forbiddenera

I'm sure this has been covered about a billion times but I thought I would contribute my knowledge since I do car audio installs and automotive electrician work and I see a LOT of these jobs botched and end up fixing them.

Decided to put this together as I'm doing a Civic stereo and 2 way remote starter install tomorrow (99 EX Sedan) and thought I'd share info. I will post a second thread on the remote starter install as well!

Things to consider:
1. Deck fitment & Dash Kits

Here's some info about Civics, I'm happy to add to this or correct any information, just let me know.

92 to 95 Civics are SINGLE DIN unless you have the rare EDM/JDM Centre console.
96 to 98 is almost always single din unless you have the Honda Navigation System which from what I can see has extra buttons to the left of the display and may require a dash kit that probablydoesn't exist.
99 to 00 is generally double din, though there's still a dash trim kit available to make fitment better. There's also a single din kit that gives you a storage area below the deck.

You will definitely want to make sure the deck will actually fit and probably want a dash kit to make it look nice / fill in spaces in the trim.

Also, if you're considering a flip up/out style deck, make sure there's room for the screen to come out AND will sit in a spot you can see it fine.

2. Wiring harness. Don't be a ******* cheapskate, I got one today for a 99 that was $13 CAD that's like $5 USD. JUST BUY ONE. Too many people cheap out and cut off the stock connector and wire their decks harness directly to that. Don't do this! Why? I can think of a bunch of reasons off the top of my head.

- If you ever want to upgrade your deck, you're screwed and have to start over making your cars wiring harness ever shorter in the process.
- If you ever want to sell the car with the stock deck and keep your aftermarket, well, you're screwed (unless you kept the connector you hacked off, which is unlikely)
- If you make a mistake and have to cut more wire off, you may leave yourself in a position where the stock wires are too deep in the dash to make connections to!
- The wires will already be deep in the dash, making it more difficult to make connections to.
- Replacing the stock harness if you get to this point can involve removing the entire dash and replacing all the wiring between the stereo and fuse box and any the else embedded with it.
- If your harness is already cut, go to a scrap yard and cut one out. Solder the new connector to your wires and then plug in your adapter harness. Just because you don't have the plug doesn'tmean you should cheap out/skip this part.
- Using an adapter harness to connect to the deck harness generally gives you about 12 inches or so of 'slack' on the wiring outside of the dash, this can be useful for finding issues with your wiring or having to pull the deck out.
- Wire colors on deck harnesses and the car harness will generally match taking confusion out of the equation.
- Or, go ahead and do whatever, just make sure you call and pay me to come fix it, I don't mind the work

In case there's any confusion (and there often is) I will try and illustrate with ascii..

Your cars stock radio has a plug that plug into it and go's to the car:
CAR-----[femaleplug]

You remove stock radio, do NOT remove plug:
CAR-----[femaleplug]

You buy a "stereo wiring harness" (separate from the one that comes with your head unit) for your year/make/model/trim, this will have one end that plugs right into the plug in the car, and has wires hanging off it.
CAR----[femaleplug][maleplug]======(WIRES)

Then you also have the harness that came with your shiny new stereo:
(WIRES)======[deckplug]

Then you solder the two sets of wires together, almost all should match in color and type, which makes it super easy.
[maleplug]=======//======[deckplug]

The // represents where you connected the two harnesses together. Hint, you can connect the two halfs outside the car, on a bench, whatevers easiest! Once you're done, you can literally just plug the deck in!
CAR----[FEMALE/MALE PLUG CONNECTED]=====//=====[DECKPLUG CONNECTED TO DECK]

3. Tools & Wiring Connectors

Don't use wiring connectors. Butt connectors or crimp connectors can work and are simple enough for most people to use but have an extremely high failure rate. If you HAVE to use them, crimp them good and TEST the connection by pulling on it, HARD. If it pops out, which it probably will, do it again or just solder it. It's advised to either use heat shrink tubing or electrical tape (remember to STRETCH the tape to release adhesive) on each connector as well for security, but again, don't use crimp connectors!

Wait, if I can't use crimp connectors, how am I going to connect the wires? The answer should be obvious to most but if it isn't: SOLDER IT. You might be thinking, I don't know how to solder or I don't have a soldering iron.

