the white connector, is that the one that comes with the headunit? OEM harness? Or stereo kit harness? I have a black harness that came with the headunit, and the black harness that came with the dash kit. Im installing this weekend and need to see if my unit is missing a harness.

*EDIT* Nevermind... The harness was hiding. I swapped the wire and cant wait to install it this weekend!

I followed the directions exactly and used the same clips from the pics on page 9 of this thread and it looks just like those pics but...The nav and system settingare greyed out even when i come to a complete stopand put the e-brake on! Also I no longer get the system detected improper grounding msg. I'm frustrated. Any help?

I followed the directions exactly and used the same clips from the pics on page 9 of this thread and it looks just like those pics but...The nav and system settingare greyed out even when i come to a complete stopand put the e-brake on! Also I no longer get the system detected improper grounding msg. I'm frustrated. Any help?

Sometimes those quick tap connections dont puncture the insulation all the way. That may be why it isnt working. Make sure all connections are connected properly.

Can I just loosen one of the screws on the back of the unit and use that for a ground?

No. Either attach them to a ground wire or to a screw/bolt going into a metal part of the car's body.

got it put in. Bypass wasnt working so I have to go back and make sure everything is right. Does it matter if I ground the wires to the chassis or to the harness wire? I have the ground, Parking brake and mute wire all grounded to the chasis.

No, it doesn't matter. A ground is a ground.

I believe I read in the HACK threads that there is now a software fix where you change the speed setting from 16 to 128 and you no longer need the hardwire workaround. Search for 16 to find out how. It will save you some obvious pain

Just installed my F90BT last weekend, and bypass worked great!

Only question though, as I didn't think it would do this. My unit still gives me the "Warning, don't drive...." that I have to press "OK" to. Once that is done, it never complains about moving/nav/movies and hasn't stopped working, even at high speeds or long trips.

Should it give me the Press OK page?

Yes, there is nothing you can do (or should I say nothing anyone has discovered yet) that can get rid of that message.

Yes, there is nothing you can do (or should I say nothing anyone has discovered yet) that can get rid of that message.

Great thanks for the tip and the bypass info!

Nice bypass, i have a european version so it should work with those units to?

Cause ive hooked up the green parking brake cable like it schould be ( but that's gonna change ) but the black/yellow mute wire is not connected with the other end off black yellow cable ( , its still in the upper left corner. The cable that goes away off the f900 had on the end a clamp and the black/yellow cable that comes from the side off my ford unit has the piece that shifts into it. But i didn't dare to hook up cause it wasn't on the plan my ford dealer gave me. Anyway the unit works fine (exept long startup), but don't have to pull up my e-brake to play movie/adjust navigation, just need to stand still. When i start driving the video drops away with the safety message, but the audio keeps playing.

sorry for the poor english

So does grounding off the mute wire in the new pin slot complete the circuit? I had everything out and grounded both mute n ebrake wire and it worked, then I tried grounding the ebrake only and still worked. After I put the unit back in and grounded only the ebrake while mute was in new location on the harness. I played a video and it doesnt work anymore, tried grounding the mute as well and nothing. I do get the warning sign but I can click ok and it acts like its going to display the video but I get a black n drk gray horizontal snow feedback. Does not grounding the mute mess with anything?

I read this whole post about 1 week ago and I seen a picture posted of someone actually grounding the Mute and Parking wire. Now I can't find it. any idea where it went? Also can I just ground the mute and parking brake to one of the black wires next to the mute wire in its new location?

Also to confirm the Mute and Brake wire are not connected to anything except for the ground right? Thanks

It took 2hrs. But, It seems working. Great hack!

f90BT IN 2007 TRAILBLAZER

As this unit has onstar and I did not want to lose those functions ( i need the mute wire)

I tore apart the video input wire and relocated it to the 4th pin hole and grounded it and the e-brake.

Works while driving, but I did not get a good connection on hte ebrake as at startup it gives me that warning..

Just a little twist for those who care more about the mute function and can do without some other function.

Thanks for the hack

its probally all ready be done or talked about but here goes ........ pulled the y/b relocated it grounded all others .........NO GO.....re checked found pin broke.... how to fix----> removed the blue/white to remote put it in the 4th hole tie it into the y/b good to go now works fine!!!

I don't mean to beat a stick with a dead horse, but I am a new guy here and I just want to get some clarification before i screw things up.

I have an avic f900bt in my subaru impreza. I updated to firmware 2.0, and then I booted in testmode and replaced the data.zip with the modified pioneer.ini to change the speed to "256.0".

I popped open the dash and located the light green wire going towards the parking break. I am about to cut that wire in half, and attach the end coming from the stereo side to the screw that connects to the chassis of my car. I will then take the other end that is heading to the parking break and tape it off.

If I do this correctly, will I be able to watch dvd's / use the nav system to input an address while I am moving? From what I have read, if I do this, I do not need to touch the mute wire. Is this correct?

Also, do I need to unplug the battery before I do this?

Thanks for helping the dumb nub.

Ok, well I got impatient and went ahead and did it without unplugging the battery.

Took a screw driver, pulled the screw out, cut the parking break wire, put some electrical tape on the end that was attatched to the car's parking break, and wrapped the end coming from the stereo around the screw and put it right back in.

Much easier than I thought it'd be.

Wouldn't have been able to do it without searching this forum for the software/hardware bypass first though.

Thanks people. Especially HiFiSi for the motivational posts I saw from him in the threads, BorisM for his technical expertise, and chrisbulla for laying it out as easy as it actually is. And also Vorian for the awesome pictorial that got me thinking it wasn't as bad as I thought it was by throwing up those pictures on page 9 of this thread. Also that dude named "avicf700bt" in the other bypass guide with the pictures, his post on page 6 really helped.

