center console, but it's not that bad.

If you want to run your wire through the center console I would suggest doing that, too. Good luck!

RJANACONDA

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i will be doing it tomarrow i have no need to get to it unless it stops working i am using it just for the aux input i alread have video runing through the center console.