Adding a reverse camera WITHOUT drilling the boot handle and WITHOUT cutting any OEM wires

[Adding a reverse camera WITHOUT drilling the boot handle and WITHOUT cutting any OEM wires]

Each to their own...

But yeah, the number plate light holes aren't very wide and really depends on what sort of camera/wiring/routing/how much wire on show....

Also, this was a lockdown project, so I may have overkilled it a bit... "a bit" 8^D

p.s. If anyone's interested, I added a few links and pictures above, but will add more soon

[Adding a reverse camera WITHOUT drilling the boot handle and WITHOUT cutting any OEM wires]

Bear with me on this I've been asked about how my experience with fitting a reverse camera through the cap garnish went

First things first, standard disclaimer, I'm not a qualified mechanic/automotive engineer/automotive electrician, you do this at your own risk and I take no responsibility for you damaging the car, or yourself, or blowing the moon up somehow, or anything bad happens at all in any way shape or form.... this is purely a rough guide carried out on a 2017+ UK spec brz, so please double, triple, quadruple check everything I've said by doing your own research on your own car.

In short, it's pretty easy to do, but I found there are quite a few little odds and ends of knowledge that you just won't know when you start out. So I'm gonna try and mind dump it all here, but this post might take a while and be a bit all over the place and scantily filled in until I can write it all out and put it into sentences that make sense 😄

Things to know before you start, and how to find out: Does you car have an easily accessible reverse signal? Does you car have a cap garnish or do you have a lock?

•  reverse signal should be on the oem head unit block this may be a 20 or 28pin connector (FWIW, mine's 28pin)
•  if you have a boot lock, you won't have a cap garnish, but you "could" delock you car and add a cap garnish (I don't know exactly how to do that, sorry). If you don't have a lock, you probably will have a cap garnish, open the boot and look on the right side of the under side of the boot handle, do you see a small hole with a black piece of plastic filling it in? That is the bottom of the cap garnish.

Get an RCA aftermarket camera and wire the trigger wire to the options connector (behind and to the left of the head unit ) with a small fuse (just in case) that you can hide behind the dash cover directly in front of the passenger (most, but not all, videos online will tell you to use the trigger wire to trigger only and wire the power to the reverse light, this would be a MASSIVE fanny on though!)

• what is an "RCA camera"? Check your after market head unit supports RCA (if it has rear camera support it almost certainly does!): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_connector  <- an RCA reverse camera will have the yellow connector to go into the back of the head unit
• to not waste everyone's time, the first really import thing you have to note about the reverse signal wire from the car itself (the wire that tells the car/head unit that the gear lever "is in reverse") - on my car it's actually an orange wire on pin 2 of the 28pin block (the one you pull out of the OEM head unit) ... which I found was called "D12" in the electrics docs I could find online
• 
• ....and means you don't have to wire the camera to the reverse light or similar, your car may be different or not have this at all(!). This is the REAL intended purpose of the reverse camera's trigger wire, if you don't have an easily accessible reverse signal on your car's connector blocks then there's only 2 options to tell the head unit you are in reverse, 1) splice into the reverse wiring to the gear lever "somewhere/somehow" (personally, I wouldn't do this!), or 2) use the camera trigger wire which sends power to the head unit from the back of the car to the front when the reverse light is on, BUT!!! this is NOT how I wired it. If you can't see a way to tell the head unit the car is in reverse, you can actually install it like I did, but it means you have to manually tell the head unit to flick to the camera, which will quickly get annoying!
• (Btw, for head units that need a parking brake signal, it was pin 15 above... cos obviously you're not going to just wire it to a chassis ground and have the car appear constantly parked, no no no, you wouldn't do that would you, that'd be really dangerous! no, you definitely wouldn't do that, nope)
• make sure your head unit's iso block adaptor has the reverse signal pin going to the correct pin on the 28pin block, you may have to use a pin remover to change this (easy to do)
• https://www.dynamicsounds.co.uk/ctssu004-2-subaru-brz-forester-impreza-xv-steering-wheel-stalk-control-adaptor.html
• https://www.bassjunkies.com/ctssu004-2.html
• 
• you might wanna check the reverse camera's power draw, mine is pretty small, like 75-125mA, I seem to remember the options connector's main fuse isn't very large... but I forget the exact rating

