Hey all,

I just registered, have had my '03 HCH since May(ish?), got an awesome deal on it used from a guy who only put 4500 miles on it, and i'm really happy with it so far. I've been looking at adding some stereo modifications, but cannot seem to find the pin assignments for the "data" plug on the back of the stereo. I've found the other one, but not for the one that goes to the cd changer. If anyone has this, or can point me to it, i'd be thankful. Oh, and does anyone know if there are any limitations on getting an amp/sub for the trunk? A friend and I were having a discussion about it, and I don't ever recall hearing if the car even has an alternator, or how much draw the engine could handle if a sub hit hard. Anyone have input on this?

 

I believe the stock radio is made by alpine and the connector is an M-BUS connector. I don't know the pin out.

Check out http://www.sounddomain.com/id/tdb30 for what I have in my car.

 

I hear they don't have alternators, they have a DC-DC converter that takes the hybrid battery juice and turns it into 12v for the accessory system when the car is on. In the Prius it's a 100 amp converter, probably similar in the Hondas, but I can't be sure.

In the Prius I've had a hand in adding stereo equipment to there is a slight response time problem with the DC-DC converter so the headlights dim slightly upon the first bit of a deep bass hit. I would recommend a capacitor so that spikes are managed by it, rather than the DC-DC converter, since it's response will be slow. You can get the 1 farad caps pretty much everywhere these days, probably even WartMart.

 

In a civic it is best to just upgrade the 12V battery to a larger one. I've never been a fan of caps. You don't realy get anything for them. All they do is sometimes reduce dimming.

If you upgrade your battery you get a nice beefier battery that can be nice in the winter and can sustane more current draw if you should adde any other electronics.

 

Well, thanks for that info, but the M-Bus seems to be an 8-pin round style connector, while the one i've got is a 10 pin rectangular DIN connector, with 9 wires attached. I've pulled my 6 Disc in dash out, and it is made by Pioneer, model # CDX-MG6036, but the only sites that have this in the text anywhere are crazy russian service manual sites that all want $10 for it. I might want to get it working, but not enough to give my card # to some unknown russian site.

BTW, your car looks pretty nice, just wondering if you get any 'flickering' of your headlights, etc. when your subs hit. If i'm to stick with my stock head unit, i'll need to grab some line drivers for the amp, is that the best way to do it?

 

Nope. I upgraded my 12V battery to a very large one and haven't seen dimming since.

 

Edit: I also upgraded my ground wires which probably helped a bit too.