Pioneer AVH-P4200DVD Wiring Question: Noob Edition

[BeaterEP]

OK, so finally pulled the trigger on a new head unit. Hooray!

Got all the bits in front of me, and I'm working on getting the harness wired up before I start pulling apart the dash, and I've got a couple of questions for you audio folks.

There are some "spare" wires on both sides of this equation that I'm having trouble sorting out. All the basic stuff like 12V constant and speakers I get, I'm not quite that inexperienced. :mbiggrin:

On the Honda harness side:
Solid Orange - Illumination/Dash Light
Orange/White - Dimmer
Solid Blue - Power Antenna

Pioneer Harness:
Orange/White - connect to Lighting Switch Term.
Blue/White - System Remote Control
Yellow/Black - Mute
Violet/White - Reverse Gear Input Signal

Now, here's how I think this works, someone lemme know if I'm wrong :mbiggrin:
Honda 1 (above) should connect to Pioneer 1
Honda 2 is left unused
Honda 3 is left unused
Pioneer 2 is left unused (there for amp/sub signal)
Pioneer 3 is left unused (no mute feature)
Pioneer 4 is left unused (there for back-up camera options)

Sound right? :shrug:

PS: searched the bejeezus outta this one, and came up with very little. So, here we are!

[oneglory]

correct.

The mute, I believe, is to be used if you had that feature OEM before hand like on the steering wheel or dash. I'm pretty sure I didn't use mine.

Edit: I also think you should be using the power antenna, since ours is amplified - I could have sworn I hook mine up to my pioneer AVIC...but again, I forget.

[BeaterEP]

Ah, good to know about the antenna (maybe? :P)
I'm sure some of this will start to make a little more sense as the coffee kicks in, and some of it might get cleared up once I pull the old unit (earlier model pioneer), but I'm trying to get as much of the wiring handled as possible inside where it's warm; working with 16-18 gauge wire when your fingers are numb kinda sucks! :mbiggrin:

[oneglory]

if it wasn't a gigantic pain in the ass to pull my avic out plus all 4 of its harnesses (ipod, gps, microphone, RCA pigtail plus the regular harness) I'd look for you directly.

[BeaterEP]

HAHA no worries man, not even gonna think about asking you to get in to all that insanity! :mbiggrin:
Like I said, it will probably start making a lot more sense once I'm actually in there, just trying to get as much of the prep work done as I can before I start taking the guts out.

[BeaterEP]

Well, went ahead and pulled the old unit, along with the harness, to see if that wouldn't answer the remaining questions.
And it almost did! :mbiggrin:

The blue Harness wire was run to the Blue/White Pioneer wire, so went ahead and matched that.
The only mystery that remains is the Orange and Orange/White wires.
On the old Pioneer unit, there was no Orange wire of any sort, so those two leads were just capped from the old Harness.
Figure I'll just run the only Illumination wire from the Pioneer side to the Orange illumination/Dash Light wire from the harness side, and leave the harness side Dimmer wire out of it. :shrug:

[oneglory]

illumination and dimmer should be the same thing

[BeaterEP]

Right, but the Metra harness coming from the Honda side has two separate leads.
One is Orange - Illumination/Dash Light
One is Orange/White - Dimmer

What I'm trying to figure out is which one the Orange/White lead from the Pioneer side should get hooked up to. The install manual from Pioneer says;
"Orange/White - Connect to lighting switch terminal"
lulz, thanks Pioneer! Maybe I'm just missing an obvious answer, like run all three together or something screwy, but :shrug:

[he_li48]

I think you have to use the lumination not dimmer. I think the head unit need to detect light on an so it can dim the screen when it is dark outside.

Here is a pic of my finished 4200 head unit install.
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb42/hlim637/Civic%20Project/DSC_7177.jpg

Don't like the angle the headunit is in. The bottom controls stick out too much. I might want to pull out again and try to tilt a little. (sigh)

[BeaterEP]

Looks good though!
Went ahead and threw everything together before work tonight.
Couple of notes:
Just left the illumination leads capped and disconnected. I might go ahead and run those, though, because this thing is pretty damn bright when you're driving in the middle of the night. However, one tap of the mode button shuts off everything but the control button lighting, so who knows, I might just leave it as is. My problem with a dimmer feature is that I run w/my corner lights on during the day, and I don't want the unit thinking it's night time and dimming the screen. :thumbd:

Wound up running the blue wire from harness to the blue/white wire from the unit, simply because that's how the old harness was run. :shrug: Does not seem to have affected anything adversely, and that connection is capped so I can get in to it for an amp later. :mbiggrin:

Also hooked up a relay bypass for the video feature, just cuz. Seems to be working, but as I don't have the fancy iPod cable yet, hard to say. I did get audio from a vid I played, though, after seeing the warning screen and hitting the OK button. :shady:

Metra FTMFL. That kit is a piece of ill-fitting garbage, and it's going the fuck back tomorrow morning. Already ordered a Scosche kit from Amazon, should be here Tuesday. I'd be pretty pissed, but knew I'd be in there again anyway, so oh well LOL.

