INSTRUCTIONS TO: unlock NAV while in motion

I've posted my theories up on other threads but here's an official write up on my tested/working way to unlock your NAV while in motion.

I spent weeks studying the wiring diagrams on both Kenwood and Subaru (If people have access to more Kenwood diagrams I'm interested in seeing them). Turns out Subaru never wired up the parking sensor to the NAV unit under the seat. I have successfully grounded that pin on the wireharness and got the NAV menues to work while driving (see attached picture for proof).

You need to ground the pin on the bottom row (2nd from left). Its the only pin on the bottom row that doesn't have a wire going to it from the Subaru harness.

You can check your work by going to the NAV's main menu (main menu->Nav setup->Nav info->Vehicle Signal). If parking brake say's ON, then you have successfully grounded the correct pin.

My picture shows some ghetto wiring because this was durring my testing trials. The white clip is just used to ground my temporary wire that I shoved into the harness. You will want to probably do a better/cleaner job then my pics show.

Description of pics in order :

-Label of the pin to ground to negative. (thanks to gnlowen, I borrowed his pic)

-Closeup of the wire I shoved in the harness

-Whole shot of the ghetto grounding job done for testing.

-Proof of menu's not locked while car is in motion (I'd take a vid, but hard to do while driving by myself. You can see that the buttons on screen aren't greyed out)

-Item to check to see if you have done it correctly

Flippin' awesome. I'm doing this tomorrow.

Thanks and you rock!

No thats not the parking brake light on the dash, thats the DRL indicator. The parking brake is in no way hooked up in my mod. All you are doing is giving a GROUND signal to the navigation unit. Thats basically what your parking brake does when you have it up, it sends a GROUND signal to anything that's hooked up to it.

I drove to work today with my hack and it kept me busy during traffic. Probably was a little dangerous playing with it in stop/go - low speed traffic. Oh well, at least I know it works. No more having to pull over to side of road.

I can't exactly tell by the last pic, but is that the parking brake indicator light that's on? Does that mean that while you're driving if that pin is grounded your parking light indicator will always be on?

Looks like DRL to me...

No thats not the parking brake light on the dash, thats the DRL indicator. The parking brake is in no way hooked up in my mod. All you are doing is giving a GROUND signal to the navigation unit. Thats basically what your parking brake does when you have it up, it sends a GROUND signal to anything that's hooked up to it.

 

I drove to work today with my hack and it kept me busy during traffic. Probably was a little dangerous playing with it in stop/go - low speed traffic. Oh well, at least I know it works. No more having to pull over to side of road.

Guess that's why so many things are locked out in the first place.

Sweet hack. Nice work!

Excellent work! I knew someone here would come up with a way.

Now, I have a question... On that closeup pic, it looks like you're using a black wire for grounding that loops around the plug. Where did you ground that wire? Also, did you crimp some king of connector to the end of that wire? This sure is a sweet solution to this issue. Thanks!

that black wire was just one I had laying around with a hard pin soldered to it. I wedged that into the harness when it was plugged in. The black wire is connected to the white alligator clip which is clipped onto the metal bracket. I do not suggest what I have pictured. It was just something I did to test the system out.

I'll take some pics when I have some time to make a clean install. What I would do is:

Solder a paper clip to a wire. Wedge the paper clip in the empty slot on the harness so that it touches the pin in the NAV unit. (if you arn't comfortable with soldering, then just take some small solid wire (not stranded) and wedge it in there instead. You might want to fold it a few times to make it thicker to guarantee that you are touching the pin in the NAV unit. )

The other end of the wire I would either screw it down to the brackets to NAV unit, or any other place that you can get an exposed metal surface of the body of the car.

There isn't anything special you need to do, this signal is so minimal that you won't hurt anything if you don't connect to a perfect ground. Worst case you have a weak ground signal and the NAV will just not read it as the parking brake on. You won't hurt anything if that happens. This hack is very simple and non-volatile to anything as long as you're dealing with wires to ground.

Is this possible without taking the seat out?

It's probably possible but probably not worth the effort. It takes only 4 14mm bolts to move the seat. All I did was unbolt them and then tilt the seat back. It's a lot easier with all that room. The time it takes to unbolt/rebolt the seat is probably less time then trying to wire up the ground pin with no elbow room.

Also, are any of the other wires in this harness a ground wire? I would expect at least one to be grounded.

Woohoo! It works! I found a floppy drive power molex connector laying around and extracted 1 wire from the harness and it fit nicely. Then electrical taped it to the main harness of the navi to keep it from falling out and grounded the wire to the bolt of the seat.

And yes you'll have to remove the 4 bolts of the seat and tilt the seat back, there's just no room if you don't.

Thanks XiiiXiii!

It's probably possible but probably not worth the effort. It takes only 4 14mm bolts to move the seat. All I did was unbolt them and then tilt the seat back. It's a lot easier with all that room. The time it takes to unbolt/rebolt the seat is probably less time then trying to wire up the ground pin with no elbow room.

Thanks, I didn't realize how easy it was to remove

;1212927']Yes' date=' there's a ground wire. It's black with a yellow stripe.[/quote']

Fantastic... thanks!

Well done XiiiXiii!

I knew it would happen.... Kudos.

When I'm done working 15 hrs a day on this effing Video Awards show, I'll be doing this mod for sure.

Thanks for the diagram Jon - I think I'll try making a jumper over to the black/yellow cable.