Links on how to wire reverse cameras

• How you're "supposed" to do it: 
• How I did it:
  Other videos worth watching:
   

 

The options connector wiring and where to find it... this block was marked as "D29" in the electrics docs I found

 

1 - +12V Constant (Battery)
2 - +12V Ground
3 - +12V Switched (Ignition)
4 - Canbus High
5 - Canbus Low
6 - N/C

• the main consequence of wiring the trigger wire to the options connector and not the reverse light is the camera is permanently on with the ignition (make sure to test your camera doesn't get hot!!! some of the cheap ones apparently do), but this is good if your head unit supports switching to the camera when not in reverse as you effectively get a free digital rear view mirror that's handy if you have a lot of crap in the back or on a very humid day when the back window takes forever to clear
• and other possible uses (good place to also hardwire a dash cam!)
• Here's the trick on how I hardwired my reverse camera (and dashcam), I noticed when test fitting my head unit that the iso adaptor harness speaker lead connector actually fitted the options connector! Like so..

• So, the simple trick to get a female connector and make a removable hardwired installation (i.e. no cutting of OEM wires!) is just buy the cheapest similar iso harness and use a cheap pin remover and move the wires around, a hack I couldn't believe that it worked
• What I bought, was this: https://www.halfords.com/technology/car-audio/stereo-fittings/toyota%2Flexus%2Fdaihatsu-iso-harness-adaptor---ct20ty01-581881.html
• 
• 
• ...and what you do is remove the orange, yellow and black wires from the block I've marked as 2) and remove all the speaker wires from the block marked 1), then push the orange into d29's position 1, yellow into position 2 and black into position 3 (make sure you get the pin positions the right way round for the female connector! so when they slot on the male it's right), and bingo, your own options connector... connector:
• 
• once you've made your own little custom harness you can be as splice/chop happy as you like as it's not the car's own OEM wiring.
• For good measure I also wired in inline fuses so as not to rely on the car's own fuses (overkill, I know, but lets you use smaller fuses), my dash cam has these:
• 
• My reverse camera draws really small amps so I just used this type:
• 
• make sure you wire the camera's trigger wire to the options connector's 12v ignition (d29 pin 3) NOT the 12v battery main, otherwise the camera will be on 24x7 which is a) pointless b) potentially a bit unsafe and c) will very slowly parasitically drain your battery, and when Subaru is giving you a tiny 45Ah battery from the factory that's definitely not a good idea

Run the wiring down the "driver's" side (in the uk ) there is an important reason for this....

• where to ground the camera, when I had a look there are 4 possible ground points I could see:

1. in the boot, under the crossmember, under the back window/parcel shelf is a bolt/nut that I've read is chassis grounded, however what you'll quickly find is the nut is factory welded onto the bolt! You could maybe try and put another bolt on underneath and use a crimped ring connector between the two bolts but I just thought it was a bad idea. There is also a fair bit of "other wiring" back there that you could maybe tap into but all of it either a) needed a cut/splice... which immediately ruled it out for me, or b) needed a weird connector block to attach it and piggy back the circuit... again, ruling it out for me. If you are happy to splice wires, this is certainly an easy way to go, but not one I wanted to do.
2. on the passenger's side (uk spec car) - speaker ground? <- might be a bad idea!
3. on the driver's side (uk spec car) option 1 - speaker ground? <- might be a bad idea!
4. on the driver's side (uk spec car) option 2 - main chassis ground strap behind the back driver's side (uk spec car) trim cover just under the tiny window, only seems to be on this side of the car, don't bother trying to partially pry the trim away at the top, imho, you need to remove the whole piece... find the "D" number from the BRZ electrics docs

• there are videos out there that tell you you don't "need" to ground the camera at all, this is kinda true as the shielding of the cables acts as a ground and the return of circuit will go back through to the headunit and ground through its iso block ground. I didn't like the idea of this and wanted to just return to ground as quickly as possible through a main chassis ground. I'm not sure if grounding through the cable shielding might introduce noise on the picture too... take that with a pinch of salt!

