Aftermarket stereo installation - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

RandallNeighbour · 06-30-2005, 07:30 PM

I emailed them. Thanks so much!

savoir-faire · 06-30-2005, 09:03 PM

Randal, I'd be very interested to learn what you find out regarding the harness. How it works, price, etc.

RandallNeighbour · 07-01-2005, 08:47 AM

I went to caraudioinnovations.com and called them just now. They sell a wiring harness that receives the molex plugs that one would remove from the factory head unit. In electronics terms, our cars are wired with the male ends and they have the female ends attached to bare wires.

$22.00 plus s/h of about $5.

Now I can take the Alpine wiring harness and solder the wires to this new wiring harness and I will not have to sit in my car with a soldering gun (I've done it a half dozen times on other cars and it's a pain in the arse).

Hope this helps all you aftermarket stereo DIY guys with a source for the right connectors.

I will post pics of the wiring it up project and put them on my site with a link here in a few weeks.

bigislandboxster · 07-01-2005, 10:14 AM

I'm glad you were able to contact them.....They helped me out tremendously with my system with detailed instructions and some mighty fine components

....I had never installed a stereo in any car before, and I did the speakers,head unit and amp all by myself, and probably saved several hundred dollars, maybe even a thousand.....The difference in sound is simply amazing too!

Hope things are sounding better soon!

RandallNeighbour · 07-01-2005, 01:57 PM

Somebody please tell me that our boxsters are negative ground vehicles. I already bought an Alpine head unit and doggonit, I don't want to sell it on Ebay at a loss!

bigislandboxster · 07-01-2005, 03:06 PM

You should get a negative ground wire with the harness on the Alpine, just hook that up to any common grounding connection on the car....If you can't find a bolt to attach it to under the dash, extend a wire to one of the bolts in front of the battery compartment, thats where mine is grounded to....If you have to extend it, let me know, it can be frustrating getting wires past the firewall if you don't know where to look.

Also, as a warning,when you take your old head unit out you'll see a green wire connected to a male terminal on probably your right side of the mounting sleeve. This is part of the anti theft system, if you leave it there and put another head unit in there, it'll possibly read that the unit has been stolen, and will not fully arm. Take the female end off and tape it up and tuck it somewhere where it won't come into contact with any metal parts.

Lou

RandallNeighbour · 07-01-2005, 08:23 PM

Got an email from Rod saying that if I had door speakers the harness the other guy sold me may not work.

So I am thinking of forging ahead without that harness and making this a fourth of July installation project. But, I have questions before I cut any wires...

1) Can I just unplug the amp from the back of my CDR210 and leave it in place for the time being?

2) If I wire up the "right front +" and "right front -" wires that were going into my old unit, will it power both the dash speakers and the door speakers too? Or, do I need to root around and trace wires from the door speakers and dash speakers to the existing head unit? (I sure hope I don't need to do that!)

Here's a copy of a PDF I found on the web for wiring aftermarket units I was planning to use:

http://www.iwantaporsche.net/StereoWiringConfig.pdf

bigislandboxster · 07-02-2005, 07:03 PM

One more thing Randall!
On the lower plug on the Becker, you'll see a connection for the power antenna.....I believe its in spot # 5.......Your wiring harness with the Alpine should probably have a connection for the antenna as well, so cut that wire on the Becker and connect to the antenna wire on your Becker.

The switched power terminal, spot#6 on the yellow upper Becker plug, needs to be connected to your power amp wire on your wiring harness as well.....This will switch the power on to your amp when you turn on your head unit....

I think thats it!

RandallNeighbour · 07-02-2005, 07:07 PM

Lou, I was not planning to use my factory amp whatsoever. The Alpine unit I bought has the same power in the head unit as the factory amp has.

I sure would like to have a five minute phone conversation with you. It would clear up a lot of my questions and get me off your back, I promise! Check your private messages for my cell phone number or PM me your number. I promise I won't waste your time.

RandallNeighbour · 07-05-2005, 02:04 PM

Update on aftermarket stereo systems.

I have door speakers. The amp in our cars (if you have one) is a six channel amp that routes the low frequencies to the woofers in the doors and midrange and high to the dash speakers as well as the rear speakers.

Tomorrow, I will take my new Alpine head unit (which has 4 channels in it, not six) to a professional installer at Tweeter to see how to get it in and working right. I may have to purchase an aftermarket amp or crossover or both. I will keep you all posted on what it cost and what had to be done to drive the existing speakers in the car properly.

If you are shopping for an installer, insure they've worked on Porsches before. The guy that I'm using at Tweeter told me he's done lots of Carreras and mine will not be that different.

I'm betting I'll have to spend extra $$ to get this head unit I bought working right.

RandallNeighbour · 07-06-2005, 11:45 AM

Just got the Boxster out of the stereo shop. The installer said that he could use the factory amp, but bypass part of it, whatever that means.

They took my new Alpine head unit, which had RCA pre-amp outputs and spliced them into the factory 4 channel amp.

It sounds a lot better than that CDR-210. Install price $105 with tax.

No more CD skipping or not working at all in cold weather!

:dance: