I just took it to a local paint shop and asked them if they could spray it next time they did a black vehicle. In a week it was done.

 

sorry, but unable to upload any pictures. I am new user on this forum & for some reason it says "You may not post attachments". I can not get past that. Any suggestions would be appreciated. See album “gg6 2009 Lariat “ for picture. FYI, I have the frame of the pioneer protrude 1/16 of an inch beyond the wood grained bezel. Also, there are vinyl simulated wood grain bezels on the net, but they do not look as good as the original OEM wood grain bezel. I have also been told that there is a ford part that can be ordered to replace the bezel without the effort of cutting the old one, but I have been unable to identify the ford part number.
I will answer the questions that I saw targeted at me ... the PAC comes with a relay that cuts out the radio when sync voice recognition is engaged and this avoids conflicts between the sync and pioneer from contending with the speakers. Although the PAC comes with the ugly LCD, you throw it away & use your OEM LCD that still sits in the dash above head unit location. This PAC is better version of the AFSI & allows you to keep all your sync functions, except sync does not control pioneer head unit. Pioneer head unit is controlled by the pioneer's VR. The sync bluetooth is much smoother, faster, more accurate than the pioneer bluetooth. The value of having 2 bluetooths is that I can receive incoming calls to my phone via sync & incoming calls to my blackberry via the pioneer.... without having to change active phones since both are always active. The sync does everything it did when the OEM stereo was there....I plug a hard drive in & it fully indexes. I have a hard drive plugged in to my sync & a 160gb IPOD plugged in to my pioneer IPOD cable....both function perfectly, however the sync definitely indexes faster than the pioneer. The other problem with aftermarket NAV head units is they take a few seconds to boot up, which is slower than the OEM NAV.

 

I told guys b4 this would work

 

One other thing about keeping sync.... it allows me to recharge my blackerry without needing to have a car charger. I just use a standard USB cable to plug my blackberry in to the sync and it charges the blackberry. I can listen to music off the blackberry via bluetooth streaming or via the USB cable

 

I would like to confirm that I understand what you are saying.
You said you have a hard drive hooked up to sync with the z110bt. I thought the sync was a part of the original radio. Does this mean snyc is a pre-amp output that you have going to the pioneer aux input?

 

I read through the first page (working my way back) but I don't see any mention yet of retaining the steering wheel controls with these aftermarket units. Did I miss the obvious that it was or wasn't compatible?

 

sync is NOT part of factory head unit. it just interfaces to factory HU thru pre-amp interface of factory HU. In near future sync will not be propritary to only ford vehicles. In fact the limited licensing agreement with Microsoft might already have expired & MS might already be selling to other auto makers. To make it not limited to ford, MS needed a simple, cheap interconnect such as the pre-amp connection they use with ford. The PAC MS-FRD1 wiring harness allows you to feed in to RCA connections for AUX on aftermarket HU. This means anything you plugged in to sync with factory HU will function with any aftermarket HU you connect thru MS-FRD1. Just as before, you can plug in your IPOD, a harddrive, a flash drive (I tend to use 16gb flash drive because they are small, cheap ~ $20, & keep the same amount of music that I load on my jeep gig NAV hardrive). The sync still indexes anything you plug in to it...just like before. Steering wheel controls still function for sync & they also function for the new HU because the PAC MS-FRD1 wiring harness allows you to plug in PAC SWI-PS steering wheel control interface.

If you don't like aftermarket stuff (silly because it is half the price of OEM & very quick/easy to install) then it is easy to spend the money at the dealer & get them to install the Ford upgrade to NAV. I believe Ford currently & exclusively uses United Radio for the upgrade kits but United only sells thru dealers & dealers can not sell the parts, they need to sell it as an installed product. The install requires a little more work than the aftermarket because ford kit requires 1 wire on the steering wheel to be rewired/added. There is one problem with the Ford replacement... they do not have a replacement wood grain trim panel, which is the same problem you have with doing an aftermarket replacement & is what required me to take out the dremel to trim a NAV hole out of my OEM panel. If you don't have wood grain, then they have the replacement trim panels & I assume they are OEM quality.

 

Hi GG6!

My Sync menu goes through the factory HU. I do not have an OEM LCD (similar to the one that you have above the HU) but there is another LCD for the A/C and another LCD in the near the speedometer (which displays a number of information such as 1) no. of kms for current gas/fuel 2) average fuel consumption 3) fuel used 4) kilometers, etc.). Can I used any of the current LCDs (A/C or the one near the speedometer) instead for the SYNC menu? I am thinking of buying an aftermarket HU (which means i will lose the Sync menu in the factory HU), but I do not want to use the PAC LCD. Would you know if this is possible?