Removing the trim - front to back - be careful to not break push clips or force stuff

• getting the head unit out
• foot well, middle, bottom kick panel - you don't necessarily need to remove this, but it's easy to do
• driver's carpet - not necessary if you want to route cables "over the driver's legs and under the steering wheel" instead - think VERY carefully about this, you DO NOT want wires a) impeding the pedals, b) impeding adjustment of the steering wheel, or c) rubbing and shorting!!!
• foot well, right side, bottom kick panel where the bonnet release is
• sill cover plastics
• the rear seat - yes! you really do have to remove this, it's a lot easier than you'd think though! and yes, it does go back easily and not look crap.
• rear passenger arm rest - this is a VERY large panel and is scary to remove the first time, but really isn't that bad
• you "might" want to peel back some of the boot lining around the side of the car - easy to do
• boot lid OEM wiring grommet
• boot lid interior felt backing card
• boot lid exterior garnish handle
• and finally, the ol' cap garnish

Feeding the wiring into the boot lid

Getting a cap garnish, what it is and why use it instead of drilling the boot handle like all the videos online

• note: you don't actually need to buy one! I just bought a couple spare in case I screwed up the hole or wanted to change the camera to something that needed a different hole later. Also, I wanted to be able to return the car to factory spec, if necessary.

Drilling the cap garnish

Feeding the wire through the cap garnish and waterproofing it

• I've found you don't have to go too far over the top with waterproofing, as you are running a wire "up and in" inside an already semi-enclosed space, if you wrap the wiring in a grommet reasonably well the likelihood of water ingress is pretty damn low. 
• What grommet to buy and how I used it to seal the camera cable (also, give it a little test by filling the inside of the cap garnish with water, it shouldn't leak)

Attaching the camera to the boot - again, without drilling/holes

• 3M tape is bloody amazing, one year, many power washes and much driving, still going strong. The camera doesn't flop around either.

What camera I used and other possible ones you might want to consider

• look for wide angle, low light cameras
• beware of really cheap cameras (heat, water proofing, image quality)
• you don't really need a camera with infra-red or led lights, the car's own reverse light is pretty good, but if you want to use the camera as a rear view mirror at night it may be a problem
• NTSC vs PAL cameras, cost/ease of getting one/image quality/refresh rate

Cheap bits and pieces that you might want to buy to make the job easier/tidier

• trim removal tools - link
• heat shrink wire covers - link
• cable clips - link
• cloth tape (tesa) - link
• automotive connector block pin removal tool - link

Last little thing: be careful when power washing your car or taking it through an automated wash. If you've sealed the cap garnish well it isn't a problem, but, you may damage the camera itself. So far all has been fine with my set up, but it's worth knowing.

[Definitive rattles and worrying noises thread?]

Rattles update (I know everyone, contain your excitement!) but I've discovered the odd temperamental rattle in the gauge cluster seems to actually be coming from the centre section of the steering wheel... Specifically the central overlay part that you press for the horn and contains the airbag. What I discovered completely by accident is if you hold that part slightly towards you when it rattles... The rattle stops. I've also discovered that knocking the steering wheel in a certain place makes it do it too, so is easier to diagnose when you're not driving!

Anyone else had this one? It's a bloody annoying rattle. Its like metal on metal and mainly on rough surfaces at reasonable speed and it's quite temperamental...

It sounds very similar to the noise in this video... But it's not quite as bad... And I'm fairly certain it's not coming from a pedal as it was in this video: https://youtu.be/PbmmV2ujX3E

[Definitive rattles and worrying noises thread?]

On 10/8/2020 at 8:35 AM, Conscript said:

I remember that guy, and that thread. Unless his car was an absolute Friday afternoon special, I think he went a bit overboard and got obsessive. He even added padding to the external plastic cover for the rear towing eye. Even if that did rattle, how on Earth would you be able to hear it over road and exhaust noise while inside the cabin? He claimed he could, but I don't buy it. 

 

Ha! Funny you should say that, the "felt on the reverse light" was the one that made me think along those lines too 8^D

I also have strong doubts you'd be able to hear the windscreen washer dipstick rattling!!