Well, if you like working on your car, those are two things you should remedy. If you don't want to, feel free to call me or another experienced installer, we're happy to help. If you do, I recommend a butane powered soldering iron for working on cars. Very versatile and doesn't require a plug in or have wires and heats up super quick. Mine was about $30 and I use it every single day, in fact I haven't used my plug-in one in months.

Also, pick up some Flux (you won't be able to solder decently without it) and some electrical solder of course. This isn't meant to be a tutorial on soldering but I will give some hints.

You will want some other tools and accessories, here's a full list:
- Wire strippers/crimper
- autostrippers (nice to have but not required)
- soldering iron, butane ones are awesome but any will work.
- Flux (for soldering)
- electrical solder
- heat shrink tubing
- extra primary wire (probably unnecessary but good to have)
- multimeter (not necessary if you do a good job, but definitely good to have!)
- electrical tape
- screwdrivers
- trim pry tool
- vehicle service manual (handy if you need to know what wire colors are what on the vehicle side, where wires run, whats on what circuit, also most will tell you step by step how to remove the stock radio, etc)
- Wiring harness for your car (connects to the connector that went into the stock radio and gets wired & soldered to the harness that came with the deck)
- dash / trim / mounting kit
- new deck (obviously)

4. If DIYing especially for the first time, beer, cigs, whatever vice you need to get through it.

5. Get started!

Steps, in order I think is best:
(I will elaborate on some of these steps with pictures and more details once I finish the install tomorrow)

1. Buy everything required, double check you got the right stuff.

2. Gather your tools, supplies and vices. Smoke one.

3. Outside the vehicle, solder the two harness half together. Almost all the wire colors should match, a lot of harnesses also have the purpose of the wire printed directly on its insulator.

I recommend twisting like wires together (see pics) such as + and - of each speaker and others with their adjacent wire. I find it can make a neater harness but mainly twisted wires actually have better EMI rejection and signal carrying properties.

To save time, I cut a small piece of heat shrink and place it on each wire after twisting them together, of course, strip the ends of each wire about 1/4" first. Then put a tiny bit of Flux on every wire end thats bare.

One by one, solder them together. A good tip is to put a bit of solder on the tip of the soldering iron, then hold one side of the wire with your non-dominant hand and soldering iron with the other. Hold the bare part of the wire in your non-dominant hand parallel to the bare part of the wire you're soldering to. Apply the tip on both halfs and wait 2 or 3 sec, the solder will drip down and surround both wires. Make sure you do not move the wire you're holding and that the wire you're not holding doesn't move (a clamp can help here) while soldering or for 5 seconds after (they will come apart if the solder is still to hot!).

If you've done it right, it should look like mine (attached pics) and if so, then you can slide the heat shrink wrap over the connection and use a Bic lighter to heat it and shrink it to seal the connection. Again, done right, should look like the pics.

Once all the wires are soldered together, I like to twist them all together and wrap some tape around it. Extra wires can have a small piece of heat shrink placed over the end and shrunk (see pic) and pinch the open end together while still warm.

Remember, electrical tape is best used with stretching it to release adhesive. If you don't, it'll fall off. And again. I don't even like using butt/crimp connectors, so using electrical tape for holding connections together, even if they're twisted together and you stretch the tape properly, is bad & won't last.

4. Remove trim from inside car and remove stock deck.

5. Remove brackets from stock deck (if required) and/or get dash kit ready/attached to deck.

6. Plug in harness, plug harness into deck, plug antenna in.

7. TEST and make sure everything works. Stereo, dash lights and illumination adjustment, power antenna, etc. If the deck doesn't power on, you may have blown a fuse during install (unlikely if you soldered/connected outside the car) or you may have a wire in the wrong spot.

8. Slide deck in, screw together.

9. Put dash back together.

10. Admire your work, smoke, go for a ride and blast some beats.

See attached pics of me assembling the harness for my current install. Again, once I finish the install tomorrow, I will add more pics and details on removing the stock stereo from a 99-00 and a 92-95, don't have pics saved from any 96-98 installs, sorry.

