Hi all, my Ben Hur and Kenwood DNX9190DABS head unit arrived today. There are a lot of wires, and I'll be soldering the connections where possible.



I like the look of the new control, but as others have said, not as good as the OEM unit. The Kenwood unit looks good, it is supposed to be the bright enough to read in bright sunlight, I'll find out when after it is installed I guess.



I may install a reverse camera at a later stage, but at this stage I'll just stick to a basic installation.



The instructions are a bit vague, about which wires connect to which, but I figured most of it out.

Whilst I am dismantling things, I will replace the Start Button. Mine is worn after 15 years of use. I got a new from the UK, at half the price from the dealer in Australia, and it arrived in a week. The local Bentley dealership said they have to order it in and it will take about 3-4 weeks to get it.





I'll post more photos of the actual install in the car, there are a quite a few other things to install, including the DAB antennae, the microphone and the two USB connections which I'll put one in the centre console and one in the glove box.

 

That'll keep you busy for an hour Iain .

 

Sure will I soldered on all the various power wires from the head unit harness to the Ben-Hur harness, tidied things up a bit.





I'll run RCA cables under the console and a the blue amp control wire. I am thinking of getting an underseat subwoofer in the future, so will run the wires for it now.

 

Is it even enough room under there for one of those type of subs?

Also be very careful when taking it back out to do any other work. It’s a snug fit so when you try to pull it out you might pull those two pieces apart. The screws I have pointed out are short and do not bite good. I went a size up and a little longer for mines.

 

Thanks, I'll put a few slightly bigger and longer ones in. Not sure about the underseat subwoofer, read it somewhere here on the forum that someone was going to fit one. Can't find who it was though.

 

I did the subwoofer in a custom box, mounted between the rear seats in the ski pass-through, it's really the only space for a sub. I wanted to put a couple underneath the seats but there is not much space there, let us know if you can fit them.

Why the Kenwood? I was having a lot of trouble trying to decide on the best Double-DIN radio, I picked an Alpine, but they all seemed pretty much identical.

I also had the shop run an HDMI cable to an ashtray mount. When I'm waiting in the car, I sometimes plug my iPhone into it and watch Netflix, so if you have an HDMI input, remember to run a cable...wait, I just looked up your Kenwood, I don't think that it has an HDMI, maybe that's why I got the Alpine? I really don't remember. Your screen looks great in the brochure. Anyway, you'll need the USB for CarPlay, I had them mount a phone holder with cable to one USB and ran the other to the ashtray.

I did the backup camera, it's on the license plate holder. I don' know how they ran the wires, that looked like it would take a lot of effort.

Are you going to keep your speakers? I kept the main amp for all the speakers, put in an additional amp for the sub, and changed out my speakers. But I think mine were in bad shape, others on here like TeamJones just swapped out the Ben Hur and liked it, but I know he's been trying to get Focals.

 

I got the Kenwood mainly for the Garmin sat nav. I prefer a standalone system over Google or similar. The Kenwood has an HDMI cable,but I won't use it. It has wireless Carplay.so I don't need to plug it in for short trips but will have the plug in the drink holder under the armrest. Not sure about the speakers yet. Read all the threads about changing them out, will first see how things sound. I'll have a look at what I can fit under the seat whilst I'm doing the swap over. Maybe the boot / ski hatch may be a better option.

 

Unit is all in, and it is great. Everything works like it is supposed to. I took photos as I dismantled everything, most of the installation was a lot easier than I expected. The front panel came off easily, and I think this head unit was replaced at some stage, as the Torx screws were loose, and one of them was missing.



There is quite a bit of space behind the old head unit, with is a good thing, given the amount of wiring, the "Ground Loop Isolator" and antennae booster.



I also stripped out the centre console. to replace the Start button. I ran the RCA wires into the console, they are long enough to rear the boot.



Taking out the old CD stacker and the Sat Nav DVD player took the longest. I had to remove most of the glove box to get to the rear screws on the bracket that holds the two units. Once it is gone, there is a lot more space in the glove box.



Running most of the wires is easy, the only hard ones were the DAB aerial and the microphone going up to the the overhead console. That took quite a bit of figuring out how to get down from the A pillar under the dash. I've posted the photos to help anyone else doing it, as finding a route through took the longest. The trim on the A-pillar pulls back easily to run the wire up over to the overhead console. Getting it back down to under the dash did not seem obvious, until I figured out that the trim piece next to the dash, pulls out. I used some clear tubing to push down into the glove box.



Then pulled the DAB aerial and microphone with the tube.




The tube worked well, and I was able to feed it across the top of the glove box over the the centre console.



This is where I ran the wires through to the glove box.



The rest of it was fairly easy, just followed the instructions for both the Ben-Hur and the head unit and everything worked first time.

The Garmin Sat Nav works, Apple Car Play works via Blue tooth, and if I plug it into the USB. Whilst I had it all apart, I changed all the bulb to LEDs. The only thing I have to do tomorrow if sort out the mircophone. The supplied one is very directional. and I need to attach it to the OEM microphone grills at the right angle to make it work better - having it vertical doesn't work so well. Tomorrow I'll sort out the right angle and glue it at the right angle inside the OEM microphone housing.

I'll post a few more photos of the finished install tomorrow.

 

Everything is finished any I am quite impressed by the headunit. It all works great.



The Garmin SatNav is what I really bought it for, and I have them in all my cars and it has been by far the most reliable. I prefer it over Google or similar as it is standalone and doesn't need phone signal to work. It also shows a digital speedo if I want it to, and has a feature that slighty turns down the radio when I break the speed limit, which seems to be all the time in this car



I have the USB port in the storage box under the arm rest to keep the phone charged. On the second USB port I have a 16GB thumb drive with music.

Apple Car play comes up wirelessly, and seems to work OK, but I am not really a "tech phone", only have an iPhone 6.

 

Well done Iain, Congratulations on a neat install, im sure people will be turning to you for help and advice before long. Now go drive

 

Thanks Andy, go so much to learn about this car - all part of the fun.

 

Your car has an amazing interior, I love the colors. The install looks great, nice job.

 

Thanks, one of the reasons I bought it was the tan interior, and just loved the Umbrian Red paint. So many have cream/beige or black interiors and are either Black or Silver over here. Any idea how I found out what the options were on the car, it has 20" wheels which I don;t think were on the options list in 2005.

The sound is great, but still no where near the Dynaudio system in my Volvo C70..It's a 14 speaker set up (6-front, 2-center, 4-rear, 2-subs) with 3 dedicated amps (mains, centers, subs) totaling 910-watts. It also has separate 8-band EQs for the front and rear speakers and the system changes when the roof is down. It is just fantastic, best system I have ever heard in a car. There is definitely not space for an underseat sub woofer. The ski hatch seems to be an option. Anyone ever tried something like I have in the Volvo. It has two subs behind the back seat. Is there just a bulk head behind the back seat?







Looking at Johnny's pic of his car during the rebuild. Seems like there are quite a few things going on behind the seats.

 

Mine has the Naim Sound System which I would best describe as "Alive". The sub is located behind the ski hatch. (I dont know if the space there is different on your coupe).

 

Try Bentley Brisbane, they can look up the options from the vin.