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Hi all, thought I would start a thread about my car and what will be done to it over time. This will be an evolving thread as things happen.
History:
I bought the TI spec model with the 4.8 having Dual Fuel. Previous owner actually fitted an oversized sub tank too! Bonus.
It was close to Bone Stock when purchased apart from a brake controller and a stuffed Anderson plug on the rear end, a GME UHF that has wires and tape all over the place and a crappy hands free kit.
Im the 3rd owner and got a pretty good service history with it. It was well looked after. Hardly seen any off road work apart from a few small tracks up North. Some scratches etc around but to be expected and not overly fussed about.
It has been a bit neglected inside, not any real damage, just unclean.
Now just Tidying it up to suit my needs
First week in having it ALL interior come out for cleaning and running cables apart from front carpet. I was surprised at how clean everything was under the trim panels. No signs of dust anywhere. Rear carpet was filthy so that got totally removed and cleaned. The underlay was stuffed so got thrown in the bin. It has now been replaced by foam anti fatigue matting which has worked extremely well.
All leather seats have been totally scrubbed and then gone over with leather protector.
Trim panels have been removed, hosed off/ scrubbed and now recleaned once gone back into the car.
The bloke who had it before me obviously had no concept of wiring. I have pulled out the busted UHF which was wired straight to the battery (not been replaced yet), hands free kit which was knotted around half the wires under the dash, an unused video cable running to the rear and a stuffed anderson plug running to the rear. The wiring is whats taken me about a week to complete
The Patrol didnt come with a remote central locking button. Further investigation showed I had it all there, so im guessing the remote got lost or didnt work, hence why I never got it when purchased.
So off to Jaycar and bought an alarm kit. The alarm side was dead simple to wire up. The central locking was a nightmare. I spliced into the white central locking controller via the 2 thick blue wires. That didnt work. Located the green relay. Got 3 doors and the tailgate to fire but not drivers side. Took out the drivers side actuator motor and deemed it to be stuffed after I cut it open. I could get it to move but there was no torque from the motor to actually operate the actuator on the door lock (under load)
So that is now residing in the wheelie bin and replaced with an off the shelf actuator from Jaycar using 3 of the 4 original wires in the door.. I spliced into the wires on the green relay box from the alarm and now everything is working fine!
Now I have played around with this alarm a bit , I really like it. The alarm has been set on door, accessory power, impact sensor and tamper (standard) protection. NATS takes care of the rest of the immobilisation.
The alarm talks to you as standard saying "armed" or "disarmed". I thought this would become really annoying but I actually like the cues it gives me, like if the kids dont close the door properly on arming it says "please close the door" within 5 seconds of me pressing the lock button. The tamper side of things say "dont touch me" with a few siren chirps as a warning . Found this out mucking around with fuses for the door lock trigger.
If the alarm was triggered by the door being opened or accessory power was applied while im gone, the alarm tells me "the door was opened" once I disarm and enter the car. As it sits now, the voice stays. Time will tell if I get sick of it.
Valet mode I found very handy so far. What this does is disable the alarm side until you reactivate it, instead of having the alarm auto arm itself after a certain period of time. Great for having the doors open for a while down the beach fishing or working on the car.
Auto arm does not lock the car if the doors have been opened. This means there is no chance of the alarm rearming itself and locking the keys and the keyfob in the car. Auto rearm will only relock the doors IF the doors have not been opened.
It has support for auto windows up and a remote boot trigger too. I highly recommend this alarm system
The wires I have now run through the car go into a 10 way fuse box rated to 100 amp that is powered once the accessories are turned on by the key. Anything that will be power hungry has its own switched relay powered from the fuse box and only the trigger wire for that relay comes from the fuse box (eg front light bar)
This has given me plenty of room to grow the system if need be.
Whats been added.
LED 120w 22" Light bar up front
LED 27w spotlight rear
4 x USB Ports in rear of center console replacing the ash tray on the back.
2x 12v power outlets rear cargo area
Eonon GA2114 Android Head unit 7" Display (Stay tuned for a more detailed write up on this)
JVC 6.5" Splits Front
JVC 6.5" 4 way coax Rear
Both powered by a JVC 300w RMS amp mounted in drivers side rear quarter panel. Passenger side is filled up with rear air con unit.
Reverse Camera with over ride switch
Steel Mate 836G Alarm
I will go into detail more about the head unit etc in another post.
I will also upload some pics of it too.
Switches for the rear camera over ride and rear spotlight.
Rear camera over ride is very handy. I have the camera mounted just above the factory recovery point (note: I wont be using it, thought I would get that in before anyone comments) and I can see the towball mount. At the flick of a switch I can see whats going on at the back. I personally think it would be quite handy for recoveries.
