I'm thinking of getting an '05 Outback VDC, trouble is it has an integrated climate control/radio & no way to replace it. I just found this link for a double DIN insert to replace the stock dash pocket. No other info yet, but it sure looks interesting.

-Zeke

Well, looking at the picture more closely it seems like the double DIN is below, and the NAV screen above. The two DIN slots are above the standard environment controls (not the auto-adjusting kind found on the turbo & 3.0 models). The unit as shown (I assume it includes the NAV) is $1500 (they got back to me even on Easter Sunday!). I've asked if the bezel is available by itself, and it is, for about $250-$300! It might still be worth investigating, as I don't see any other option for this vehicle. It all seems to depend on whether or not the NAV screen is wide enough between the vents to take the DIN slot (if so we could make something to fit).

-Zeke

Jeeesh, JDM stuff is so expensive!

The guy in this post put an aftermarket stereo in his Legacy GT.

http://www.pimpmyauto.com/Pictures/Stereo%20Install/BIG/3.JPG

Rob,
Do you know whether or not the Legacy GT shares the same dash as the Outback LTD's? I've been assuming it does, am I wrong?

That's a really nice install. My hopes for the empeg in a 3.0 VDC are growing.

-Zeke

Edit: The DIN dash pocket replacement part is available at AVO Turbo World $115.00

How do the two stereos interact?

I don't know if they're the same off the top of my head. My internet connection is being very slow for some reason so searching for photos is becoming frustrating and I can't remember off the top of my head. It has been a few months since I have been in those cars.

I assume the stock stereo is just being disabled since this guy is using external amps (no need for the stock stereo).

I've been thinking about the amp/headunit switching thing and it seems like there's two ways (not counting the hardwire CD input mod which breaks the CD player technique). The first, lower complexity, lower quality way is to use and FM modulator on the empeg's output and feed that into the FM input on the stock system. This leaves most stuff alone. The other way that I can see to run two units is that you'd need the Sony 2-head switching unit (or similar), plus speaker to line level converters for the output of the Subaru HU. The out from the Sony switch would then feed your amp(s). You'd also need a voltage sensor as the Subaru HU has no amp turn-on line as far as I can tell. If I did it, I think I'd try the FM Modulator system first. If it didn't work I'd only be out a few tens of dollars.

-Zeke

Well, I stitched product shots from Subaru's web site, it's a little small (poor source resolution) but the left is the center dash from an Outback 3.0R and the right is a Legacy 2.5 GT. They look identical to me.

-Zeke

Looks pretty good. The dealer closest to my office is making their own trim level of the new Legacy. They look pretty hot and for the prices quoted there, they include ECU mods for 318HP at the crank now. At least, that's what I heard. I haven't talked to them about it yet since I don't need another car... well, I shouldn't get another car.

I didn't see anything about ECU mods on that page, and that seems like a lot of extra power for a non-turbo car and only an ECU mod. But, regardless, it looks like a pretty good deal!

I think those Sony source switchers may still be hard to get. There's always the trusty Precision Instrument Electronics PIE MPSS-4 source switcher. That'll only set you back $20's of dollars, so you could skip the FM mod all together.

I think I still have the info sheet on my webspace.... Yeah, here's the specs, if that's even still available. Been working for me for 2.5 years with no problems. Good luck.

Well, the switch I already have. But the amps, the wiring, the speaker to line level converters, the replacment speakers I'd need to go w/ the amps...it snowballs pretty quick. One thing at a time. If I a)get the Outback and b)do the full wire, I'm definitely going to stash the amps under the floor flaps in the cargo area instead of under the driver's seat where I have them in the Forester. I think later this summer or early fall as the Forester has 228,000 miles on it now ('99). I'm not sure she'll last another winter, but if I clear an even quarter million, I'll be happy.

Regarding the size: this site lists the size of the Panasonic video unit installed in this picture as 9 5/8". This is well over the 7.3 inches needed for the Emepg.

Quote:
The Legacy GT is turbocharged though...

Oh yeah. Duh. And I call myself a Subaru nut...

I've been trying very hard to get the EMPEG into my '05 LGT. I've talked to some very good installer/fabricators the the bottom line is this: The sled is too wide to fit in the cubby above the radio stack, if it is hacked up enough it will interfer with the vent movement.

The stock radio and climate controls are integrated and share a common PCB. The radio cannot be removed without killing the AC so the cool double din parts you can get from AVO Turbo World are a) useless and b) will not fit in left hand drive cars.

