BlueTeg

Unfortunately Modifry does not make a plug and play harness for Clarion head units, so I'm stuck wiring my own.
I've gone through my Helms manual and have a decent understanding of the OEM side of the harness. I've also gone through the Clarion instruction manual and I think I have most of the wires paired up correctly.

There are still two wires on the head unit side that don't have a "partner" on the OEM harness side:
* a brown wire for the phone mute lead (see note on my diagram, I don't have plans to integrate the calling feature into deck. Can this be removed/depinned?
* the 'amplifier turn on lead'. Is this for the internal amp in the head unit or for people running an external amp?

If you are familiar with car stereo wiring I would greatly appreciate you looking over my diagram for any mismatches, particularly my pairing choice for cavity #9 on the OEM harness (lights on signal) to the Illumination Lead on the head unit side.

Thanks!

oth

The good news is that the wiring colors are standardized, so a tipoff that you've done something wrong is if the
colors are mismatched.
A few specifics:
Honda has two "lights" wires - "illumination" and "dimmer". Most headunits don't support the "dimmer", so use the
"illumination", which is usually plain orange, even though the matching Clarion wire is orange/white. It may be that
your adapter harness only has one.

The Clarion "phone mute" brown lead can/should be spliced to the DCI blue wire. The DCI supports two methods of muting -
hardwired through this lead, or through a "mute" command. Even after wiring it's dipswitch set-able. The two methods
may or may not behave the same way depending on Clarion's implementation (one may totally mute and/or pause,
the other may simply lower the volume, or not...). In any event, there's no harm in wiring it.

The amp turn-on lead is for an external amp, and should be left unconnected until when/if you add an amp.
Even if you have no rear speakers, go ahead and wire the Clarion rear speaker leads to the harness ones - it will
keep them from shorting and you can use them in the future withiout rewiring.

Any wires left unconnected (amp turn-on and maybe dimmer) should have any stripped section clipped off, and insulate
the end with a little electrical tape.

DCI instructions, in case you don't have them.
Modifry Adapter Harness

BlueTeg

Thanks for the feedback!

A few questions...
I assume the head unit gets power to light the face of the unit up from one of the other 12v powered wires. What function does the "lights on signal" in cavity 9 provide for the aftermarket head unit?

oth

dims the display when the headlights are on (night mode) - if you don't hook this up the
headunit would always be the same brightness. The unsupported "dimmer" function allows
you to change the brightness of the OEM headunit in tandem with the dash when you adjust
the dash brightness control.

BlueTeg

Thanks oth. Finally....got around to starting this project. Got all of the wires soldered up tonight. Just 2 questions left:
1.) The Modify wiring diagram shows a 15amp fuse inline for the Antenna Amplifier / Antenna Power wire (cavity #1). Is this necessary? The wiring diagram in the Helms manual does not show any fuse inline with that wiring section.
2.) The Clarion wiring diagram shows a 15am fuse inline for the Constant Power / Memory Backup (cavity #10). Is this necessary? The wiring diagram in the Helms manual shows that this section of wiring already has a fuse in the underdash fuse relay box.

oth

1) not sure why Modifry is recommending a 15-amp inline fuse on the antenna lead. It's not a bad idea to use a fuse so you don't blow the
antenna circuit with a short, but very few people do (as you've noted, the OEM headunit doesn't), and in any event 15 amps sounds way
too big to protect anything - I don't know the actual current demand of the antenna amp, but it's got to be way lower than that. I haven't seen
that Modifry wiring diagram, so just verify that you've got the right connections.
2) Clarion suggests an inline fuse because they don't know if you're going to wire the headunit to an appropriate fuse or direct to the
battery. As you pointed out, the power wire is already appropriately fused, so you don't need an additional inline fuse.

BlueTeg

Here is the link to pic. It's from the "old" modifry site, but I found it helpful as a supplement to other diagrams.
https://www.modifry.com/old/product/...rms_ir_dci.jpg

oth

ah, that explains it: the "head unit wiring harness" pictured comes from some random brand of headunit, and is supplied with an inline fuse
by the manufacturer to protect their headunit's power antenna circuit. My guess is the fuse is less than 1 amp as those circuits are low power.
Again, not a bad idea, but not commonly done, and a little tricky to know what size fuse to use as you want one greater than the draw of the
antenna amp, but less than the current rating of the headunit circuit, both of which are unknown.

Looking at pictures of Modifry's Plug&Play harnesses it does not appear that they have any inline fuses.

BlueTeg

I removed the inline fuse to keep the harness as streamlined as possible and finally got around to installing it last night. Everything worked flawlessly! Took alot more time than I would have liked to get it done, but in the end it was worth it since I really had my mind set on this Clarion head unit for it's understated appearance, features, and power output. While I do like the satisfaction of DIY and understanding how things work, it would have been nice if there was a PnP option like all of the other head units have with Modify. Oh well, haha.

oth-
**THANK YOU** for all of your help. I could not have done it without your feedback.