Is it possible custom double dinn on OEM radio

[thisaznboi88]

I was wondering if it was possible to custom fab the OEM radio so that I can place a double din unit in. I saw a lot of custom work on the old gen7 but there all locked away some where in a deep dark dungeon. I was wondering if some of those guru that did it on the old forum were here, and if so can you give me some pointers. I want to place a F900BT on my car sometime in the near future, and I would much like it to be where the stock h/u is rather then the cubby hole. i know metra makes a single din but I heard it was glitchy from a lot of people who use it and it doesn't look at clean as the oem one. LMK if you can point me to the right direction.

[rich]

it's gonna be a PITA to make brackets to mount the DD...i'm sure you're gonna have to buy the single din kit and bring it to your local custom car audio place and tell them you want to make it into a double din opening

[thisaznboi88]

thanks for the input rich. yeah I dont know what I want to do the the moment. Just had the idea last night.

[thisaznboi88]

I was looking around and saw that the TSX radio is seperated from the Ac/Heating control. I was wondering does anyone have an idea if I can use that and adapted to the accord? If that is the case I can probably get it to work somehow..

[cna]

unless you can get the Honda navigation face plate and rewire your controls to that and fit the F900BT into that opening but it would take a lot of custom work

[thisaznboi88]

The accord navi has the ac/heating control in the navi. I saw the tsx one it has dual climate but at least its seperate from the radio itself, but I looked at the back n there like 3 plugs going to it so I don't know it that would work now. yeah I know it is going to be a pain in the ass, but the best things are the hardest thing to do. i am probably going to save this project for summer. Just getting info right now.

[Philly Steve]

it'll cause you a lot less pain and suffering to just say bye-bye to that little cubby hole. but i respect your enthusiasm and think you should go for it. a few people have had a lot of difficulty with this because it's either mod the metra kit or mod the circuit board of the OEM h/u. both a pretty complicated project.

[thisaznboi88]

Thanks steve. I know that it is going to be a pain... But I think that it would be better if I can actually see  the gps map instead of looking down n risking getting to an accident. Cuz stuff happen so fast only takes a blink of the eye n bam. The thing I like about the f90bt is that everything is voice activated which is a big ++.

O yeah thanks for answering my question about the HI-Low n 5 channel sub. I am probably going to figure out this project first before I jump to the next one.

[timot_one]

Since I've done this, I'll provide a little bit of insight for ya Ken.  Here are all of the problems that I encountered when I tried this.  I know it's a lengthy read, but it is an in depth explanation of how difficult this is.  I have attempted this twice and have not been successful.  I employed the help of other installers, a repair tech that fixes noise reduction aviation headsets, and other experienced installers, but I was still unable to get this to work.

First, let me be blunt and say that it will not fit correctly.  This issue supersedes any of the other issues I am listing.  There is not enough space behind your factory h/u to mount the F900BT flush.  I tried this with my IVA-W200, which is also 6.5" deep, and it would not fit.  I cut out a ton of the plastic in the dash behind the h/u, heated and crushed the plastic air vents, and there still wasn't enough space for my Alpine to fit.  

Then there's the next challenge of modifying the circuit board.  What you need to do is remove the fan speed and temperature knobs, then wire 6 leads from each knob directly on to the circuit board.  It's not impossible to do, it's just very time consuming and hard to pull off if you don't have any experience with soldering PCB's.  You'll have to mount the knobs in the dash piece also, since they were held in place by the PCB before.  There are 2 PCB's in your HVAC controls connected with a ribbon cable (either 1 or 3 depending on the h/u you have).  I have never been able to find one to use as an extension, so you must take the PCB and swing it down 90º so you have space for the h/u to fit.  Then you have to secure it to whatever brackets you're using so the ribbon cables don't flex and eventually break.  This part is critical, otherwise your HVAC controls will not work properly if they work at all.

Another issue is the status LED's for the A/C, recirculate, and rear defrost buttons.  Those are surface mounted on the PCB that you will have mounted underneath your aftermarket h/u.  So, you would have to de-solder the surface mount LED's from the PCB, wire extensions from the PCB to the LED's, and then re-mount them into the panel.

Finally, the last issue that you will experience when trying to do this is your backlight for all of your buttons when you turn your parking lights/headlights on.  The 12v trigger is actually in your OEM h/u harness, and not your HVAC harness.  The 12v trigger goes through a logic circuit in your CD mechanism (which would be removed for this install) to turn on the backlight.  I have tested the CD mechanism once to find the pin out on the PCB, but had no luck at all.  It could have been my testing methods, or it could be that the CD mechanism uses a logic board and puts out lower voltage than we were testing for.  The fix for this is to run your own LED's for the backlights.  It requires some minor modifications to the dash piece, but it's fairly easy to do.  This also allows you to run a separate switch if you want to turn off your backlight LED's at night for better night vision.

Hopefully this provides a little more insight on what's involved in doing this kind of thing.

[thisaznboi88]

Thanks for your insight. Man the accord H/U is so complex its like WTF. Who ever designed it must have wanted no one to mess with it... Well I see what I can do for this if not I can try to get a F500bt instead even though it is not the best and fiber glass it over the existing H/U. I saw it done the the old gen7 before the move.

[thisaznboi88]

http://www.v6performance.net/forums/sho ... ight=turbo

I found this on v6p Looked like someone custom modded the oem H/U

http://www.v6performance.net/forums/sho ... ight=turbo

[timot_one]

Old ass threads man.  Anyway, you can try it if you want or pay someone else more experienced to do it for you.

[thisaznboi88]

yeah. I was trying to figure out how the board works now. Its a Pain in the asss........

[timot_one]

Take it from a guy that has attempted this twice, it's not worth the effort.  The two main reasons why I say that is because it will end up not fitting due to space restrictions with a double DIN in that area and becuase your OEM HVAC controls will be unreliable after being modified.

[mnkyman]

this guy on g7a is currently working on one: http://www.gen7accord.net/profile/My03Accord , doesn't look half bad either. I think he is having a friend do the circuit board...if his turns out successful, you might ask him for some pointers