Would ne nice if they at lease USDM's the controls and put the temp switch on the driver's side.

The one think that's always irked me about my car is that it's RHD dominant with the manumatic shift mode, radio volume, HVAC temp and nav controls all favoring the passenger side.

 

I've never thought about that. Good point. Have to love the set ups like in the supra that are very specifically set up for the driver. Aimed at the driver and what not.

 

My Lincoln Mark 8 was like that. Everything was well in reach.


This shot here though illustrates what I mean. Everything is favored to RHD. Nissan just tossed the steering wheel on the left but didn't change anything in the center cluster area. If you never noticed this before, now you will.



My interest in a DD setup now is trying to moderize my car. I hate the non-touchscreen NAV and the OEM ipod setup is so clunky to use. Would really like a touchscreen setup with bluetooth so i can play music and keep my phone out. My issue here is the Metra kit won't really match my NAV buttons at all.

Would be nice to ditch the yellow aluminum trim too. That's my second trim peice too as i had the first one replaced under warranty. Came right back.

 

So, looking into keeping the factory-style volume ****. It would involve adding a microcontroller to read the rotary encoder - something like this: http://www.hobbytronics.co.uk/rotary-encoder-tutorial. That's a bit above my skill. I think going for a more simple setup with microswitches activated by twisting is the way to go - something more like this:



That'll close the circuits the metra board uses for volume up/down rather than the full rotary motion.

 

Hey guys,

I'm new to the forum, but had an idea the other day.

Would it be possible to put in another cars climate controls in the g35? I'm asking this because I've seen a g35 with 350z climate controls. It sounds possible, but how? Can anyone help?

 

With enough knowledge and money, anything's possible.

I haven't ever looked into the wiring for the 350z, but it's plausible that they are similar enough that re-wiring the harnesses might get a working solution. With a complete service manual for the 350z I might be able to gauge how easy it would be, but I don't have one.

 

Alright, JOKER's metra trim arrived today, and I've started the initial work.

As many have stated the buttons really are terrible. My wife was grossed out by them and was glad I spent the extra money to put JDM trim in our cars.

Opening size comparison:
The opening for the buttons in the metra trim is smaller than the stock button opening, except for the temperature **** opening, which is larger than stock. This isn't much of an issue, since it's easy enough to take away from the trim to let the buttons fit. If you're going to use the metra control board combined with the OEM trim and cut the OEM trim to fit a DD radio, this isn't a problem at all.

Wiring plan:
The metra board uses a common signal wire for all the buttons, that means half the soldering to get the buttons to work.
Each of the buttons on the metra board uses multiple contact points to compensate for their big rubber buttons rather than the more precise buttons in the OEM trim. Each of the button contact groups has a connected spot to solder to, and the common wire for all the buttons can be connected to the unused (service plug?) pin on the back, so running a wire from each side of the buttons on the factory board to those solder points and the common wire will allow me to use the OEM buttons connected to the OEM board piggybacked to the metra board.

So essentially I'll be soldering wires to each of these points and connecting it to the equivalent location on the chopped section of the OEM radio/climate controls board:


This should completely retain the OEM button feel, whether you choose to expand the button holes to fit the OEM buttons in the metra trim, or cut a DDin-sized opening in the OEM trim.


Additional thoughts:
The metra trim generally sells for a little over $150.
The JDM climate controls generally sell for around $150 without the JDM trim.
JDM climate controls plus the trim run a bit over $300.

So, the available trim+controls options are:
A) Metra trim w/metra buttons: ~$150-190; very easy, but you end up with sucky buttons. Aluminum-look kit looks almost-OEM with dumb buttons, plastic look kit looks like plastic with dumb buttons.
B) Modified OEM trim (DD opening cut) with metra controls + modified OEM button combo: ~$150; quite a bit of DIY. You'll have a larger than DDin opening, but otherwise will appear OEM.
C) Modified Metra trim to hold OEM buttons + modified OEM button combo = ~$190; quite a bit of DIY. With the metra aluminum-look kit it will be very hard to distinguish from OEM, and will have a true DDin opening, that should have no gap like the JDM DDin kit has.
D) Metra aluminum-look trim w/JDM climate controls: ~$340+, only a little DIY cutting. I suppose this is an option if you can get the climate controls but not the JDM DDin trim. It'll look as good as modified metra trim + modified oem buttons without most of the work, and I guess you can sell the metra control board to somebody to recoup $50 or so, and they can use it to perform option "B".
E) JDM DDin kit with JDM climate controls: ~$330, the best option.

 

CZP just got some, damnit. Of course RIGHT after I got mine from Fontana Nissan. Doesn't seem like a big deal, but CZP being in AZ and selling theirs for a few bucks less, I would have saved about $50 (cuz of tax). Anyway, its kind of irrelevant, but it annoyed me. Haha if you're in CA and need the kit go with CZP right now. They'll go fast I'm sure.

 

Update: Been busy with work and a friend's wedding this week, but spent some of my Saturday morning soldering to the metra board. I used an old IDE hard drive ribbon cable, it worked great for this application, very flexible and thin enough to connect to the little test spots marked in the previous post - and being in a nice row makes identification of otherwise identical wires pretty easy.



In the future, I'd tape down one side of the wire and cut the wires to length for a little bit neater install, but the wires tuck fairly well as is with running the wire out the right side.

I'll need to connect these wires each to one side of the factory buttons on the chopped factory climate control board, and then connect the other side of the factory buttons to the common wire on the rear. I'll probably cannibalize an old computer mouse for some quality microswitches to do the temperature control ****.

 

I find it bewildering how Metra can't seem to match black buttons & *****... Weird.

 

That's what I'm saying, but like someone else said, if people are still buying it, they don't really need to waste the R&D money on a 10yr old car. Whatevs tho. I got my JDM kit, so I'm no longer worried about it. Haha

 

Yeah... But they are still making them. As far as plastic goes, it's just as easy to make a black button as a gray one.

 

I just went with the 95-7605A kit because the Canadian crutchfield had them on for $15(!) if you buy a HU with it. It was listed as $209.99 when I select my vehicle but when I added it to my cart the price was $15. I'm not sure if it was a mistake or not but the order went through. At that price I couldn't really resist.

 

Hey... it's a screaming deal for $15!

US Crutchfield discounts it down to $84 with receiver.

 

For how cheap that thing looks I bet they're still making $10 off my $15!!