I have been waiting for the XM RDS adapter to become available before installing the empeg in my new (to me) Element. It has been delayed time after time, so I decided to take a crack at the install without XM today. It was a cake walk.


Boxy is beautiful


The ugly wiring harness I had to make. This is a Scosche wiring harness adapter. It's obviously made for a wide range of Hondas due to it having two different connectors. I put orange electrical tape around the unused connector.

The EX trim-level Elements have an amp built in. I want to use it because the install will be much cleaner. I had to hack RCA cables on to the wiring harness adapter.


It works!


The EX Elements also have a built-in sub woofer. To utilize this, I used tap-ins (the blue things) so I wouldn't have to cut-off the factory sub connector (in case I sell the car with the OEM stereo). I used some orange wire from an old wiring harness from another install. This orange wire was used to extend the leads of the mono RCA cable that connects to the empeg.

Since the empeg doesn't have a dedicated sub output, I used a Y splitter on the front left and right channels and feed both the front and back speakers. I hooked the sub up to the rear output. I can regulate the sub level by fading front and rear on the empeg.


The finished product. The dash trim kit is a piece of shit. It's also designed to fit every Honda under the sun. I had to do a lot of tab removing to get the proper fit. This was a US Industries kit. I believe both Metra and Scosche make Element-specific kits, but they're not stocked anywhere other than online. Once this one is installed, it looks fine though...


A closer view.

Larger images available here.