This place is awesome... thinking about getting some of those knurled knobs and changing quite a few other things.

I am going to write up exactly how I did the Software Bypass since I have come across so many different posts that contain a lot of conflicting information. This method does NOT require you to move the mute wire, or solder anything or buy any "taps" or splice any wires. Should take even the dumbest person less than 1 hour to download the files you need and finish the entire installation. If you know anything about computers or electrical stuff, it should take less than 30 minutes.

Software Bypass Step By Step

(method used with Avic F900bt in a 2006 Subaru Impreza sedan)

Items needed:

-Screw Driver

-SD Card (at least 300mb, I used a 1gb)

-Electrical Tape

-Wire cutter/scissors/straight edge

-WinRAR (or some other decompression app [excluding winzip])

-The internet.

1. First off: The Software Bypass requires the light green parking break wire to be grounded. In order to do this, you must find your light green wire (which, if your system was installed correctly, should be found somewhere below the stereo heading towards the parking break.

2. Once you've located it, find a screw/bolt/nut that can be used as a ground to your car's chassis. In my subaru, it was right behind where the cigarette lighter is on the right side. Cut this wire, grasp the end that is coming from the stereo, and strip about 1/2 of an inch off of the insulation to expose the copper. Wrap the copper around the top of the screw (make sure its secure) and place the screw back into place. You have now (hopefully) grounded your parking break wire.

3. Next, take the wire that is going towards your parking break, and wrap a bit of electrical tape around the tip to cover up the small amount of copper exposed from the cut. You are now done with the electrical side of things. Replace the cover on your dash, and grab an SD card.

4. You will need an SD card and a card reader to complete the software end of this task. (There may be another method, but this is the easiest method that I had available to me). Proceed to Pioneer's website and download the newest firmware update (currently version 2.0). Follow the instructions on Pioneer's website and install the newest update.

---[Essentially]---

5. Head back to the computer with the SD card and delete all the files on it. You will need to put the Mitacap and Testmode folders on the SD card (which can easily be found on this site if you browse the faqs section of the "Hacks/Mods F-Series" section. You will also need to go into your firmware v2.0 download on your computer, Open the LPUE folder and navigate to the data.zip which will contain the "pioneer.ini" folder within something like APL2/iGO/project_config/pioneer.ini. I don't remeber the exact path, but if you've found the Data.zip within the firmware update you've downloaded, you are really close to the pioneer.ini.

6. Once you find pioneer.ini, you are going to need to double click it, or open it, or right click and view it, whatever method works for you, and scroll down until you find the 'parking break speed' modifer that shows "16.0". Change this number to 256.0, save, and close the file. It will ask you if you want to update the archive, click yes.

7. Now take the data.zip and drag it onto your SD card with the Mitacap and Testmode folders. Now its time to head back to the car. Plug in the SD card, turn on the car, the screen will show some files copying. Once it has finished, use a pen or something like a stylus to click the X to close the window that is displayed. Now you will need to triple-click the My Devices icon and goto your SD card. Click once on the data.zip file (the extension may not show) and goto edit -> copy.

8. Now go back and open the folder that says something like: Flash something rather, and navigate it to find the data file in there. Now goto edit -> paste. The files should be the same size, about 5.26mb so you know that you are doing it right.

9. Turn off the car, remove the SD card. Pop in a dvd or a movie on your SD card, and you are done. Just make sure the testmode, data.zip, and mitacap files are deleted from your SD card.

You are done. There should be no "parking break wire is attatched incorrectly, or any other message other than "it is unsafe to watch a video while driving". Parking break light is not on. This has worked flawlessly for me so far. Went as fast as 50mph, was able to watch both video and input an address for the gps.

Some of you may be wondering why you didn't just edit the pioneer.ini file when you were updating the firmware to v2.0, I tried this, it says file checking error and will not complete the update.

I will edit this when i get home to better illustrate the exact method. This was just done from memory as I did it about 5 hours ago.

Hope this helps some of you.

so i basically deleted my igo folder on accident. is there any way to get it back? i know i was surpose to save is but all read when i read it was delete everything and now i dont have it. now it wont boot up. it just stays at the pioneer screen and flshes every once in a while. any suggestions?

wait what? you deleted your igo folder on the stereo? or on your computer? have you tried starting up your car with the Testmode and Mitacap folders on the SD card to get it into the Win CE desktop?

@ apathyps

isn't the whole point of the software bypass is so that you don't have to do anything to the headunit hardware-wise?

you stated that the bypass you did requires the light green parking break wire to be grounded...shouldn't it have worked even if you didn't ground the light green parking break wire?

@megaman

Unfortunately the software bypass still requires some hardware play, just not as much. If you wanted it to be permanent regardless of firmware updates, you would have to do the mute pin adjustment + splice to parking brake wire + splice parking break wire to ground.

Doing that would eliminate the need to go back in to do the software adjustment if you ever update the firmware again and it over writes the pioneer.ini that contains the parking break speed modification.

For me, the software bypass with the parking break ground was much easier since i did not have to remove the stereo from the dash, I only had to pull back the dash a bit, didnt even have to unscrew it, in my car its just snaps.

The hardware bypass might and probably would require most to remove a larger part of the dashboard, and unscrew the head unit, followed by 2 different wire splices (maybe 3) in order to get this to work.

From all the searcing and research I have done on this bypass, this is the easiest method. Only downside is updating the firmware would force you to go back in and do the software bypass again.

Hope this is clear enough, its 4am and I am at work grinding away.

ok. i basically did what i was surpose to except when i was surpose to save a folder from my avic f90bt, i didnt.and now whenever i try to turn it on, it get tuck at the pioneer loading screen. i have tried almost everything.