The 27w rear spotlight is mounted on the bottom of the rear step drivers side. When I need a bit more light reversing or out and about , eg fishing down the beach I can flick this on. 20160624_102043 (1280x720).jpg
USB ports for the kids. 2x USB ports for each of them. total output is 3.1 amp so the ipads can be charged with these no problem. They are illuminated blue.
They were Fitted in the rear ashtray hole. Needed a little bit of filing out to fit in the switch mount blocks but worked out great. The middle socket is empty at the moment but will be filled with something at a later date. 20160624_101854 (1280x720).jpg
2x 12v power outlets. 15 amp wiring run to each individually and fused. Nice and easy fit in the cover to get to the rear lights. Its quite a strong mounting point too. I pulled at them and that cover will not come out unless you push down on the release lever. 20160624_101841 (1280x720).jpg
This is going to be a bit of a lengthy post to explain this as it can do pretty much anything, much like todays phones.
The Head unit runs an android based system. You can customize it to suit your needs/ wants which is why I chose it in the first place
First of all I will explain the android based head units as a group. There are pretty much 2 main types. MTCB based and MTCD based.
Most of the head units come from the one factory HuiFei then rebranded from the reseller. Pumpkin, Eonon, Xtrons, Erisin just to name a few.
While the externals look a bit different the internals are the same. I found this out while finding the firmware versions.
Which one have you got? Go into Settings and scroll down to about Device. You will see MTCB or MTCD in the MCU version. The build number will give you what chipset is used in your device.
NOTE: the firmware doesnt care what the "factory" sold it to you as. Its a HuiFei unit and the only things that matter are what chipset it has, the screen resolution and if its MTCB or MTCD. EVERYTHING ELSE is irrelevant!! 20160624_185445 (1280x720).jpg 20160624_185436 (1280x720).jpg
There are 2 basic types of processing chipset options available. RK3066 dual core and RK3166 Quad core. 2 screen resolutions are also available 800x 480 and 1024x600. Both of these specs are important to know as it determines the ROM type if you want to upgrade the software.
For the purpose of this , the Specs on my unit are RK3166 Quad core with 800x480 screen resolution.
Out of the box this unit is very capable. For $340 I got the head unit, reverse camera and Aussie Sygic maps as part of the deal. Included standard was the GPS receiver, external microphone for hands free , ipod connection plug (30 pin old Apple connector, not the new Lighting type) , USB cables to plug in your phone or flash/hard drive or even a 3G dongle, WIFI and all your usual plugs and connectors.
This is the way I run it for the first week to make sure it was all working fine. Bluetooth worked pairing my phone for calls and music no problem, WIFI connects at home for updates to software etc or to transfer files I want it to. Radio works great and so does playing movies.
I can output the signal to 2 other monitors if I wanted and also have an extra video input for an external DVD player or other camera if I want (think front mount dash cam with the ability to record to the unit)
This unit doesnt have a cd/dvd drive at all. I wont use it. The model with the DVD drive was a 6.2" screen and mine is 7" due to having a little more real estate available. I will have all movies etc on a flash drive when I want them.
I have changed the boot screen to show the Nissan logo on boot up, just for a little bit more of the factory feel.
Now onto what I want it to do......
I want it to read temps and pressures etc from the sensors via the ECU instead of cluttering up my dash with a million different guages.
This is where I run into a problem. The bluetooth OBDII/ELM 327 adapter I have would not connect. Why? Because it had a different name that didnt include OBD in its name and the head unit with stock firmware would not recognise this. My adapters name was PP2145. Bluetooth names can not be changed.
Yes I know you can change the name on your phone to whatever you want, but thats what your phone calls it, NOT what its true name is.
Solution, Flash the head unit with new firmware and install a program that lets me get rid of this limitation. Simple.
Now my OBD reader connects and I can get info from Nissan Data Scan II like water temp , throttle position, RPM and a few others. Im trying to find some other PID's I can get readings on like oil pressure and transmission temp. I have read fault codes with this too and sucessfully cleared them.
Im also trying to get Torque Pro to read data on this. I havent spent enough time with it to get this to happen yet. I do know the Nissan EX plug in does not with with the TB48 so far either.
There are a few other ones I am yet to try like Car Gauge PRO which apparently will read Consult II properly. I will report back on that.
If anyone wants I will post up a bit of a guide and software/ firmware recommendations for these units. Its very simple to do, even for the technically challenged.
Now I have custom firmware on the head unit , I can do pretty much anything from set auto dimming times based on GPS location/time to make everything I want run automatically on start instead of waiting for it to initialize.
