Another pre MY12 ICE replacement

[internets]

Like most pre MY12 Evora owners I found the In Car Entertainment a little underwhelming so have been considering a change for a while. I wanted an Apple CarPlay compatible unit and would have liked to have stayed with Alpine but as they currently only have 1 CarPlay unit I looked at the Pioneer units with more features like DAB etc.

 

After reading a few reviews etc I decided on the AVIC-F70DAB unit which has CarPlay and Android Auto plus DAB, navigation, Bluetooth, DVD etc. and it was awarded AutoExpress BestBuy 2015. After Lee (CocoPops) mentioned buying his Pioneer headunit from Germany far cheaper than in the UK, thanks Lee , I found my unit in Germany for around £590.

 

Removing the old Alpine modules was fun, not! but I eventually managed to withdraw all the units. The NVE-M300P  Navigation module is hidden well behind the passenger airbag and luckily just Velcroed to its mounting plate as the parts manual suggested it was screwed down. The KCE-400BT Bluetooth module is just behind the head unit again attached with Velcro and was easier to remove than the Navigation module, unlike the hundreds of cable ties holding the various wires to the main car harness but with patience and time I managed to carefully remove them. 

 

Had heard some horror stories about swapping over but it was all straight forward enough, I purchased the Lotus / Pioneer loom (Part No. A132M0326F), though as Lee (CocoPops) found out I had to transplant the connector from the loom supplied with the head unit onto the Lotus supplied loom. The Lotus wiring for the reversing camera left a little to be desired and had been hard-wired in but I swapped that for bullet connectors. I ran the Pioneer GPS aerial the same way the Alpine aerial using the same magnetic mount behind the instrument binical but I found out the microphone used with the Alpine Bluetooth unit did not have a jack plug so decided to cut the Alpine connector and splice the connector from the microphone supplied with the Pionneer unit to save pulling A pillar trim etc. The CT27UV67 powered DAB aerial was a breeze to fit, I mounted it to the top left of the windscreen using the supplied sticky pad then dropped the cable down the big enough gap in the dash, its obvious when you look which gap, and tucked the cable behind the A pillar trim.

 

So far I am pleased with the Pionner unit and have found it all works very well, although still a tad underwhelmed by the Alpine subwoofer and yes it is working as the door speakers seem to handle the bass better than the sub but will play some more with the settings.

I have switched on the 'Hey Siri' feature on my iPhone allowing complete hands-free to make calls, setup navigation (using Apple Maps) and change music and that all seems to work well when on the move. Have also fitted one of the phone brackets from Elise Shop.

 

For anyone still awake some pictures  sorry about the rubbish quality 

 

 

 

 

[Bibs]

Nicely done, looks very good

[CocoPops]

Excellent, glad you got it sorted

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

I thought mobile phone brackets died out 10 years ago!

[j141]

Looks good, when I changed mine I left all the old junk in, I would like to get it out did you have to remove the dash to get at it?

[internets]

The head unit, obviously, and glove box. Being double joined would be a big plus too  

 

Obvious rules apply to disconnecting the battery and being very careful around the air-bag!

[j141]

Thanks I will give it a go some time, your directions should help as last time I was just staring in to the abyss with only a rough idea of where they were and I assumed they would have been screwed in so gave up.

[Jayone24]

Do the canbus connection of the evora is working with the pioneer? For example do the parking sensor are displaying on the pioneer?

[CocoPops]

Nope, it's a nonCAN car.

[Jayone24]

Ok so there is no way to retrieve the parking sensor info to display it in an head unit?

[Jayone24]

Side remark maybe somethings like this could work on our cars?

The link : https://www.navdy.com

[gregs24]

There is no parking sensor information on the screen - just a reversing camera and audible warnings

[EuropaSman]

Nope, it's a nonCAN car.

 

Just a quick digression; like the Europa S I had previously the protocol used is KWP2000. I've got a cheap VAG code reader I bought form Ebay that I use on my SEAT Leon and can read out codes from my Evora.