Thank you.

 

GG6 - how does it work with an incoming phone call on Sync if you are listening to the HU AM/FM? Does the PAC interface switch the HU to AUX so you can hear the phone call or do you have to select AUX manually, or does it work magically some other way?

 

If a call comes in to phone on the Sync, then sync cuts out the HU & takes the call. This is done by the wiring harness & a solenoid on the harness & it causes the HU to shut off while sync is engaged (keep in mind the sync drives the front speakers by itself & does not need a HU to operate). You do not hear the phone thru the HU. If you are listening to USB devices connected to the sync, then the HU picks this up via the AUX.

 

That explains a lot. I didn't realize the Sync would drive the front speakers. One other thing - with the stock radio I can control the phone call volume with the volume **** (the owners manual says this volume setting is separate from the radio/cd/USB volume setting). Without the stock HU I presume you can still control sync phone volume with the steering wheel controls?

And if you don't mind - what happens to the clock display in the OEM display? The button to set the clock is on the stock radio which is now gone. Do you lose the clock on the display (which is okay as the new HU should have a clock)? Thanks!

 

the clock on the OEM display will no longer show ... since it is part of the stock HU functionality. The new HU will have a clock. the sync phone volume will only be controllable from the steering wheel controls.

 

Yep, I have found that out. I pulled the trigger and installed a Kenwood DNX-6160 this weekend. I went with it mainly because the GPS is Garmin which has (relatively) cheap map updates. I also used the PAC MS-FRD1 harness and the PAC SWI-JACK steering wheel control. The install was suprising easy. I bought from Crutchfield. I know the Kenwood can be found cheaper elsewhere but not from authorized dealers (warranty concern there). Plus at Crutchfield the SWC was free, the MS-FRD was 1/2 price ($99) and the bezel was half off ($25 for the Scosche which I hear is better than the Metra). Also you can search the net for a Friend code and get $20 off. They also give you the antenna adapter but the Kenwood came with one.

I like the unit a lot. I grounded the Kenwood PBrake wire so the kids can watch DVDs while driving. I have the stock rearview mirror backup monitor but I am searching for that wire so I can also tap it and run it into the Kenwood's R-Cam input.

The only thing I 'lost' is the woodgrain trim (I have a 2010 Lariat). I read that Metra is supposed to have one but I haven't found it. The flat black doesn't look too bad, nobody seems to notice.

 

Hi All,

I figured I would post some pics of my aftermarket setup in the FX4. I utilized the Pioneer Z110BT with a Scosche kit (painted gloss black to match the original trim). I also had heated leather seats done. (I wish I would have figured out that I wanted this all when I got the truck, so I could have gone with factory. At least it ended up being much cheaper than if I did factory options ).

I thought I would add a little more info:

I am using the factory Sirius antenna with the Pioneer XM receiver, works fine. I did not keep the sync functionality with the available PAC module, as I found the Pioneer's Z110BT Voice Recognition/Control to be decent for bluetooth and AV control. I was able to get the installer to setup the media button on the steering wheel to activate the VR function of the headunit, so it is very comfortable to use (don't need to take my eyes off the road to change sources, perform navigation and AV functions). The iPod functionality is MUCH better than sync, in that I have a lot more control and access to my media via the screen. I no longer have use of the phone / OK, or Voice buttons on the steering wheel as these go directly into the SYNC module.

Pic1


Pic2


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Pic4


I am very happy with how it turned out.

Kimo

 

Hello everyone!

Im new here, I just installed in my truck a Pioneer AVIC-X930BT, i modified and used the OEM bezel and I used the PAC MS-FRD1 and everything works fine but......... After the installation i saw that my truck changed the units system to English (now i have miles and Fharenheit) here in canada we use KM and C.

When I go into the options in the dashboard and When i select to go back to metric system it goes back to Miles and stuff by itself. I disconnected the ms-frd1 and it worked (I was able to go back to metric system) but as soon as i connected the ms-frd1 again it went back to miles again :S.

Does this happened to any of you guys??? is there anything I can do to fix this?

Here is the link of a picture after the installation.

https://www.f150online.com/forums/me...adio-bezel.jpg

Hope someone can help me out with this.

Thanks.

Fernando.