I decided to go with the Pioneer AVIC-F90BT because it had all the features I wanted at a reasonable price.

The Sport Edition has a 10-speaker single-disc JBL sound system, so in order to keep the OEM JBL amp I went with a PAC TATO kit for the audio connectivity, PAC SWI-PS for steering wheel controls and a Metra 95-8202 dash kit.

The PAC units were very easy to work with, and a nice surprise was that the TATO came with a 4runner-specific harness for the SWI-PS and the proper R1/R12 and R5/R10 plugs.

I only had to solder 4 connections to hook the TATO harness up to the AVIC (after removing the unused outputs from the black AVIC connector):

The car doesn’t have the R9 connector for vss/reverse/park on the factory nav, so I had to tap into the main harness. I pulled VSS where it enters the HVAC ECU on A16 pin 8 (Violet w/ Red stripe). For reverse, I used 1F pin 10 (Red w/ Yellow stripe), which is the connector right next to the fuse box in the driver’s side lower panel. I ended up doing a hardware bypass so I just grounded the park wire.

I placed the GPS antenna on top of the HVAC ducting to the right of the center speaker, it seems to be pretty secure there and I’m getting great signal.

I was a little worried about how the Metra kit would fit (having read some horror stories), but it isn’t too bad. I didn’t have to trim it at all and my only complaints are the small gaps at the top and bottom, and that it sticks out very slightly further than the stock plastic surround.

In those pics you can also see the TATO (black box) sitting on top of the wiring harness, and the SWI-PS hanging down. After it was programmed I was able to tuck it down beside the HVAC ECU.

I pulled the driver’s side a-pillar trim to route the mic wire, that turned out to be much easier than expected as once the grab handle is removed it slides right off by just pulling the top towards you and wiggling a little to free it from the dash.

I have to find some stronger tape to hold the mic itself in place, but I’m very happy with the location and it seems to pick up voices just fine.

Finally, a couple shots of the finished install & the truck.

We had a couple of minor hiccups with reversed fuel supply and return lines, but once those were corrected it fired right up.  Thanks to Ted for manning the camera and helping out today.

She’s still not much to look at, but the interior should be going back in tomorrow and with a little luck I’ll take it out for the first test-drive.

I fixed the wires and replaced one fuse which had blown, but I’m going to need at least a new A/C control panel (I could probably replace the resistor, but it got hot enough to discolor part of the board so I’m just going to find another one) and possibly a new mode actuator before everything will be functional again.

I also managed to get the rear defog wired up, I set it up to bypass the WRX body integrated unit and use the original Legacy on/off switch.  It is still connected to the ECU though, so I can use it for logging.

In other news I managed to get the sway bars and brakes fitted, decided to use stock WRX calipers and rotors (thanks Dave!) for the winter and take my time rebuilding the wilwoods properly.

The downpipe gave me a little trouble, as one of the turbo studs refused to cooperate and stripped out the nut.  Luckily the thread in the turbo weren’t damaged so everything went together smoothly with a replacement stud from Subaru.

I filled the engine oil (Royal Purple 5w30) and transmission (Subaru Extra-S).  Still have to fill the rear diff, power steering fluid and coolant.  I’ll probably wait until the interior is a bit more together to tackle bleeding the clutch and brakes, or at least until I can get the driver’s seat bolted in.

The good news is that I have working lights, mirrors, windows, wipers, keyless, alarm, horn, radiator fans, instrument cluster, ecu & obd2.  I was able to successfully read the ROM from the ecu, which is the first step towards getting the car tuned for the various engine upgrades.

The bad news is that there was a small amount of smoke.  The blower fan switch started smoking when I turned it up to 4 (the highest setting) so I need to trace that out and see what the problem is.  Other than that the other known issues are the interior door lock switches (driver’s side is reversed and passenger side doesn’t work) and the interior light dimmer switch is also reversed.  I also still have to figure out what happened to the rear defrost wiring and verify some other HVAC wiring, as well as test the audio and a couple of other systems.

Otherwise, I’ve been finishing up a few things in the engine bay, and installing a turbo heat blanket and heat wrap on the downpipe.  I’m not happy with the straps I got from JEGS for securing the wrap to the downpipe, so I’m waiting for some different ones to arrive before I get that sealed and the downpipe installed.

Photos!

Since the last update I’ve been wrestling with the APS turbo inlet and intake manifold installation.  It took a lot of swearing to get everything installed and fitting nicely, but it’s in there now and looks great.

I also implemented a modification to the fuel system I heard about from some guys in NZ, using 2 oem passenger side fuel rails and fuel pressure regulators along with 2 brass T’s and high pressure fuel line to implement a parallel fuel rail system.

The new engine sits quite a lot higher than the stock motor, so I had to notch the support bracing under the hood for clearance at the rear of the intercooler, and the IAC and expansion tank both touch the heat blanket underneath the hood. As far as I can tell this is an unavoidable problem given the lower hood line of the Legacy compared to an Impreza, so I’m just going to wait and see if it causes any problems.

I’ve also completed the brake line modifications needed to fit the 05 ABS system, and made brackets for the new boost control solenoid and 05 cruise control actuator. I still need to finish re-routing the cruise control harness to it’s new location beside the ABS actuator.

The dash went in for a test fit this week, and I have a good idea of how the fuse box and relays will be mounted, just have to make yet another custom bracket for those, and one to hold the fuel pump controller.

I also picked up some more competitive rubber for autox now that the car will be running in Street Modified, OEM Impreza RS 5-spoke rims wrapped in Avon R-compound tires in a 225/50R16 size.