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HOW TO - Busters RCA Headunit Volume Fix Guide


cs2000

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Hey all,

 

I recently fitted a new headunit and was aware of a low volume output issue that seems to affect most aftermarket headunits due to the Bose setup in the Z.

 

I managed to figure out busters instructions for fixing this and have been running this setup in my car for a couple of week now with no issues at all, other have been running this for much much longer. Busters instructions aren't too good however and several members have been calling for a 'proper' guide, so here we go :) .

 

I will say again, I did NOT figure this method out, the credit for this goes to Buster and his original topic viewable below, I am just writing up a guide for his method. I have made one small amendment however by adding in an extra connector which saves you hacking into your new headunits harness.

http://www.350z-uk.com/topic/58947-reduced-sound-out-put-after-replacing-oe-bose/
 

 

 

Parts & Tools Required

 

1x Autoleads PC2-76-4 Nissan 350Z 2003 - 2006 Car Stereo ISO Harness Adaptor Lead £3.85

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261373114757
 

 

1 x Nissan 350z Bose Steering control interface - (29-674) £34.99

https://incartec.co.uk/Pages/Product.aspx?P=2975
 

 

Soldering Iron & Solder

Heat shrink in 2.4mm, 3.2mm and 4.8mm widths with 3:1 shrink ratio

Scissors

Wire Strippers

Multimeter (Optional but recommended)

 

 

 

Hack 'n' Slash

OK, firstly, grab hold of your Autoleads PC2-76-4 adaptor cable. This is the type of cable used on cars that don't have the bose system, but for our use, we will just be stealing the brown speaker connector.

776381734_1-q0GvWF.jpeg.f68309bc60aedf0e12e74ed9d73663ac.jpeg

 

 

 

All we need on this is the brown connector and its associated leads. If you look at the writing on the side of them, you will notice each one is printed with a speaker such as "Left Front Pos" and "Left Front Neg". Take your scissors and cut this off. Discard the other piece, just keep this bit.

http://i.dankdronedownloader.com/uploads/2020-08/5MZDMb.jpeg

 

Next, grab the InCarTec 29-674 lead and your scissors and cut off the RCA connectors below the gland as shown here.

976136820_3-OklNE4.jpeg.f0f87ba0948e512bcf900d040f5c999a.jpeg

 

 

 

Preparation

OK, enough cutting, now into something constructive. Strip the cable ends you have just cut on the InCarTec 29-674 cable, you will see a outside wire, some more insulation and an inside wire. Separate these so that all of the outside wires point off at 90 degrees, then strip the innards too.

233121942_7-jXrDya.jpeg.cb78f47b6e9db59d22023055a0f9319e.jpeg

 

Now, get your 2.4mm heatshrink and cut 8 lengths of 1 cm, slide them over the wires on the brown connector you cut from the Autoleads PC2-76-4 connector as shown below.

1279451521_5-sG5pUx.jpeg.29d82bd37ae6e09b09aeff6e501cd2c3.jpeg

 

Next, grab the 3.2 and 4.8mm heatshrink, cut these into 4 lots 1cm and 2cm lengths respectively and slide these over the wires on the InCarTec 29-674 cable so one fits just inside the other as shown.

244599062_6-q6Hz0f.jpeg.b9888daac3c0741c0c46612b74e192c8.jpeg

 

You should now be able to see that the wire colours between the two harnesses actually match! Purple is Right Rear, Grey is Right Front, White is Left Front and Green is Left Rear.

 

 

Constructing the Cable

OK, so you now need to connect the first of the 8 leads together. Lets begin with purple. The purple lead with no stripe is the Positive connection for the speaker, you need to twist this together with the centre purple cable on the InCarTec 29-674 cable as shown in the bottom of this cable. Then twist the one with the black stripe to the wire that was wrapped around the outside of this purple cable, shown at the top here. Solder these together trying to use as little as you

need, then use scissors to cut off the extra bits.

1715931510_8-fDXLr7.jpeg.944b7616eb427a60d48ae803bc87421c.jpeg

 

 

When you have soldered these, we now need to insulate the positive and negative connections, so, slide the 2.4mm heatshrink up from the brown connector end over the positive connection you just soldered, heat this up and ensure it covers the joint.

1608159992_9-0lubXA.jpeg.4aae172d5771407b57e894b0558d7f6a.jpeg

 

Next, slide down the 3.2mm heatshrink over the negative end as much as possible, this may be tight, but this bit isn't 100% essential.

1155970304_10-95WTZt.jpeg.6cacea5ac3a5a2500b38bdcfee8f1cdc.jpeg

 

Lastly, slide over the larger 4.8mm bit to cover the entire lot up, you have now insulated the Pos from the Neg, and secured the whole lot together.

