dieselpb

I've been looking around for a solution,but nothing seems to solve my problem. I have the Nak sound system, but the head unit is bunk. I have a head unit that I want to put in, but I'm having trouble finding integration for the amp. As I understand, in the Nak systems, the amp powers all the speakers and not just the sub? Every thread I find, it says there is no wiring harness available, but these threads are years old(a few were over a decade old). I'm sure there is a wiring harness available that will work, I'm just not sure what to search for.

PureDrifter

iTrader: (10)

There isn't a harness that will make the system work as stock. A few members over the years have wired systems to work but htey were one-offs, not plug and play.

Even beatsonic iirc does NOT offer a plug-in solution for the nakamichi cars. Only solution known at this time is to replace the entire amp system and either use an aftermarket amp or run speaker wires all the way from the doors to the headunit.

If the headunit is the issue used OEM ones are plentiful on ebay, otherwise get ready for a project.

dicer

Is this all the same with the Nak on the gen 1's? I know there is a sub woofer amp in the trunk or is it for everything?

PureDrifter

iTrader: (10)

there are major differences between generations and nak vs. pioneer.

Kansas

Here is a thread on how to do it: https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-...b-working.html

As I mentioned in a thread several years ago, a Best Buy installer spent at least an hour constructing a custom interface harness that allowed him to replace the Nakamichi head unit in my 2000 L400 with a double DIN Kenwood head unit without cutting any wires in the car's factory audio harness. He crimped pins on the custom harness wires that plugged into the car's factory audio harness connectors. All the speakers including the subwoofer worked perfectly with the Kenwood. The install was easily reversible and I could have reinstalled the Nakamichi head unit in probably 15 minutes.

GH5T

Kansas unfortunately not all Best Buy installers are as talented or dedicated. In all reality you lucked up.

Kansas

The Kenwood head unit install wasn't "brain surgery" - it was mainly a matter of mapping the Kenwood's wire functions to the wires on the OEM connectors in the car including the connector to the Nakamichi amplifier. I could have done it myself but the Best Buy installer (an LS430 owner) seemed particularly interested in doing it, the install price was low, and I was having a health issue that would have made it painful to do it myself. Plus, the installer had some really cool lighted magnifying glasses like dentists use which made it easier to work with the car's existing connectors.

If I had been doing the Kenwood head unit install myself, I might have chopped off the connectors on the car side like I often did when doing car audio projects from the 1960's through the 1980's but I really, really didn't want to do that. The only "magic" the Best Buy installer did was to construct a simple interface harness with pins to avoid cutting wires and make the installation easily reversible in case I wanted to take the Kenwood head unit to another car and reinstall the Nakamichi head unit.

It's not difficult to fabricate simple wiring harnesses. I've done it many times using wire and connectors from auto parts and hardware stores.

dieselpb

Let's say I wanted to rip everything out and start over with aftermarket parts, what would I do then? In that case, can I just use a standard harness? Since the speakers are interfacing with the amp and the amp interfaces with the deck through the RCA cables

Kansas

To me "rip everything out and start over" means removing the head unit, amp and all the original speakers and replacing them with all new components including the wiring to all the speakers. Sure than can be done if you want to spend the money and do a lot of interior disassembly. I did a lot of audio projects like that 30 to 50 years ago and it's really not that hard although it can be time and money consuming.

I just answered your question on the LOC forum. No, you can't use a "standard harness" if you want to use the Nak amp and speakers. There is no aftermarket interface harness for Nakamichi systems. You either have to create your own simple custom harness like my Best Buy installer did or chop off the connectors on the car side and get out your soldering iron.

dieselpb

Excuse my poor handwriting, but I think I just figured it out from the link you gave me Kansas. Would this be correct?

https://i.imgur.com/q1sC98L.jpg