What else does it do? Gets rid of the POXY 1 GB size limitation for installing apps and data related to them. You can now utilize the whole 16gb
this also lets you install different launchers,home screens and button layout customisation. Oh and the stupid non working weather app is now gone and replaced with a working one. If you dont like the one bundled with it, simply delete it and use something else. Dont like the keyboard? Change it. Want to just lower the music when selecting reverse instead of it totally cutting out? Simple, tick a box and its done.
All the apps I use on my phone can be installed on the unit.
Anyway even though this post is long and I could fill pages and pages I will leave it there. If anyone wants to ask questions go ahead.
20160623_184048 (1280x720).jpg
Sorting out the wiring on the drivers side. No it doesnt look like this anymore. Was a pain in the ring as there was 2 brake controllers (sensa brake and reese). This gave me an issue with the electric windows not working intermittently as whoever wired the brake controllers up spliced into the power for the windows without soldering or anything else really. Took me a while to figure out the cause.
If you look closely you will see the lid of the new fuse box I installed just to the left of the steering column
20160616_201244 (1280x720).jpg
Wiring on passenger side for the alarm and door locks. Again all nice and neat tucked up under the dash now
20160624_102043 (1280x720).jpg
The reverse camera (tiny black thing just above recovery point) and rear light mounted. I will be making a little cover to go over the camera.
20160622_140849 (1280x720).jpg
This is the 4 channel amp powering them to their correct RMS rating. Not some blown out power figure written on the box. This is probably one of the most important parts matching amps and speakers.
20160624_102125 (1280x720).jpg
Even though the tweeter is much much larger than the factory one I was still able to make them fit into the factory location. I removed the original tweeter and bracket then mounted the tweeter with heavy duty double sided tape. No holes to be drilled or cut and easy to remove if I had to.
The Amp is mounted in the drivers side rear quater panel. I couldnt do it on the passenger side as the rear air con unit takes up the entire space there.
This was a bit of a challenge and I am sorry I didnt get pics but I will remember when that panel is off in the near future.
Basically there isnt much room on the drivers side. I made 2 extended mounting straps. Think of them as a "U" shape. Think of it as a hanging bracket so to seak. 2 bits of threaded rod mounted to Ali flat bar. These mounting straps recess into the gap by around 70mm then the amp is screwed into the flat bar. It gave me just enough room to wire in the amp and also adjust it without taking it out.
The speakers all have new wiring run right up to the door harness which is where I cut and spliced in. Reason for this if you havent played about with the door electrics much is the doors are plugged in. they have their own harness so no real grommet to go through like older cars. So i just tapped into the wires needed and didnt modify the plug in any way.
Oh I also desoldered the original plug sockets off the old speakers and onto the new ones to keep the factory speaker plug.
How does it sound? Great apart from needing a bit more Bass. That will be taken care of soon with a Subwoofer of some kind. Im just unsure what way to go with that yet. Thinking an underseat sub of some type just to give it a kick. I dont want to take up any space in the rear at all with a sub box even though I have a 12" Alpine Type R in a box ready to go.
It gets plenty loud with it tuned the way it is. I can still get more out of it once I can tune out the Low frequencies with the amp which would be sent to the sub.
Ok I promised pics of the amp install when I took the panel off again.
Im just chasing a alternator whine noise issue down that I have narrowed down to the RCA leads so I snapped some pics in the process while Im sorting it out.
This pic shows where I mounted the amp on the Drivers side rear quarter panel. I had no real option to install on the passenger side as thats taken up with the rear air con unit on mine. The photo isnt upside down, the amp is as that is the way I wanted it so it was easier for me to get to the High Pass and Low Pass filters this way.
As I mentioned before its basically 2 rods with flat bar that make the cradle on each side. You can see the nyloc nuts on the outside for the threaded rod. Second photo shows the bracket better. The amp is recessed around 70mm inside the cavity. I have put flexible cable wrap around sharp edges to protect the cables.
On the right you can see 2 studs coming out. This is where my Earth has gone for the amp. I did have it on the main earth strap on the left but have since moved it due to the noise in the system. It has helped somewhat but still getting a ground loop from the head unit.
Things to watch out for:
You can see a little brown box under the amp. Its a controller for the rear windscreen wiper. I had to move it to get the amp in.
The cable for the Fuel flap release runs through that hole. there is more than enough slack to push it behind the amp out of the way and still work fine.
The rear windscreen washer cable also runs along the same path.
Further info: The white plug with nothing attached is for the factory CD stacker. Mine didnt have it in nor would I use it anyway so its redundant. 20160709_160550 (1280x720).jpg
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Originally Posted by Mike02Ti
Time is never wasted when your wasted all the time 