I think mine are no worse than the window switch gear in the door card, the parcel shelf and something to do with the steering column (at times), from reading around these all seem fixable with a bit of the 'ol tesa. I'm certainly not crazy enough to start taking practically the whole car apart !!! 8^D

[Definitive rattles and worrying noises thread?]

On 9/25/2020 at 5:26 PM, will300 said:

There is a good thread on the other forum: https://www.gt86ownersclub.co.uk/forum/40-faults-fixes/5608-rattles-thread.html

Thanks this is exactly what I was after

 

Quote

Tbh my 2019 blue edition rattles... there's quite a few. But I just turn my music up and ignore it. Works for me!

That's usually what I end up doing too, but sometimes I just like hearing the boxer noise

[Hi all]

Oh yeah, you also need a fascia adapter, which again depends on the car and year, but for a 2017> brz you need

CT23SU15 https://connects2.com/Product/ProductItem/CT23SU15

[Definitive rattles and worrying noises thread?]

Dunno if I'm not searching hard enough.. but has anyone made a definitive thread of "rattles and noises", it seems the car has a lot of rattles that mean different things. Right at the moment I think I've got a few of the less serious ones , but I can see by having a search as your car gets older there are other things that crop up...

• Parcel shelf
  • Bung fibre cloths up the holes to push the parcel shelf up
  • Also, it can be the two little plastic covers that sit on top of the parcel shelf

• Door cards
  • Wiring looms knocking against something
  • The sides of the switch gear box in the arm rests vibrating slightly
• C pillars plastic trim
  • I've found adjusting/pressing them "a bit more home" helps, dunno if they get loose, or just mine were fitted in the factory "slightly" wrong
• "Something" in the Middle Air vents
• "Something" in or around the instrument cluster making a kinda metallic rattling sound at around 3k rpm or rough roads <- very hard to describe
  • Update: looks like it could be something to with the steering column, I found this after digging a bit: https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39630&amp;page=2

I "know" there are a lot more to do with serious mechanical stuff... fuel filter noises, the infamous "crickets", exhaust shields, suspension knock, worn ball joint noises, but I'm hoping I'm a looooong way off experiencing those yet!

[Hi all]

I went for a sony unit with android auto/weblink/car play (it also has steering wheel key learning)

And yes, the harnesses can be a conundrum, but basically you need this:

https://connects2.co.uk/Product/ProductItem/CTSSU004.2

but especially retaining the usb, as it "kinda depends" which adaptor you need, on most cars/oem head units you need this one...

https://axxessinterfaces.com/product/AX-SUBUSB

however, mine needed this one...

https://axxessinterfaces.com/product/AX-SUBUSB2

which (at the time I bought it anyway) I could ONLY get from america. It would be VERY easy to get caught out by this as the little notch on the socket is ever so slightly different. After reading around, I also discovered this...

https://www.tme.eu/en/details/usb.toyota.02/power-car-accessories/per-pic/c8304-usb/

I haven't tested it thoroughly, but apparently, if you have problems with android auto/car play connection, try swapping your USB adapter for a usb.toyota.02, the difference being the first one plugs into the weird OEM usb connector, where as the second one plugs into the back of the head unit (standard usb a) and completely replaces the in dash usb/aux socket

Other quirks....

You may need to "deal" with the blue fm antenna wire, not on mine, it's perma wired in, but in general you need the antenna adapter: https://incartec.co.uk/product/Toyota-09--Aerial-adapter-to-din-plug 

You may not have a reverse or parking brake signal to the 28pin block, I did on mine

Don't get me started on the reverse camera, that was fun figuring out

[Hi all]

Updating my progress, now got a nice aftermarket headunit and reverse cam setup... no OEM wires cut and no drilling 👍

[Has anyone seen this part before... and how to get one?]

Another update, ok, carbon car systems got back to me and they seem to think this would be a common part on the lower spec 86's (where they don't have a boot lock)... also I realised the car in their video "does" have a lock, it's shown in the still above at the point I have it paused, you can see it dangling down below and to the right of the youtube "play" button... you can also see the rubber part in the post above on that lock.

However.... more importantly, SUCCESS!!! I actually have two of the part on order from japan, I got a response from Subaru UK HQ, it looks like the problem was Subaru UK has to "put on the system" or "allow" the part to be seen and ordered by dealers, but, bottom line, this part is very available in japan and is £7. I'm fairly certain this part is still being used on the factory floor for new cars.

