This is just to give hope to any of you guys who don't have a satellite prewire factory installed. I bought one from http://www.premieraudio.com/usaweb.html. The part is "CDL-NS FOR USE WITH SCD-N66 Nissan". I paid $25 total for part and shipping. Much better than the $85 quote for the equivalent Infiniti part from the dealership. This prewire will work for a phatbox, cd-changer or a satellite receiver (i guess it's exactly the same as the infiniti part).

Took me about 5 hours to install in my coupe, following instructions from:
http://www.g-owners.com/article_read.asp?id=19
http://www.g-owners.com/article_read.asp?id=33

The coupe back seats are a b*tch to remove. you have to pull up on them extremely hard, I thought I was going to break something when they finally popped up (i think i tweaked my back doing it). Getting access to the back of the head unit was remarkebly easy I thought, thanks to good directions. Routing the cable was the hardest task.

At first it seemed the head unit wasn't recognizing the phatbox. After removing all the cds from the in-dash changer, it showed up.

Btw, the phatbox is awesome!

 

How long did it take for you to receive the part from these guys? I placed an order about 3 weeks ago and still no cable, I had called them the 2nd week into this and they said they had shipped it but no tracking info. Not sure if this has anything to do with me being in Canada and them possibly not wanting to ship here? The good news is that I havent see a charge on my credit card. I just wrote phatbox back to exchange for the standard cable instead ot the Nissan cable, but would have prefered to get this harness since Phatnoise suggested that with the harness it would possibly support future features such as ID3 tags. Just curious does this cable allow you to use the steering wheel controls? And as you mentioned does the phatbox only work if the the in dash cd changer is disabled by removing all the cds?

 

It took 2 weeks to arrive because UPS had the wrong address at first. They charged my credit card a few days after I faxed in the order form. If they are using UPS to ship they should definitely be able to give you the track number over the phone. I would bug them until you get the cable, because it will be more useful than the phatbox-only cable.

The steering wheel controls work well. I never tried putting in more cds into the HU changer, so don't know if they can work simultaneously. However, I don't think I'm going to need to play cds any time soon

 

yeah, you can still play cd's with the phatbox. You just hit the cd button again to switch between Cds and the phatbox....but like the man said, you won't need cd's anymore after you get the phatbox.

03 6MT coupe, red/willow, premium, aero, splash guards, alum pedals, clear corners, limo tint, Phatbox 40g mp3 player

 

Glad to hear they actually shipped you one! I placed an order from them but it never came and I never bothered to follow up.

Funny, in my car I thought taking the back seats out was a walk in the park compared to getting the head unit out without breaking that darn trim piece between the top of the radio and the clock. Overall, it's not that hard thanks to the DIYs, you just have to be careful not to scratch things up. It was a little tougher to manage the wires in the back of the HU to get it to fit back into place once the harness was installed.

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And as you mentioned does the phatbox only work if the the in dash cd changer is disabled by removing all the cds?

<hr></blockquote>I've heard of a bug in some version of the Phatbox Nissan firmware that caused that issue. I never experienced that with mine. I could always toggle between the in-dash CD and the Phatbox in CD mode by pressing the CD button again regardless of whether or not CDs were in the changer. They do have a SAT emulation firmware if you have a SAT button that gives you track titles on the display if it just won't play nice in CD mode for some strange reason. As redwillow says, in the few months I've had the Phatbox I've never had the need nor desire to use the in-dash CDs. Its easier to just load things into the Phatbox.

Bigwilly: It should not matter which type of cable you install. One way or the other you're connecting the same wires to the same places. If you get the head unit type cable from Phatnoise it should support the SAT firmware just the same as the SAT prewiring would. The same wires can run either a CD changer or a SAT tuner. Which one it behaves like is depends only on the firmware.

 

Thanks for the information, I just sent back the Nissan cable on Friday for the standard phatnoise head unit cable. I can't wait to get it so I can get this thing working, its being sitting on my self collecting dust for the last 3 weeks.