AVIC F700BT installed

[ChrisZang]

Originally Posted by icedude

Where did you put each of those? I'm very picky to have a clean look with no exposed cables. I want it to look stock or as close to possible.

Right, same here, that was one of my main drivers for this installation.

Currently both antennas are below the cabin air filter, see this link:
http://986forum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17474&highlight=antenna
this works great for the GPS, unfortunately not so great for the XM.

So I am planning to relocate the XM antenna where the OEM GPS antenna would be, next to the alarm indicator:
http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/996/84794-finished-kenwood-dvd-nav-install-ac-control-mod-pics-some-diy-stuff.html

I hope that this will work better....

[edevlin]

Looks cool, the clutter of the GPS is what drove me to do a similar install, enjoy.

Ed

[icedude]

I plan on doing what you did with the GPS antenna next to the filter and the XM antenna on the dash under the alarm light cover as mentioned on the posts. I'll have to do the same with the Ipod adapter as you. Where did the XM receiver go?

[ChrisZang]

Originally Posted by icedude

I plan on doing what you did with the GPS antenna next to the filter and the XM antenna on the dash under the alarm light cover as mentioned on the posts. I'll have to do the same with the Ipod adapter as you. Where did the XM receiver go?

First of all if I compare the size of the Pioneer XM receiver with the size of the unit I had from XM before I must say this is a joke: the Pioneer XM receiver is almost the size of a small laptop, so hiding this is indeed a challenge.

Fortunately the cables are long enough so I found that if I remove the styrofoam covering above the passenger's footspace there is enough space on the very right side to squeeze in the XM receiver, hard to describe, open it up and try and then it's pretty obvious. I have wrapped the XM receiver in thin styrofoam packing material so that it doesn't rattle against the metal of the right fender

[ChrisZang]

Quick update:

I relocated the XM antenna under the OEM cover (by the alarm sensor), but the improvements are marginal compared to the location I had it before (cabin air filter).
So I guess the best location would be on the rear trunk by the 3rd brake light.

Does anyone have a better recommendation for placing the XM antenna. Just as a reminder XM is much more receptible to short losses of signal than GPS.
Meaning a location which is great for placing the GPS antenna might be not-so-great for XM

[ChrisZang]

One more observation/caution:

I kept the Porsche OEM amp which was in the car (well actually it's a 6-channel amp from a 996, but otherwise it's identical). In any case: the level from the line outputs from the AVIC is not high enough to drive this amp, so the volume is kind of low. It's just loud enough in the highest volume setting. So I will need to install a Line Driver Signal Amplifier (a.k.a. "pre-amp").
This would not have been an issue had I bought the (more expensive) AVIC F90BT as this has 4 Volt line outputs

[trieullionaire]

Hey Chris,

I recommend bypassing the factory amp and use the built in amp of the headunit. I found that using the line level speaker wires from the headunit direct to the speakers was by far the best option if you don't want to spend money on an aftermarket amp. When I had the cdr220 with the stock amp (HAES 4x40 watt), the sound wasn't quite loud enough (mouse squeek when your on the highway)..when I installed the Avic D3, the output level was still horrible. Sound inhibitor imho.

Anyhow, I remembered in my previous car I had a set of polk audio speakers that was wired direct to my Pioneer and it sounded awesome. So I applied the same logic here and am much happy with this set up than using the factory amp. You just need the color codes for the wires so you can tap into it instead of cutting the amp harness up...which if I look hard I'm sure I can find it again somewhere...otherwise, if you look at the actual speakers in your car, you'll see the colors of the wires as well.

My current set up, I have the dash and rear speakers driven by the Avic D3. And the door subs, I have it hooked to a Kicker 2 Channel amp.

Other than this, replace the factory speakers with something descent and you should be pretty satisfied with the results it produces.