[Has anyone seen this part before... and how to get one?]

Another update, so I think breakers yards are out unless I happen to find a 2016on 86/brz with EK/ER spec... cos they seem to want to just sell the whole boot lid (£180-300) or the whole garnish (£50-70)....

Next lines of attack, I'm waiting on come back from Subaru UK HQ and from a local Toyota dealer to see if I can get Toyota's equivalent SUxxxxxxxx part number, however, a bit of progress. I discovered one easily available and very cheap part is on the boot locking mechanism itself (which my car doesn't have), this:

57449CA040 ("Packing. Key Lock Trunk. PAC")

Shown as part 57460 here:

Which seems to be a metal gasket for mounting the lock to the boot, my thought was to make some kind of rubber/perspex shape that the gasket would cradle inside the boot, drill two holes to push the garnish mounting screws through and use the existing washers to clamp it all inside the boot lid (you'd never see it!). Next drill a tiny hole it in to feed a reverse camera wire through and shove a grommet in the hole. Bob's your uncle.

It occurs to me that this idea could have wide reaching impact on people who want to a) fit an aftermarket reverse camera, b) don't want to drill their car in "any" way, and c) is fine with de-locking their boot, if they have a keyed boot (which looks pretty simple)... alternatively, Subaru could just sell me (what is probably) a £5 part! * sigh *

Edit: Just noticed amayama lists this as a "RUBBER SEAL" (https://www.amayama.com/en/part/subaru/57449ca040), hmmm, I guess it's could be used as a good template, but I was kind of hoping it was a rigid/metal part. Bottom line, it's looking like I'm going to making this part somehow 😕

 

[Has anyone seen this part before... and how to get one?]

Success, managed to get a response from a subaru dealer! They were really helpful

The part is a "Cap garnish" part number 91167CA000

 

However, my next problem is "getting" one, as apparently the dealer had no availability and no price 😕 It does look like it could be a sub part of a larger part number, which means buying the whole garnish to get it, which I really would rather not do 

[Has anyone seen this part before... and how to get one?]

So japanparts didn't know what it was and I'm waiting on a reply from subaru uk, but I probably will be waiting a while we'll see.

What I did find though is this hole is definitely on some cars and not on others, for example, looking at this video from carbon car systems: 

You'll see the hole that the mystical part covers right there, at 3:56 but this car (I'm guessing) has a lock barrel mounted...

and here again on ft86 speed factory with a lock installed:

and then on this 2013 brz...

it doesn't have a hole at all!

But none of these cars has the blanking grommet 

[Hi all]

Just a quick note to say hello and a few things I've done/intending on doing which may be of interest:

• Add a centre arm rest (these are REALLY worth having) - done
• A lot of research on 2017+ head unit wiring, much of the diagrams out there are only 80% right as they reference generic subaru/toyota wiring or <2017 models - done
• Hard wire installed a front/rear dashcam (without cutting/splicing OEM wires) - done
• Replace factory clarion head unit with steering wheel controls retained - done
• Add a dab aerial that isn't rubbish and/or sticks on your windscreen - done
• Install reverse camera (without drilling the boot handle or cutting/splicing OEM wires) - done
• Maybe, possibly, maybe see if I can source and install the mysterious/elusive (H2717CA000) auto wing mirror fold mod - to do

[Has anyone seen this part before... and how to get one?]

Thanks church, my next port of call was to try ringing subaru direct, I've also been trying to look through toyota parts to see if I can see what it is called/what the proper part number is.

I'll get back to everyone if I figure it out

[What is this stuck to my window ??]

https://www.halfords.com/technology/car-audio/stereo-fittings/autoleads-dab-film-antenna-smb---dab-aa1-338357.html

[Has anyone seen this part before... and how to get one?]

Hi, 2018 brz owner here, does anyone know how to get a hold of one of these?...

(see attached image)

It's a little grommet that goes into the large lock hole in the boot under the handle trim and also covers the hole at the bottom of the trim where your key would go. My car is keyless so it's all blanked out.

Part number says: C14010071

...But the internet seems to have not heard of it