Just finished installing the DCI unit to my Sony CDX-MP70. Seems to work fine, but I haven't been able to test the automatic volume adjust feature yet, it's raining in SoCal. All other controls work fine. I also adjusted the position of the head unit in the cavity because the CD tray was hitting the head's knobs when it would come out. I also removed the center "universal" connector in the Circuit City harnesses by splicing the wires straight from the Honda plug to the Sony plug (the harnesses they sell are Honda-to-universal and universal-to-Sony). I removed it because it is very tight behind the radio. This made a shorter harness that was easier to manipulate when installing the unit. I still had to pull the harness from behind the dash to get the unit in.

DCI Sales Pitch:
When I bought the head unit, I didn't know about the DCI hardwire unit and I was assuming the IR units were the only interface available to be able to use the dash control units. When I try to splice the DCI into the Circuit City harness, I noticed that the harness didn't include all the pins. So if you're planning on getting the DCI, get the harness from Lucid so all the necessary pins are included in the harness. Because of this, I had to splice 2 wires to the audio harness in the dash. Other than this detour, the installation was easy. And finding the wire to splice the speed control signal was a snap (great installation directions on the Lucid website).

Mounting the Head Unit:

This pic shows the side of the head and the S2000 mounting bracket (with a third center hole that I drilled). There are three holes near the centerline of the head on each side. The center and rear holes line up with the holes on the S2000 mounting bracket. Using these holes will cause the head to sit too far out and the radio door will not close. I originally used one screw on each side through the forward most hole on the bracket to the forward most hole on the head. This worked fine, but I wanted to head to sit as for out as possible without hitting the door. I figured I had about 0.15" of room. So I drilled a hole on the bracket to bring the unit out about 0.1". I used one screw through the new hole into the middle hole on the head.


The position works fine. I also tilted the brackets a little so that the tray when open will clear the knobs. Here is the head unit installed.


The Sony head's face is much smaller than the Honda head's face, so I installed the trim that came with the Sony head. I had to cut the top off, and tape the trim in place. It's kind of hokey, but with black electrical tape, no one can tell.


And a few pics with it all put back together.



I also added a button so I can cancel the speed sensitive volume control. It's the button to the right. The one on the left is for my garage door opener.


Thanks to Lucid and Modrify on my questions before my installation.

 

S2WOOOW, I'm considering installing this headunit, so your description will help ALOT. Thank you. Do you find the disk tray on the Sony unit frustrating compared to the slot arrangement on the stock headunit? I'm worried about how much extra attention it will take to change CDs.

 

Frustrating would be to strong. It just takes a little more attention than if it was a simple tray or a slot, figure maybe a few more seconds of driving with one hand. There are two bright lights on each edge of the tray, so it doesn't take your eyes off the road any more than a slot I'm not sure if I would try changing disks will driving on twistie roads. Changing disks while driving a straight road isn't a problem. But with mp3 disks, I can go for a few weeks with the same disk.

 

Thank you for the props and the write up!

You're correct about the S2000 harness. In the units that were sold WITHOUT the INTO S2000 harness this resulted in questions with installation (lack of needed wires on generic harnesses) and delayed people's installation to explain how to do it. In reality its a just a simple color match to the S2000 harness.

In the new units the S2000 harness will be packaged together to make this a complete no brainer installation.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by S2WOOOW
Just finished installing the DCI unit to my Sony CDX-MP70.

 

LOL. I don't think it will wash the car after I get home.

It's sunny today, so I drove it to work. The speed sensitive volumn adjustment works fine. I only drove with the top up. I'll change the setting to adjust at closer intervals and drive with the top down and see how it works.