Will also be installing a 2 way car starter on the same car tomorrow and plan on posting an article detailing that as well.

PS. Happy to answer any questions relating to this in this thread as well.

forbiddenera

Reserved.

forbiddenera

I finished the install today. A few extra things I came across and some more details:

The metra dash kit I got had a few issues. The package said no special tools required..well..not really, except a dremel.

I had to Dremel out the raised part of the tabs on the side brackets that screw into the front trim, making it flush with the rest of the bracket (about 0.3mm), until I did this it did not quite clear the radio my client had purchased and wouldn't go together.

Once the brackets and trim were assembled on the radio, you're supposed to slide it through the stock opening. No-go. I had to Dremel down about 1mm around the entire opening, I basically flattened any spot that stuck out, making it flush with the rest, I'm not 100% satisfied with the results as there is a tiny bit of gap, hardly noticable but I'm a perfectionist.

..

Removing the radio from a 99-00 Civic is *****-easy. In fact, I had it apart in like 30 seconds and was so quick I forgot to take pics of the progress. Simply remove the 3 ***** and use a trim tool to pull the panel out. There are a few plugs for the controls that will get unplugged, they only fit in one spot so it's easy to plug them back in on button up.

On a typical (Single DIN) 92-95, you'll want to remove the center console part under the deck, that will give you access to slide it forward from under.

..

This particular deck has 2 USB ports, one for standard USB and one for iPhone & Carplay. A hole was drilled and Dremelled in the dash near the power/cig lighter plug. The two ports were epoxied together and then epoxied inside the hole made. Almost like stock. I'd normally take the panel out and do a nicer job but the customer was happy with this and didn't want to pay for the extra time. In retrospect, I probably should have placed them side by side on the right side of the heat/ac buttons under the head unit though the paricular ports for this deck werent exactly flush mountable (technically not mountable at all).

This deck also had a GPS receiver and this was installed under the dash left of the center vents.

Like many head units, this one also has a microphone for bluetooth and carplay calls. The customer didn't want it visible so I drilled a hole in the bottom of the left center vent and stuck the microphone inside there. I don't know how much noise it will pick up with the heat or a/c on, but we'll see what the customer has to say after some testing..
.
Played one of the customers DVDs in the deck for testing.

Next up, I'll be doing a 2-way remote starter install with auxiliary features on the same car, I started today but don't have a T-harness (apparently Bulldog makes one for 96-00 Civic, which is probably similar/compatible with 92-95, but I can't say for sure, they may even have a separate one for EGs but I only quickly glanced at the site and saw the one I mentioned).

In case your wondering, a t-harness generally plugs into somewhere (or multiple places) under the dash, sometimes in between connectors other times they can plug right in and provides an easy way to do the install, just solder your starter/alarm to the T harness and plug it in.

If I knew I wasn't going to have time to finish today and was going to finish next week, I may have ordered the T harness, but I've already soldered in the +12v, GND and Horn output, so I'll be finishing this install the "hard" way by splicing, soldering and heatshrinking and documenting it this way, though if you're going to DIY this and it's your first time, I definitely recommend ordering one, it'll save you time, frustration and hacking into your cars wires.

MiguelRod

I'm not sure if any of you will see this or even be able to help me but if you see this PLEASE HELP! My name is Miguel. I drive a 98 civic ex, single din aftermarket radio was installed when I bought the car. This threw a bunch of flags for me but i bought it anyway and it worked for about six months. Then I noticed my driver speaker wasn't working. So i opened the door to see that instead of using the stock wiring for speakers they had run a wire next to the door grommet and it the stock wires were still there unplugged. YIKES that means they spliced into the stock wires somewhere. So I take the head unit out to have a peak and I see the scariest thing, there is 4 radio connections behind the head unit and only one is being used. I removed my driver door speaker and there is two sets of wires there and every time i shut that door, all 3 remaining speakers cut out. I decided to cut those wires out of the harness behind the radio as a "diagnostic" measure and that didn't help. Before I rip everything out and re-wire... Any suggestions ?!

forbiddenera

You already have the best solution, rip it out and rewire. Or identify where the breaks are in the oem wiring and see if it's repairable. Probably better to rewire if you're up for the task though.