I have a 2007 911 Turbo (997.1) that had the factory sound system in it until about 2 weeks ago. The factory system (called PCM2.1) was pretty much obsolete when it came from the factory, as it came as follows:
- Non-touch LCD screen with auxiliary settings for the car, slot-loading CD/DVD drive, AM/FM radio, travel band, and phone
- Phone included an old GSM SIM slot, but was never activated for the US market cars at all
- In-dash drive could read data CDs and DVDs and play MP3s, so you could get a whopping 4.5GB of MP3 files if you were willing to swap disks around.
- Auxiliary controls on the steering wheel
- The phone controls did nothing because the phone wasn't active, so all you really had was volume/mute, and a way to move through the menus without twisting the other knob on the dash. Since Porsche charged extra for the steering wheel with the controls if you ticked that box on your order, I think I would have been kinda pissed at them had they sold me the car as new with several of the buttons being wholly useless, but I digress...
- DVD-based satellite navigation system mounted in the trunk (remember the bad old days of needing to periodically drop several hundred dollars to buy a new DVD for your SATNAV so that it knew where the new roads were?)
- 6-disc CD changer, also mounted in the trunk
- Bose speakers, subwoofer, and amplifier (mounted in the trunk)
- The widgets in the trunk all connected via MOST (basically TosLink-style multimode fiber using visible light LEDs) along with a power, etc connector.
So, no Bluetooth, no aux input, almost useless steering wheel controls, and completely useless SatNAV, plus the two main knobs were starting to develop that weird, sticky feeling that older rubberized plastics suffer from. It kinda sucked. And apparently there were ways to have a bluetooth unit that replaced your CD changer to supply audio that way, but it didn't tie into the mic in the car and so wouldn't have worked as a real solution.
I've had a general sense for what I wanted to do for 2 or 3 years, namely swap to a modern head unit with MP3 and Bluetooth, but hopefully keep as much of the factory audio (speakers, amp, steering wheel controls) as possible, but couldn't justify the cost. What really sealed the deal for me was that during my various adventures in owning a Jeep with an Italian made diesel engine that unfortunately perpetuates the stereotype for unreliability that plagues Italian-made cars (which is another blog post all on its own...) my service loaners let me see how Android Auto works with a modern head unit. That made it more and more obvious how much the sound system in the Porsche really didn't fit with how I use my phone and listen to music in the car. So I finally ordered everything.
Al and Ed's Autosound/Del Ray Customs did all the hard work of figuring out all of the bits I'd need to make all of this stuff work:
- Crux SWRBM57 to make the steering wheel controls talk to the new head unit
- NAVTV MOST HUR - converts the analog audio to digital to send to the Bose amp
- Pioneer NEX 4600
- Backup camera
- custom wiring harness to make everything plug and play
It's not exactly perfect. You lose fader control due to the fact that the MOST box apparently doesn't implement the right protocol to tell the Bose amp what to do like the original PCM did, it just pretends to be the original head unit enough to get it to accept a stereo audio signal. I had to run a new mic and GPS antenna instead of using the ones that I know are already in the car. The latter was especially annoying since I specifically bought a head unit without standalone GPS navigation because I knew I would be using Google Maps on my phone via Android Auto, but there is literally no way to manually set the date and time, it insists on using GPS to do it. Pioneer also seems to have removed the ability to put a custom background image on the startup splash screen so I can't make it show a Porsche logo when it comes on, and the radio reception is a little dodgy, even after I had to jumper a broken wire in the premade harness leading to the FM amp power lead. Also there seems to be some vague flakiness with Android Auto, even with brand new USB-C cables, where my phone will sometimes spontaneously reboot when the car shuts off, so I'm suspecting there may be some subsequent updates to phone, head unit, or both to resolve this. Android Auto units are just now sprouting the ability to do this wirelessly via an in-unit WiFi connection, which this NEX supports but the version of Android on my phone doesn't support that yet.
There are plenty of how-tos on the in-dash part, which honestly if it weren't for the troubleshooting the radio, would have been done in about 4 hours total. However, part of this overall job for me is to pull the CD changer and DVD SATNAV that are now taking up precious cargo space and being generally dead weight in the front of my car, and there were a lot fewer instructions on that part. I cruised around on a lot of forum posts before I got complete enough info to feel comfortable tackling this, so I thought it might be useful to summarize it here.
The plastic shrouds over both systems are friction fit, and you have to wedge a putty knife or trim tool between the floor of the car and the bottom of each to give you some leverage, and each comes straight up and off of the clips it's attached to. You may also want to pull the fuse feeding the stereo or disconnect your battery while doing this. I managed to somehow blow the fuse while disconnecting this stuff and then couldn't figure out why my radio wouldn't come on even with the MOST bypass in place.
The CD changer has a bracket with 3 10mm nuts, one in the front, which is visible as soon as you pull the cover off, and two in the back, hidden behind the carpet...and the damn Bose amp. In other words, you will have to remove the Bose amp temporarily to get at those two screws. There is a metal clip at the top that you use a screwdriver to pry upward, and then the amp slides out of its slot. CD changer has a power connector and a MOST connector, both of which have clips to press to get them out. Then you reinstall the amp by sliding it back down into place and using 2 screwdrivers to pry both sides of the clip back up so that it clicks down over the amp again.
The DVD drive for the SATNAV is to the right of the Bose amp. It has a power connection, a MOST connection, and a GPS antenna. I never could get the clip pressed on the GPS antenna and ended up breaking the little plastic locking clip to get it loose because it's totally blind up under the bottom of the DVD bracket and you don't have enough slack to remove the DVD without disconnecting it. There are two little pink levers you have to press on the sides of the drive up near the DVD slot to actually slide it out of the bracket, and then the bracket itself has 3 metal clips that get pried upward to release it from the bulkhead.
You need two of these female MOST loopback plugs, because MOST is a ring, and disconnecting either will break the ring and you won't have audio anymore.
This will leave you with a carpet that doesn't cover the entire trunk floor, because it had a cutout for the CD changer and amp/DVD areas, and one area of bare metal where the DVD drive's bracket was. I don't care all that much so I'm not ordering the alternate carpet, and the only way to address the metal is by replacing the entire back plastic trim, which I don't think is worth the $250 it looks like it costs. However, I am ordering the alternate cover that fits over just the Bose amp, so that it gets some protection from stuff in the trunk and the elements and such, while still giving me back the space to use for cargo. The part number is 997.551.108 and it's called a booster cover. I don't know if that's because of a dodgy German translation of "amplifier" or if in some versions of the 997 there is actually a brake booster in there or something, but it took some head scratching looking at the parts diagrams to confirm that was the correct part.
The backup camera wire goes along the passenger side door sill trim and into the back seat, and there is a panel below the back window that you pull off to access a hole that has a grommet that goes into the engine compartment, to another grommet that goes through the body to the hole the right taillight assembly sits in, which will let you fish it through an opening in the bumper to get to the license plate light hole. Apparently the way to do this is to go from the back using a 48" heavy duty zip tie covered in WD-40, and then tape the wire to it once it surfaces in the interior to pull the wire back through. I have poked around but haven't attempted this exact method yet. There are videos, but they aren't especially clear on the method for fishing the wire as much as the path, so I was unsuccessful on my first attempt and asked for clarification, resulting in the above.
All in all, I ended up with a much better system, and something in the neighborhood of a 13 pound weight loss, some new space in the trunk, and maybe if I get lucky I can unload some or all of the old system on eBay to defray the cost of the new one, though I can't see much use for going to the trouble of replacing a faulty part in an otherwise obsolete system rather than simply using it as an excuse to upgrade.