Summary : You can fit a single or double dine ISO sized unit in the cubby, depending on how much fab work you want to undertake due to the dash supports directly behind it. But the EMPEG is just too fat.

Just for laughs I looked at the various hard disk based offerings from Sony, Pioneer and Eclipse. What a joke. They actually exepct the user to sit in their car and rip CDs. The Sony guys are the ones with a ton of gall: they let you "check out" music from the head unit onto their less than useless "Magic Gate" DRM memory stick. WTF, eh?

It baffles me to this day that someone has not cloned the EMPEG and shrunk it down a bit to fit in these wee ISO-DIN sockets without cutting.

Anyway it looks like the EMPEG goes in the wifes car and I get , well, something. I'm still searching. Nothing is a cool as the EMPEG and it is a shame I cannot stuff it in my car.

This all makes Mobile Audio Awareness Panda VERY sad!

For the record, the empeg is DIN compliant. There are just two standards, colloquially E-DIN and J-DIN. Most European cars have E-DIN slots that fit the empeg. On big-name aftermarket stereos these days, you use the sleeve with the bend-out tabs to install them. Most Asian cars have J-DIN slots. Big-name stereos are installed in them by throwing away that sleeve and screwing the stereo directly into a bracket of some nature. Given that screwing the empeg into the dash is less than useful for a stereo that needs to be removable, J-DIN doesn't seem appropriate.

I don't know which standard is the official one. Perhaps both.

And I'm guessing that we wouldn't be able to squeeze two 2.5" hard drives if the empeg was any smaller.

In anticipation of the 3.0 VDC Outback Wagon in my near future, I ordered the DIN dash kit from Turboworld. It arrived and I looked over a cow-orker's Legacy XT. It looks like the trim surround will have to be dremeled to accept the empeg (just like the Forester), but that the protruding edges of the fascia will cover the sharp edges that'll remain once I'm done dremeling. I expect to get(order?) the car at the end of this month. Mvigneau posted some great information over at legacygt.com detailing the FM modulator wiring, which is my plan for the short term. I've got a lot of other wiring to do, and I don't want to get into the switches & amps needed for a dual head/aftermarket amp setup, at least for the time being. I can't wait!

-Zeke

--Despair--

I removed the console cubby bezel yesterday and found out that there's a large dash support strut which completely prevents installing a DIN radio in place of the cubby. Well, it would be possible, but the radio would stick out of the dash 2-3" (50-75mm). Gah.

I can't tell you how bummed I am. What to do, what to do...

[edit]Other people have cut the support it seems. I'm wary of doing so. It is plastic, so it wouldn't be too difficult.[/edit]

I'll post a photo later.

-Zeke

Is this dash support made of plastic? Do you have a dremel? :evil grin:

[edit]Doh! beaten by the Ezekiels edit[/edit]
[edit2]You can always use ABS goop to "weld" a piece of plastic in its place when you remove the stereo.[/edit2]

It's two posts 6-8mm thick, about 20mm wide (each), so it'd have to be one big dremel! More of a sawing job really.

That's a good idea about the abs glue.

-Zeke

After two Saturdays' work, it is done. I had to cut the bejeezus out of the plastic dash support - I used a dry wall saw, it worked pretty well. The sled is not bolted into anything, but it angles down strongly (about 15 degrees) so there's no chance of anything sliding out.

I used a 100 channel FM modulator (Power Acoustik EFM-100 100-Frequency Pll FM Modulator) mounted in the glovebox. I had to drill holes through to the central console to route its wires. I got the Subaru FM antenna connector from Metra Online. The sound is OK, not competition quality, but definitely listenable. The power (permanent & switched), headlight sense and ground were all available by tapping the lines that feed the display directly underneath the emepeg.

Now, I need to get a new lens and lighting kits to match the light blue / red lighting in the Outback, and use some of the wonderful buttons firefox31 sent me for helping him out a few months back (thanks man!).

I still need to retain the sled a little better, but it's good enough for now.

The surround had to be heavily dremeled, as did the adjacent vent tubes. There's basically zero clearance between the sled and the vent tubes. The trim piece directly above the sled also had to be dremeled and then hot glued into place, since the dremeling removed the screw mounts it would have used.

I'm so happy. I was getting very tired of CD's.

<JOY!>

-Zeke

Mine is in but the dash-surround pice is not finished. I pick that up next week. I'm going for an as clean as possible install and the guys at Magnolia are having a tough time with the bondo. They got the pice done but the rubberized coating on the rest of the piece bubels when primer or any paint is applied so they need a few more days to tweak the part.

