I finally installed my Kenwood DNX5120 today, after reading all the advice from you guys about antenna locations, steering wheel interfaces, double din units, etc. Thanks all.

One thing that kind of shocked me was how brutal the Infiniti techs were when replacing my factory radio each time it broke. There were broken brackets, missing screws, and a protective plate on one side of one of my air vents is nowhere to be seen. There are gouges and scratches all over the plastic, but thankfully, none of these are visible.

I'm attaching a bunch of pictures of the unit in operation. The Garmin based nav system is very good, the UI is far better than most other after-market units, and the head unit is amazingly configurable. For example, the color of the LED backlighting can be set to an arbitrary RGB color (Red:24 Green:6 Blue:0 perfectly matches the factory lighting).

Since I can only attach five images at a time, the first five are the stereo mounted in the dash, the simple and full source menus, and the navigation main screen and night street view; the day mode has much brighter colors that would probably blind you at night.

1) In-dash appearance
2) Configurable source menu with three custom sources
3) Menu for all surces, there is more than one page.
4) First NAV screen
5) Night time nav street map.

 

Here are the interfaces for the radio, CD, and color customization. When you change the color of the LED's, the actual color scheme on the screen also adjusts to match them.

1) CD interface
2) Tuner interface
3) Color customizer screen
4) Custom color to match our factory lighting perfectly
5) What the interface looks like when matching blue

 

Two more images.
1) The first page of the settings screen
2) Playing a movie

I'd post pictures of the IPod interface, but I don't have one yet . I borrowed my neighbor's for a minute, and the touch screen shows all the same playing options as the IPod (artist, album, genre, etc), and for each track, it shows to album art.

 

Good stuff - gets me thinking about doing this also. Just wondering, do your steering wheel controls still function with this head unit?

 

Looks great! How was the fitment in the JDM finisher?

 

Nice job. I like the interface of the new Kenwood units. It makes it very tempting to change out my HU.

 

Yep, the PAC SWI-Jack interfaces with the steering wheel buttons. The buttons respond a little slower than the factory ones, but they work. The Kenwood units don't have a remote input for the power button, so my power button mutes, but the rest work as they should.

 

I did the same with my PAC unit with a D3 HU. The power button wouldn't shut off the HU so it's my mute. I have the same lag time but it's tolerable.

 

It fits pretty well; the face plate is basically flush with the center console. There's a bit of a gap around it, but what I did was cut and file down the Volkswagen adapter that comes with it to block off the cracks so that the cables inside the dash aren't visible.

 

Very nice install! I actually have this radio being delivered on Tuesday. You did the installation yourself? I've got a quick

1) Did you have to wire anything thats different from a standard radio install? I peeked through the install manual online and it references a green cable to the parking brake.. (Or is that part of the wiring harness?)

I dont have a G35 (I have a Chevy Blazer) but you seem to be the only person on the web who posted info about an install! I'm just wondering if I should do this myself or pay a few bucks and have it done. I've done installs into my truck before but all very basic - I'm hesitant about doing anything thats going to lead me outside of the wiring harness.

Thanks in advance!

 

Yeah, I did it myself, it was a pretty big job since G35's need a bit of a dash conversion to make these fit, if you car already has a double din sized opening, it should be easier.

The hard part to install was the steering wheel interface; I had to splice into three wires in the wiring harness, solder resistors to them, and then solder the output of the resistors to the PAC SWI. If you don't have steering wheel buttons you care about, then the install is far easier, just buy a vehicle-specific wiring harness for your car from someplace like Crutchfield, buy an antenna adapter, and it should just be a matter of plugging things together.

As for the green wire, I attached it to ground. My radio always things the parking brake is engaged, as a result. Fine by me .

 

Sweet!! Thanks for the info!

I've taken the dash on my Blazer apart so many times I can do it on my sleep! I'm not sure if thats a good or bad thing!)

Luckily I don't have steering wheel controls so that won't be a problem. I ordered the wiring harness w/ the radio so thats taken care of, I already had the antenna adapter from my XM Unit and I can find someplace to run the green/ground pretty easily! (I didn't know that trick - I guess thats how you fool it to allowing you to watch video while the car's in motion? - Not that I would, I just want it for the easier install, I don't think I'll ever use it for video).

Sounds like this shouldn't be much harder than any other radio I've done.

 

is there anyway to replace just the popup screen on the navigation with a touch screen, so all of the oem buttons work and it still goes up and down, but also has a touch screen?

 

It's most likely impossible. A touch screen would require the factory NAV software to be aware of it and it would have to contain drivers for the touch screen as well as input handlers for it. An electronics geek could probably build you a micro controller to interface with the touch electronics, then translate those to button clicks and stuff, but we're talking serious money here.

 

okay cool thanks for the info. definitely wont be trying that one out if anyone succeeds, let me know! =D