91523238_11-ZAMsM8.jpeg.c790617542cc5418ad686db85d15538d.jpeg

 

Its a simple case of repeating this fro the other 3 wire colours so your cable looks like the below.

477600568_12-ciD5xH.jpeg.0db4c57ffa943007114a764b70eddb6b.jpeg

 

 

 

Check Your Work!!!

Your cable is now electrically connected, but id HEAVILLY advise you to check you have connected things properly. This is where your multimeter comes in, set this to continuity. If you grab the brown connector, you should see 8 pins at the end. Follow these back and you can easily tell which cable connects to which pin.

2015257195_13-XqtONa.jpeg.381776cc38aa782f24eda523d2395cd6.jpeg

 

The image below shows the two white connectors, on top of my finger you can see the pairs of cable (White & Black, Grey & Black, Green & Black, Purple & Black going left to right). These colours should match from end to end.

1211070119_14-v77t3X.jpeg.ea091333b74b22f273179e1eb400eba8.jpeg

 

I would advise you con connect your multimeter between these ends and check continuity between them. i.e, stick one end in the purple leads pin on the brown connector end, then touch the other end on the purple cable pin on the white connector, it should bleep to indicate there is a connection between the two ends. Then move to the black cable on the white connector, and the purple and black striped cable on the other end. Its hard to explain, but its simple with the cable infront of you!

 

 

 

Completed Cable

So, now your connections are completed, il just run through what goes where when you come to connect this up in your car.

1684947648_15-uJtXV6.jpeg.1e35ae6a6411f0ce978406529218f777.jpeg

 

And here is the rear of the Bose headunit

YHzWoI.jpeg.8ee19dda7b6010191acafa266bd8838c.jpeg

 

The Red circled cable is for the steering wheel controls. This plugs into the connector in the bottom left of the Bose photo.

 

The two Green circles cables plug into the other two white connectors in the back of the Bose unit. These are TOTALLY different sizes, so you physically cannot plug these in wrong!

 

The two Blue circled plugs connect to the corresponding plugs on your headunits harness adaptor, this will usually be a big black connector as shown below. You need to take care here as the brown block has all 8 pins, but the black one only has 5. This matches the pin count in the black block connector too (5 on the top and 8 on the bottom)

PCHisq.jpeg.2f1547b624c01fe4e23d241d03cbb262.jpeg

 

 

 

 

 

That's it, your leads are now all connected and if you connect your headunit (and remember to connect the earth loop eyelet on the InCarTec connector!!!) you should have all functions and a nice loud volume!

 

Any questions, ask away!

2 - 5MZDMb.jpeg

bmEhsx.jpeg

Edited by cs2000
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Nice write up! Im sure it'll help a lot of members. I'm in need of doing this also haha but think I'm gunna change the whole system soon

I was selling this cable pre-modified but I'm afraid its already gone. Glad you like the guide though.

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Good write up, nice and clear and I am going to attempt putting my stereo in myself. I looked at your other guild and bought exactly what you said. The stereo is a pioneer avh-x8700bt so have I bought the right leads? Hope so. Is this speaker mod a must do then? What would the stereo volume be like without this mod? Will the sub woofer still work? Is there any chance of blowing the woofer or speakers with different head unit? Reversing camera guild would also be good so I could do it all at once.

Just a few questions then lol.

Thanks

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

 

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Good write up, nice and clear and I am going to attempt putting my stereo in myself. I looked at your other guild and bought exactly what you said. The stereo is a pioneer avh-x8700bt so have I bought the right leads? Hope so. Is this speaker mod a must do then? What would the stereo volume be like without this mod? Will the sub woofer still work? Is there any chance of blowing the woofer or speakers with different head unit? Reversing camera guild would also be good so I could do it all at once.

Just a few questions then lol.

Thanks

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

Thanks for the comments :)

 

Yep, assuming you bought the pioneer patch lead (which was the one I linked to in my other thread, youre good to go.

 

Yes, it is a must to be honest. Others who havnt done it have either had to put the volume of the headunit up to full to get anything decent out of it, or but inline boosters at £18.00 each, and you need two. The mod is MUCH cheaper as the only thing you will likely have to buy is heatshrink.

 

Yes, the sub still works. If I'm honest, I'm not 100% sure how or why, but trust me it does.

 

No chance of blowing the speakers unless you turn the volume up WAY past the level that would be considered loud, the sound would distory way before then anyway, same principle as any speakers TBH.

 

Reverse camera is ideal to do at the same time, but it isn't part of this mod per-se.

 

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I have ordered all my wires in order to perform this mod when fitting the new head unit.

 

I was just wondering though, If I ever decided to get a different sub and amp and do away with the bose one, would this cause any problems?

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

Yes it still applies, but you're a little mislead.

