2000 Radio Swap

[Shnookums]

Hi there,

I have a 2000 GTP with the standard radio unit in it and i would love to swap it for one of the new model wich feature, Speed auto volume and Info display song name etc. The thing is my car is not build with speed auto volume radio. Do you think it could be possible to wire it to make it work someway?

Thx!

[The Burning Rom]

What car are you getting this new radio from?

[Shnookums]

Ebay. But it's any new Pontiac model radio. I know that there is some of these radio in Sunfire and new GP model.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...ayphotohosting

[Flatrater]

GM factory radios are for the most part interchangeable unless yuo are upgrading to a radio that requires an amp and you don't have one.

The connections are the same on both radios.

[Shnookums]

Yeah... that i know. But to new radio (Sunfire stock CD radio) has some feature that the previous (GTP 2000 CD radio) does not have.

1) Auto speed volume : The volume of the radio is auto ajust when the car speed change to compensate for road noise. So there must be something wich tell the radio what speed i am going. It's there in the Sun but probably not in the GTP.

2) Keyless radio : When you shot down the car engine the radio continue to work until you open the door.

3) Information display : The new radio display the station information. Like Song name, artist, traffic report... etc.

The 2 first things i don't know if they will work because they must require new wirering that my GTP probably does not have. That's why i am asking you if you think it's might be possible to re-wire those things.

Anyway... Thx for the answer!

[GTPJeff]

Originally Posted by Shnookums

3) Information display : The new radio display the station information. Like Song name, artist, traffic report... etc.

I believe you have to subscribe to that service.. Something like satelite radio offered by Sirus..

[GTPgirl]

No, not what he's talking about. My friend's 2001 Alero has that radio in it. If the radio broadcasts it in their signal, it will display on the screen. Like one of our radio stations, 103.7, the station name is "The Q" and it shows "The Q" on her radio if she's on that station.

[Shnookums]

Exactly... It also feature speed volume. Wich crank the volume up or down depending of the car speed. That's what i want. But some kind of connection between the car PCM and the radio is probably needed for that.

Anyway...If anybody knows thx... else i am gonna try to get a wirering diagram of the thing to sort it out.

thx again!

[imrahil]

Originally Posted by Shnookums

Exactly... It also feature speed volume. Wich crank the volume up or down depending of the car speed. That's what i want. But some kind of connection between the car PCM and the radio is probably needed for that.

Anyway...If anybody knows thx... else i am gonna try to get a wirering diagram of the thing to sort it out.

thx again!

The 1997.5 through 2002 Grand Prix's have what are called DIN and a Half (DIN.5) radios with a communication bus called E&C. These are pretty much standard radios - nothing special other then the E&C bus that allows things like steering wheel controls and remote playback devices to work (like remote changers or casettes). Not all of these radios support remote devices however.

The pinout for these radios are different the radio that was in the Ebay post. Also, the radio in the Ebay post is a double DIN (1/2 a DIN LARGER than the stock radio in a 2000 Grand Prix.

Your current radio should support the "keyless radio" function you describe - my 1999 GTP does.

The radio that is in the Ebay post has a feature called RDS - non-subscription, and it is data that is broadcast by the FM broadcaster. Entirely voluntary on the part of the broadcaster and not well taken advantage of in the U.S. There are a BUNCH of features that could be used but U.S. broadcasters don't much take advantage of them. It is a technology that came from Europe.

The Double Din radio is also what is known as a "Class 2" radio - as opposed to E&C - but can be set up to work off of ignition (like the stock GTP radio). The data that lets the radio automatically adjust volume is delivered to the radio on the C2 bus. Although I do not recall that the radio pictured supports this feature - I'd have to check where I I work. Since the 1997.5 to 2002 Grand Prix's are not C2 vehicles - you wouldn't get the data - so - no speed compensated volume in any case. There were E&C radios that supported SCV - Chevy radios of the same vintage/architecture. But if the vehicle does not send the data out on the E&C bus - there is no signal for the radio to respond to.

Installing the Double-DIN readio would be a trauma as well as you would have to really cut up the internal structure of the instrument panel.

I work for the company that builds these radios (both of them) as well as the Alero radio mentioned in this thread. That's how I know that what you would like to do is not the best route to follow. You won't get all of the features that you want and you will have to do a lot of structural work to get the radio installed.

Best of luck if you go ahead and do it - but I don't think you'll get the results that you are looking for.

[kilroypr]

Originally Posted by Flatrater

GM factory radios are for the most part interchangeable unless yuo are upgrading to a radio that requires an amp and you don't have one.

The connections are the same on both radios.

Let me ask you something? If the car is not equiped with a Speed Variable Volume on the original radio. How the new radio will get
signal from the ECU as that the speed is raising or lowering to raise or
lower the volume?
The ECU must tell the radio somehow that speed is changing.
Does the radio wiring has connection to the speed sensor to
determine what to do?
Please advice this is really interesting.

[kilroypr]

Originally Posted by Shnookums

Yeah... that i know. But to new radio (Sunfire stock CD radio) has some feature that the previous (GTP 2000 CD radio) does not have.

1) Auto speed volume : The volume of the radio is auto ajust when the car speed change to compensate for road noise. So there must be something wich tell the radio what speed i am going. It's there in the Sun but probably not in the GTP.

2) Keyless radio : When you shot down the car engine the radio continue to work until you open the door.

3) Information display : The new radio display the station information. Like Song name, artist, traffic report... etc.

The 2 first things i don't know if they will work because they must require new wirering that my GTP probably does not have. That's why i am asking you if you think it's might be possible to re-wire those things.

Anyway... Thx for the answer!

