Robbieg

I just installed a Pioneer AVIC-D3 last week and finished zipping up a couple loose ends yesterday so I thought I would share some info for others to make it a little easier. You can find most of this if you hunt around searching but here it is all in one post. First off the install is pretty simple, there are a couple wires to know about but other than that its a painless install and when done as others have said it looks like a factory install. Other than the couple wires I'm listing here everything else will plug right in to the factory harness. The first wire to run will be your VSS(vehicle speed sensor) wire. I ran this through the firewall to the ECU plug and tapped into the BLUE W/YELLOW stripe wire, pin #3. The next wire to run is the reverse light hook up. This helps with navigation and also turns on the rear view camera if installed. This wire is in the passenger side running board harness. It is a WHITE W/YELLOW stripe wire but before you tap it test it because there are about 5 white w/ yellow stripe in the harness. If you prefer to pick it up at the harness it is pin #13. The next wire is for the dimmer/nighttime control. I originally hooked this up with the main radio harness but it was not working and I found that because this is controlled by the SJB it was not a strong enough signal for the D3 to "see" so I ended up taping into the tail light wire and it works great. I found this wire at the passenger side harness as well. It is going to be the TAN W/ RED stripe wire and although I still tested to be sure it was the only tan w/red I found. The last connection is for your own discretion as it is the bypass. This would allow movies to be played and full function navigation controls when the vehicle is moving. (Obviously I cannot recommend or endorse the bypass but as an informed citizen I feel you have the right to know). To accomplish this you will need to ground two wires. The first is the wire you would normally tap into the parking brake, simple ground this wire instead. The second wire is going to be on the AVIC's harness plug. Look for the yellow MUTE wire. When you find it you will notice directly above it there is an empty slot in the plug. Simply remove the mute wire from the harness with a small pointed object such as a needle or pin and put it in the empty slot directly above it. Now simply ground that connection like you did the parking break wire and your good to go. Thats about all there is to it. For those of you that have the Shaker 1000 units there is one more thing to do. When you hook up the amp lead for the subs in the trunk you will get a loud pop every time you turn on the car. Apparently the reason for this is that the factory amps use a 5V lead to tell them to turn on but the D3 sends out a 12V signal so it causes a loud pop regardless of what the volume is set at. This is only at start up so it's not a big deal but it is very annoying. Here is how to fix it. You need a 5V voltage regulator from Radio Shack, the part # is 7805 and the catalog # is 276-1770. To hook this up you need 3 pieces of wire. The regulator has 3 prongs on it input-ground-output. Solder a small length of wire to each lead and then tape or shrink wrap each one. now take the regulator with the wires attached to the car and you will hook up the ground to ground, the OUTPUT to the D3's system remote lead(amp turn on) and the INPUT to the amp lead on the car. This will make it power on the amps with no pop's or noise, it works perfect. Hope this is helpful for anyone installing theres and it may be usefull for some other headunits as well. Let me know if you have any other questions and I will be happy to help.

RobK

Thanks for the great info!