 

Cars without the steering wheel control can still have a BOSE system.

 

Essentially, if you have a BOSE system but NO steering wheel controls, you follow my guide, but you need this Autoleads adaptor, and NOT the one I linked to.

 

https://incartec.co.uk/Pages/Product.aspx?P=3022
 

This is the exact same lead, but doesn't come with the wire and the black box I circled in red on my guide

 

uJtXV6.jpeg

 

Or for an alternate view, the black box shown at the bottom of nanook's photo in the post above yours.

 

If however yours doesn't have the BOSE system full stop, I'm afraid I cant advise yes or no as I haven't got any experience with that system. East way to tell, if you have the rear sub woofer, its a BOSE.

 

The guide is a simple as it can be, and its probably a 30 min job to do it neatly, its really not all that hard so I wouldn't worry about it.

 

@nanook - Glad you found the guide useful, I love a bit of wiring, found it really fun to make a plug and play adaptor like this without butchering something in the cars wiring harness. Means its 100% reversible.

 

Edited by cs2000
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Ok, I do have a BOSE (CLARION) system on my roadster minus the steering wheel controls, what I dont understand is why you cut off the RCA leads to then join them to the leads from a autoleads PC2-76-4 when the existing pin sequence is the same as when you have completed this mod bar for the remaining BLUE/WHITE and BLACK/WHITE that is found on the InCarTec 29-674 !

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Sorry mate somethings getting lost in translation...

 

Essentially, you can connect these phono jacks to the back of your stereo, this is what the instructions, and common sense will tell you to do, this will work, but it will be quiet.

 

I butcher up the lead MEANT for a non BOSE car as shown below, because id rather cut into a £2.75 lead, than into the wiring harness of my head unit which costs a lot more, and ties the headunit to the car because you've modified it to fit one vehicle.

 

q0GvWF.jpeg

 

What this does is connect the BOSE amp in the boot to the high level speaker outputs on the rear of the headunit, rather then using the phono plugs which is different (low level). Yes you get sound out of them both, but theyre different voltages. This way, youre using the audio coming directly out of the headunit meant for non amplified cars/systems (as shown in lead in the picture above), and feeding it into an amplifier, which gets you more noise.

 

Try it yourself if you want proof, the physical connections are NOT the same as before which seems to me to be what you're suggesting. The phono leads will (in 99% of cases) produce low volume, doing Busters mod/using my instructions will restore volume levels.

Edited by cs2000
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  • 5 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

about to try this with the incartec kit for 06 revup, quick noob question as i draw the line at rc cars when wiring.. patch leads im assuming thats for steering controls, in this kit its a ''universal'' lead so do i have to wire it into anything specific or can i just plug it right in?

 

this is my headunit im replacing the bose with

 

https://www.caraudiocentre.co.uk/product_m-kenwood-ddx-4016dab_p-33059.htm

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  • 3 months later...

Thank you for the guide, this worked a charm for me and ended up being a lot simpler than it seems, although I didn't read your follow up post about the cable being wrong, so had to send it back and exchange, oops

Edited by ZedAndy
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Thank you for the guide, this worked a charm for me and ended up being a lot simpler than it seems, although I didn't read your follow up post about the cable being wrong, so had to send it back and exchange, oops

Hi mate,

Glad the guide was useful to you, regardless of whether you have a bose unit or not, the auto leads adaptor is the same, it's the in car etc one that alters. The more expensive one (with steering wheel controls) should I guess still work in a car without then, but obviously you won't be able to use the steering wheel control functions.

 

Of course I could have misread your post, however the items I have linked to in my original post were the exact ones I purchased for the mod in my 04 UK car with Bose system and steering wheel controls.

 

If you have any more info or can suggest how I can edit the guide then let me know

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I purchased the autoleads PC2-76-4 and the connectors weren't the same as your images nor would it have fitted in my car without further modification (i.e. cutting the black connector in half), here's that one http://www.halfords....harness-adaptor,

 

The autoleads PC2724 is the one that I ended up buying that matches your pictures: http://www.halfords....harness-adaptor

 

I have both a bose amp and steering wheel controls, and both are working perfectly and are running at the correct volume :)

Edited by ZedAndy
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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 months later...

in the process of doing this myself, Now i am complete Noob at wiring  could somebody let me know if this would work?

 

Instead of cutting the RCA cables and re-soldering them i actually just de-pinned the cable from the  Autoleads PC2-76-4 adaptor cable and re-pinned them onto the InCarTec 29-674 lead resulting in the picture below... 

 

in my eye this should be the same as cutting and soldering as per this guide. could anybody let me know if this wouldn't work i don't have my head unit to test it yet.

IMG_4668.JPG

IMG_4683.JPG

Edited by tommyb32
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