 

There is no parking sensor information on the screen - just a reversing camera and audible warnings

 

I didn't know this until I read it in the Service Notes the other day that the reversing sensor beeps come from the instrument pack and not the ICE.

Edited August 7, 2015 by EuropaSman

[internets]

The reversing sensors appear to be a Cobra standalone unit with the speaker located somewhere around the instrument pack. The parking sensor ECU is located in the boot on the LH side by the wheel arch.

[EuropaSman]

Having read the Service Notes again, the standalone sounder unit is on early vehicles, but was later incorporated into the instrument panel made by Pektron in Derby (see Item 5). I wonder when the change over occurred. 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 7, 2015 by EuropaSman

[electro_boy]

sorry to drag up an old thread but Internets could you provide a bit more info on how you got all the extra gubbins out (the navigation and bluetooth modules) please?

Sounds like you have to remove the glove box to get access to them?  Was this difficult or requiring special tools?

thanks Electo

[agentdr8]

IIRC, both of those modules require full dash removal to gain access. Aside from the minimal weight, leaving them in-situ and connected doesn't seem to have any side-effects. 

[internets]

I didn't remove anything, just worked through the radio aperture and removed the cord that holds the glove box up, although getting that back on was. PIA! Just be aware working around the glove box area due to airbag but of course the better would be disconnected :-)

Took my time and luckily for me the modules were held down with Velcro and no tools required really, trying to unlock the cable ties was not fun! 

[electro_boy]

Thanks for the info, will give this a try if I ever have to take the radio out.

[internets]

As a follow up to this I have just swapped the stock Alpine (INE-W990) for a Pioneer AVIC-F77DAB in my 400 but the Lotus part number listed above (A132M0326F) for the Pioneer loom is no longer for Pioneer but just the stock Alpine loom with the Pioneer part number stuck ‘on top’. Not sure why this part number wasn’t just discontinued as effectively I ended up with 2 identical looms, anyhow a pair of cutters and a soldering iron later all fixed  

 

Unfortunately the surround on the 400 isn’t  a perfect fit for the Pioneer unlike on my old S but you can sort of make it fit as long as you don’t want to eject a DVD but no plans to use any CD/DVD’s so shouldn’t be a problem   

[Bravo73]

The start of this thread will probably also interest @pete757.

[nigelh]

Really useful follow up @internets - when I was looking through the parts list it wasn't clear if the 400 used the same short harness from the head unit to the main harness, and I haven't got round to taking a look.

I miss the carplay features from the headunit I put in my old N/A, so may look at the INE-W710D as an alternative.

[pete757]

Thanks mate. Appreciated. :>)

[internets]

@nigelh I did consider the INE-W710 but it’s so expensive, was £950 when I looked but notice on eBay one seller is £800 now, got the Pioneer for around £350. I believe there are a few updates to the 710.

I found the INE-W990 had short comings, was very slow on navigation, on start up and re caluculation,  plus the USB power could only supply 1amp so often my phone would die as it could not charge the phone fast enough whilst using Bluetooth and Waze at the same time. My cloth ears also think the Pioneer sounds much better, was amazed at the difference but of course this is very subjective.

Just for completeness, and for when I might be doing this again in the future  , here is the pin out for the Lotus harness connector, my rough workings!

As I’m sad I tested the HDMI input on the head unit using my RetroPie  

[nigelh]

£350 seems like a bargain for a carplay capable head unit with built in satnav.  I think I paid around £300 for an SPH-DA120 for my old car - the ones with satnav seemed about twice that price at the time. 

I did prefer the pioneer user interface (i.e. the non carplay parts), but I didn't like apple maps as a navigation app, and unfortunately both Apple and Google continue to refuse to open up their car interfaces to third party navigation apps like tomtom / sygic.

If I do swap the head unit in the 400 I'll be looking for something with both carplay and a built in satnav.   Caraudiodirect have the INE-W710D for about £800 which does still seem a little pricey, but I can live with the INE-W990BT a while longer - I've found it a lot better than the INE-W505R I had in the N/A