Harness work could have been cleaner on my part. I might just re-do everything, as there is very little room now that this monster is eating up all the space I used to have! :nervous:

Like to thank everyone for the help/tips/advice, really appreciate it! I've messed around with audio before, but hadn't done a "full" install of a new head unit, so this was kinda new and old for me. :thumbu: Good lookin' out guys!

EDIT:
Oh, and one other thing...gonna have to plug the old stereo back in one last time, to retrieve the CD I left in there! :doh:

[he_li48]

You can alway put a manual switch in between the lumination and head unit. Too bad pioneer did not give you option to turn the screen to day or night mode manually. :(

[oneglory]

Metra FTMFL. That kit is a piece of ill-fitting garbage, and it's going the fuck back tomorrow morning. Already ordered a Scosche kit from Amazon, should be here Tuesday. I'd be pretty pissed, but knew I'd be in there again anyway, so oh well LOL.

Yea man. crap.



Harness work could have been cleaner on my part. I might just re-do everything, as there is very little room now that this monster is eating up all the space I used to have! :nervous:

by the time i got all the extra harnesses and everything plugged in I have no idea how the hell that thing fit in that spot, and the ep has a lot of room considering and it still hardly fit!

[BeaterEP]

You can alway put a manual switch in between the lumination and head unit. Too bad pioneer did not give you option to turn the screen to day or night mode manually. :(
srsly...ah well, for the price, I'm pretty damned happy with what I did get :mbiggrin:
I'll just have to figure out the lighting thing, no bigs. And like I said, the "Mode" button will kill the display if it's that much of a prob at night, so at least there's that.

Yea man. crap.


by the time i got all the extra harnesses and everything plugged in I have no idea how the hell that thing fit in that spot, and the ep has a lot of room considering and it still hardly fit!
Yeah, forgot how much extra room for harness there is when you've got a single din and that shallow pocket in there LOL. That big ole' double-din box takes up some serious space LOL! Seems like such a monster cavern when you've got everything pulled out...not so much when you start putting it all back in!

[Mighty_Mouse_Ep]

When i installed my 4100 and my friends 4200 in his ep and my ep. I hooked up the illumination wire to the illumination on the honda harness. Dont use the dimmer wire at all just the illumination. As for the metra kit fitting, it will fit but it takes a lot of cutting and trimming. You have to trim most of the kit redrill the factory brackets and position the deck just right to sit flush with the dash. It takes a while when i first fit mine in my ep it took me about an hour and ahalf to get it to sit properly and to open and close with out hitting anything. I do have some pics of the parts of the dash kit that i trimmed, before the last crash i had a thread about it. When i get off of work i will look for them and post it up for you.

[BeaterEP]

Sounds good man! :thumbu:
I've already ordered the Scosche kit found here (http://www.amazon.com/Scosche-HA1710B-2001-Honda-Double/dp/B003ULP5FG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=automotive&qid=1295746379&sr=8-1). Hoping that fits up without a crapton of modification, but we'll see. At any rate, still be good to have those pics in here for future reference!

[Mighty_Mouse_Ep]

http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/3315/dsc0812.jpg
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/2617/dsc0815ug.jpg
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/225/dsc0820k.jpg
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/2617/dsc0815ug.jpg
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/8686/dsc0814h.jpg
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/7504/dsc0825lr.jpg
With a dummy plate i made out of an em2 deck
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/4475/dsc0859p.jpg
http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/63/dsc0858c.jpg
Those sliver things on the back of the dash kit are magnets i super glued. They are used to hold the dummy plate in place.

[BeaterEP]

I'm not seeing the pics, if they're up, but from the description it sounds awesome! :mbiggrin:
I was thinking about some sort of dummy plate as well, so get those pics in!

[Mighty_Mouse_Ep]

Fixed sorry i copied the wrong link from image shack What you have to do is pretty much cut the top and bottom of the kit and parts of the corners. Also the edges of the kit are rounded you want to square them off in order to get to clear when opening and closing

[BeaterEP]

AH, nice! Not bad man! :thumbu:

So you basically mounted the unit so the entire thing was just a little inside of the overall surface of the dash, right?