To my humble understanding I think that the only way to make this work is getting GM or someone provide you an ECU(Engine Control Unit) that will tell your radio speed information to make it work, along with additional hardware. IF that is not the case is not an easy task to acomplish it because you need to get speedsenor input to the radio and I am pretty sure the radio can not process it, the radio can process a speed reading (This is a wild guess and makes most sense to me) like the one that the speedometer gets from the ECU so the radio Variable Speed Volume must work with speed reading from the ECU.
The keyless radio is a BCU(Body Control Unit) feature and the SpeedVolume is on the radio with car speed input from the ECU.
So your BCU and ECU must have these features to enable your radio to have them. The radio does not know when your car door will open to shut itself up, the BCU thru the dore domelight switches knows it and then can cut power to the radio and power windows if so equiped.
The station thing is a new ieee std that the station and the radio must comply with to make it work. The car does not need to have anything special. It works like Phones caller id, the information comes on the radio wave itself not the car wiring or equipment.

[imrahil]

Originally Posted by kilroypr

Let me ask you something? If the car is not equiped with a Speed Variable Volume on the original radio. How the new radio will get
signal from the ECU as that the speed is raising or lowering to raise or
lower the volume?
The ECU must tell the radio somehow that speed is changing.
Does the radio wiring has connection to the speed sensor to
determine what to do?
Please advice this is really interesting.

In newer architecture GM vehicles, the speed signal is sent on the Class 2 bus. In some of the older vehicles the signal came in on another bus (not Class 2). In either case, the signal is a message on a bus, the radio must be able to decode it and act accordingly.

For example, the 2003 Grand Prix and the 1997.5 thru 2002 Grand Prix's are two different electrical architectures - not completely, but enough different. The radio in the 2003 is, generically, a "Class 2" radio and the the 1997.5 thru 2002 radio is, generically, an "E&C" radio. 2 different busses.

So - the ECU is ultimately where the signal usually comes from - getting that data to the radio can be straight forward and direct to the radio or through a "gateway" device that knows how to interpret the speed signal and also knows how to "talk" to the radio to make it do what needs to be done for SCV. All of this varies by vehicle and manufacturer.

RDS is the broadcast standard that allows the double din radio to decode a sub-carrier that the FM broadcaster is allowed to transmit. There are a variety of pieces of data that can be broadcast, but RDS is generally relegated to the station Program Service name (PS name) of 8 characters.

The radio needs to have a alpha-numeric display (dot matrix, lcd reconfigurable, or "British-flag") in order to be able to display numbers and letters - preferably in Caps and Smalls for readability. The radio also needs a RDS decoder chip in order to process the side-band data.

To be a true RDS receiver, it should also support Alternate Frequency Switching - one of the reasons that a RDS receiver will usually display the PS Name is so that the listener doesn't see the radio automatically changing frequencies to maintain a good receive signal with the RDS "network" that it is currently tuned to. Unfortunately, this is a broadcast model more suited for Europe (where RDS originated) than the US market where there aren't as many lower power broadcasts that are simualcasting in order to achieve the same coverage. There are however some AF networks in the US and they work quite well, just as they do in Europe.

If you wnat to learn a little more about RDS - the following web site is not a bad start: http://www.rds.org.uk/rds98/rds98.htm

The US Standard is the European Standard with Appendicies added. Also, the US Standard is maintained by the NRSC, CEA and EIA.

[kilroypr]

Originally Posted by imrahil

In newer architecture GM vehicles, the speed signal is sent on the Class 2 bus. In some of the older vehicles the signal came in on another bus (not Class 2). In either case, the signal is a message on a bus, the radio must be able to decode it and act accordingly.

For example, the 2003 Grand Prix and the 1997.5 thru 2002 Grand Prix's are two different electrical architectures - not completely, but enough different. The radio in the 2003 is, generically, a "Class 2" radio and the the 1997.5 thru 2002 radio is, generically, an "E&C" radio. 2 different busses.

So - the ECU is ultimately where the signal usually comes from - getting that data to the radio can be straight forward and direct to the radio or through a "gateway" device that knows how to interpret the speed signal and also knows how to "talk" to the radio to make it do what needs to be done for SCV. All of this varies by vehicle and manufacturer.

RDS is the broadcast standard that allows the double din radio to decode a sub-carrier that the FM broadcaster is allowed to transmit. There are a variety of pieces of data that can be broadcast, but RDS is generally relegated to the station Program Service name (PS name) of 8 characters.

The radio needs to have a alpha-numeric display (dot matrix, lcd reconfigurable, or "British-flag") in order to be able to display numbers and letters - preferably in Caps and Smalls for readability. The radio also needs a RDS decoder chip in order to process the side-band data.

To be a true RDS receiver, it should also support Alternate Frequency Switching - one of the reasons that a RDS receiver will usually display the PS Name is so that the listener doesn't see the radio automatically changing frequencies to maintain a good receive signal with the RDS "network" that it is currently tuned to. Unfortunately, this is a broadcast model more suited for Europe (where RDS originated) than the US market where there aren't as many lower power broadcasts that are simualcasting in order to achieve the same coverage. There are however some AF networks in the US and they work quite well, just as they do in Europe.

If you wnat to learn a little more about RDS - the following web site is not a bad start: http://www.rds.org.uk/rds98/rds98.htm

The US Standard is the European Standard with Appendicies added. Also, the US Standard is maintained by the NRSC, CEA and EIA.

I really enjoy your reply, puts the technical terminology to the previous post I made. Basically I said that the PCM or as I call it ECU has to send some sort of signal to the radio regarding car speed in order to change volume and that the radio station personalization is something like the phone caller id feature. The FM station must send this information so the radio can display it.
You added all the technical terminology to this humble explanation.
Thanks a mil.