I have the factory head unit going into a line-out converter into the aux in on the EMPEG and then a run to the amps in the back. It works OK, but needs some more tweaks as the radio soudns a bit weak.

I have the EMPEG tuner module but the audio from it was very quiet, so decided to go with the LOC for radio.

EDIT: my dimmer is not working. I know the harness has two dimmer lines. Which one is the correct one?

Is that as deep as it will go? Just wondering, because in the picture, you can still see the bottom of the sled.

The camera used to take the photo is very low, I wanted to be sure the FM modulator in the glovebox was visible. When you're sitting in the car you cannot see that edge. You can see a little silver sliver around the edge of the fascia, but that can't be avoided.

-Zeke

Tony - my dimmer's working just fine. The Subaru line goes to 12V when the headlights are enabled, and 0V when they're off (although the headlamps are never truly off b/c of the daytime running lights).

-Zeke

pull on the handbrake, and the daytime running lights will probably turn off. Only when parked, though.

I and my neighbors thank you for that tip Mark.
-Zeke

On the Imprezas, there is a tiny plug you can undo under the hood to disable the DRLs. I assume you can find the same thing on your car.

Yeah, I know about the plug, I think it's behind the glovebox on the Outback/Legacys. I get an insurance discount for the DRL's so I don't really want to permanently disable them. Mark's e-brake trick is good enough for me, as what really bothers me about them is when the car is idling in the driveway at night. I don't like blinding the neighbors any more than is necessary.

-Zeke

<http://www.mp3car.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=48&products_id=143>
Stumbled on this and thought of you.
HTH

That thing looks sweet and not too expensive either. Too bad I already hacked up my dash. The empeg would get realy washed out in the gauge pod anway.

That would be an interesting option if I had the base model Legacy (4 cylinder, non-turbo). The models with dual-zone automatic climate control have the HVAC integrated with the stereo head unit's electronics, and if you want to replace the radio you have to lose the dual-zone temperature functions, which I'm not willing to do.

Cool unit thought, no doubt.

-Zeke

I am not familiar with the interior of the Legacy's (Legacies?) but I just got my empeg installed in my 2006 WRX. The intaller made a custom "gauge pod" sort of thing for the empeg.I don't know if the Legacy line has as space for such a thing. It looks pretty good, but the controls are uncomfortable to use. Nothing a well placed remote wouldn't fix.

I will post install pics in a new thread as soon as I can find my camera battery charger... it's in a box... somewhere.

OOOhhh...! New install prOn!

Still can't find the camera charger...

...but the car kicks ass.

Oh, you tease!

FWIW, here's the final install pics. Not sure if I posted this or not, I know I did over at Legacygt.com. Anyway:

http://www.funkbasealpha.com/gallery.htm

The dimmer works now. It's all quite nice. Once I got power to the in-glass antenna the radio module kicked fine.

That's a great looking install. How did you brace the sled to the inside of the dash (fixing the angle)? That's one issue I've not resolved.

-Zeke

Sweet. Thanks for the info. I'm going to reinstall the empeg once the weather warms up. I wasn't happy with the RF install and don't much feel like mucking with it when the mercury's low.

-Zeke

I've run into, or rather created, a new issue.

My current setup has the antenna power (power to the amp for the in-glass antenna) comming from the factory head unit. So, in order to listen to the EMPEG radio I need to turn on the stock radio. No biggie, but I thought it'd be a more elegant solution to have the empeg power the antenna amp.

So, I moved the power lead from the factory HU to the antenna lead on the tuner and when I did that the empeg refused to boot. It behaved as if there was no power.

So I disconected the factory HU. Then the EMPEG started working and the antenna amp got power but the system made a loud pop when it shut down.

Anyway, I'm back to powering the antenna from the factory HU. I haven't spent any more time troubleshooting, it's too damn cold in the garage to spend more than an hour out there anyway. My current theory is that it's a groudning issue of some kind.

Yep. When it first happend I assumed a dorked wire.

I double cheked it, the wire I moved IS the antenna power lead. It does work as long as the stock unit is not engaged.

The bummer here is I did not do the install (first mistake) so more time will be needed to untangle the puzzle. There is some quesionable hook ups, IE: the illumination lead is connected to a wire that previously ran to the light in the cubby that the empeg now occupies.

Anyway, when things get a bit warmer I'll re-do the entire thing. But your hunch about the cause jives with mine.

Yeah, I'd look carefully at how the original install was done and find out if THEY hooked up a wire wrong or something.

Excellent, glad it's all working for you.