Car Stereos: infinity system to sony system, mitsubishi eclipses, infinity system

Question
a friend has a 2000 eclipse gt with the infinity system (amp and all). we tried installing a the new headunit a Sony explode, but we couldn't figure out what wires go where. he bought the wiring harness to switch over the adapters but we can figure out what to do with the wires. can you give me an installation guide or any kind of help on this, please. thank you.

Answer
Hi Jordan,

Buying a harness is the smartest thing you could have done; cutting wires makes a mess of everything and the wires are rarely labeled in the car, so finding out which wire does what is tough.

Now, with the Infinity system, things get a little weird.

First, the aftermarket harness you should should actually have 2 sets of wires in it.  The first one is a plastic clip with some small wires coming out of it.  The second one is 4 RCA wires that go into a round connector (called a DIN).

If that's not what you have, you probably don't have the right harness, as this harness is specific to Mitsubishi Eclipses with the Infinity package.

Then, it's as simple as taking the aftermarket harness for the Sony, and connecting the wires that match on the harness you just bought (either solder or butt connect), plugging in the RCAs from the harness you bought into the deck's pre-outs (typically red and white female RCA leads that will be labeled), and then plugging the DIN end of the harness you bought into the din that was in the factory deck, and plugging the plug for the harness you bought into the old factory harness that was in the factory deck, and then plugging the other end of that into the aftermarket deck.

Hope this helps,
Justin