[he_li48]

Sounds good man! :thumbu:
I've already ordered the Scosche kit found here (http://www.amazon.com/Scosche-HA1710B-2001-Honda-Double/dp/B003ULP5FG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=automotive&qid=1295746379&sr=8-1). Hoping that fits up without a crapton of modification, but we'll see. At any rate, still be good to have those pics in here for future reference!

Are you sure that will fit? It may look like it will fit, but the 2001 Civic (4 door) kit is not the same as the Si. It is wider and not as tall. Better make sure.

[BeaterEP]

Well, that's the one that Scosche listed when I searched their site, so if it doesn't...time to do some trimming! :mbiggrin:
Basically, the Metra I got was obviously going to need a lot of work in order to fit at all, so figured I'd try the Scosche, since folks seem to think the Scosche products fit better.
If I can get a good fit without cutting the shit out of something, I'll take it. I only want to start doing fab work if it's the only option. :D

[Mighty_Mouse_Ep]

AH, nice! Not bad man! :thumbu:

So you basically mounted the unit so the entire thing was just a little inside of the overall surface of the dash, right?

Yeah the hardest part was gettin the bottom right hand corner to sit flush. Other ep's that i have seen with double dins the bottom right corner sticks way out of the dash. Mine sits flush and doesnt stick out.

[BeaterEP]

Are you sure that will fit? It may look like it will fit, but the 2001 Civic (4 door) kit is not the same as the Si. It is wider and not as tall. Better make sure.

FUUUUUU Scosche kit got here today.
First thing I see? "excluding Si"
Nowhere on their website does it say that.
Nowhere on the Amazon site does it say that.
You'd think when I entered "2003 Honda Civic Si" in their search database on the Scosche site, it would have left out the products that don't fucking fit. :doh:

EDIT:
Only question now is, try to make this fit, or return to Amazon and try the locally-available Metra kit again?
crappity crap crap LOL

[he_li48]

Sorry to hear that dude. What I did was use the Scoshe double din trim only. I glued it to the dash, minor trimming and redrill holes in bracket. (the trim does not fit perfectly on the outside around dash, but it is not noticable. It recesses the radio a lot and will allow you to add a fake radio to cover when ur out.

[Mighty_Mouse_Ep]

FUUUUUU Scosche kit got here today.
First thing I see? "excluding Si"
Nowhere on their website does it say that.
Nowhere on the Amazon site does it say that.
You'd think when I entered "2003 Honda Civic Si" in their search database on the Scosche site, it would have left out the products that don't fucking fit. :doh:

EDIT:
Only question now is, try to make this fit, or return to Amazon and try the locally-available Metra kit again?
crappity crap crap LOL

Damn that sucks to hear i am sure you can return it from where ever you got it from. Hope those pics i posted up help. Just trim the bottom and the top of the kit and the corners.

[BeaterEP]

Yeah, that's the plan.

Ugh, today just keeps failing lol...never soldered, though I've helped my pops out plenty back when.
Picked up a Weller 25W unit and some rosin-cored silver-bearing solder...and I'm pretty sure ruined the iron LOL. :doh:

Hate the fail days lol, should have just left the friggin crimp caps on and been done with it.

UPDATE:
lrnd 2 solder...Crutchfield to the rescue, even though I didn't buy anything from them. Found a quick "How-To" on their site, realized I'd been doing it wrong LOL.
Learning how hard it is to solder tiny-ass speaker wires. :D

[Supaduck]

are you soldering correctly? you should never ever ever touch the solder wire to the actual iron. the soldering iron should heat up the wires you're trying to solder together enough so that when the solder wire comes in contact with the wires you're soldering together, it melts and runs through all the nooks and crannies and holds em together.

[boricua4life]

sorry for thread jacking but did not feel the need to make a new thread for my following question....

i made the same mistake by buying the scosche dash kit... can i make it fit? i have the ph4300dvd... any help greatly appreciated

[ef9jeff]

holy crap I thought i got a lemon for a dash kit from metra... the bottom right hand corner sits out while the top left hand corner sits in and it looks god awefull@!!@!!@!

I see you had to trim quite a bit! I guess I know what I am doing this weekend!

What did you use to trim ?

[Mighty_Mouse_Ep]

holy crap I thought i got a lemon for a dash kit from metra... the bottom right hand corner sits out while the top left hand corner sits in and it looks god awefull@!!@!!@!

I see you had to trim quite a bit! I guess I know what I am doing this weekend!

What did you use to trim ?
I used a dremel and some flush cut trimmer thing I had.