Short hand clarification. There are two cables/harnesses you are disconnecting from your ETM.

1) The main BIG ASS harness is a swing clip (pls don't break this, thx) - once disconnected, you connect it to the bridge end of the similarly big ass harness that KAP has provided, and stick the other end back into the ETM (the little white connector and 3.5mm aux that stems from that harness both go into the KAP trader unit itself).

2) The pink LVDS cable connected to the ETM (this is tough to get out) - pull this out and stick it into the "LVDS out" slot in the Kap trader unit. Then take the extra blue and pink LVDS cable that KAP has provided and connect it from the ETM (same spot you pulled the original cable out from) and run it to the KAP unit slot labeled "LVDS In".

That's all you are disconnecting from your ETM.

 

Apple Carplay usage video:

Android Auto usage video:

 

Thank you so much Moose8106! Critical information for me! do have a couple of novice questions:
1. Do you disconnect the battery for install? I seem to remember that this is a two step process, not just removing the whole negative plate in one shot. If so does this need a recalibration of a bunch of stuff?
2. the BIG ASS harness has a white connector that goes into the KAP unit. This connector also two red wires labelled reear power and front power, a blue wire labeles front detect, and a brown wire labeled rear detect. Do these need to be used?
3. The BIG ASS harness also has a headphone plug (3.5 aux) does that plug into the port labelled SPK?
4. Did you use the two antenae tthat came with it? Assume this is for carplay only. Where did you stick them?

Thank you again

Rumi

 

1) Battery can stay connected. You could throw codes if you turned the ignition on while you had the ETM disconnected I suppose, but disconnecting the battery isn't necessary.

2) Those spare wires (rear and front detect/power) are the ones you would use to run another camera - you can ignore those wires (unless you're installing a camera)

3) Yup - that 3.5mm aux coming out of the main big ass harness goes into the SPK port

4) Yes, use them. They have 3M tape on the back to make it easier... I tucked them behind where the carpet creeps up into that under dash panel. One is for wifi (which is necessary for wireless carplay) and one is for the Bluetooth antenna (necessary for both wired AA and CP)

 

For the people that ordered from KAP did you have to submit an inquiry and wait for them to order? I don't see an order option on the website but I could be overlooking it.

 

MorganB.

U have to send them an email and then they'll respond. I elected to pay with PayPal which is a 7% surcharge. DHL shipping was super fast: 24hr from South Korea!!!

Moose8106, you're amazing. I'll try to do a video of my install based on your instructions. Hopefully get to it tomorrow: today is already going to hell at work...

 

Been following this for a long time, lack of Acp was the only thing putting me off the 17 plate for sale I’ve seen.

I tend to use radio and google maps on long journeys - does it let you hear the radio from the car and overlay the satnav instructions from carplay/maps over the top?

huge thanks for all the info you’ve given so far and for the video - the whole thing looks superb!

 

They are very responsive! Thanks again to everyone here for recommending! Much more so than ENG-Custom. I've already placed my order.

Update: I've already paid and they are shipping out "today" which is Friday as it is already Friday morning in Korea. Super fast!

 

Ok so I'm not completely finished, but I thought I'd tell you where I'm at. KPLAY unit connected in and seems to work well, at least in how it integrates with the car and how android auto functions. I have not tested apple carplay.
Installation is as follows - I will send a series of pics in a separate post from my phone but they will match the installation flow below:
1. get headunit exposed
a. remove plastic tray under dash on driver's side. This requires removing 5 torx screws. The whole thing comes out. It has two small lamps for floor lighting on in either side. These are secured with a small plastic trim ring on the underside that you can pinch to release. both lights needs to be detached from the tray to get it out.
b. left behind is a foam "cover". by removing a plastic trim fastenreron it's left side it can be folded over toward the transmission tunnel.
c. the head unit can now be seen. it is situated vertically under the dash. it is only held in by two larger trox screws. remove these and gently slide the unit down and out of its place taking care to work the wires down along with it. The unit should come out far enough that you can see it's front end and have very good access to all the wires connecting into it.
d. the main harness, what Moose8106 calls the "big ass harness", has a lever that you lift up to partially disengage it. I would look at the equivalent clip that replaces it eventually from the KLAP unit and play with it to get an idea of how it will come out without breaking it. Worth the ten seconds. The second wire that needs to be detached is the pink headed "LVDS cable". Again, look at the blue equivalent connector that comes with the KPLAY unit. YOu will see that the plug has one clip that secures it in place. If you push a fine screw driver into it it will detach more easily. I played with this by lugging and unplugging the LVDS replacement cable into the KPLAY unit to see where I had to push the pin to make it go in and out easiest. That is as far forward as you can get - not where your fingers can pinch it. NOw go back to the headunit and, poking the clip on the car's LVDS pink plug, release it.
e. At this point you have earned a beer. See photos that follow.

 

Ok so I'm not completely finished, but I thought I'd tell you where I'm at.

Thank you rumifaizer! These photos are incredibly helpful! Most appreciated! My order has shipped and I expect delivery Monday. I'll do the install sometime next week. Thank you as well as Moose8106 and Paulryanmini for all the info provided and for being the first ones to try this! Not looking forward to crawling around in the footwell ha ha.

 

Here are more pics

 

Oops - photos loaded twice above. sorry
Moving on:
2. on a back table, set up the KPLAY unit.
a. set pin according to their instruction - only pin 9 is down for <2020 cars with 8.8 inch screen.
b. plug in, from attached picture, going clockwise from left to right all cables that come with the KPLAY unit:
LVDS cable plug that came with KPLAY into LVDS-in port
USB cable plug
MIC cable plug
SPK plug (off of the harness cable)
bluetooth cable plug
wifi cable plug
Power/CAN plug (off of the harness cable)
Note that when in stalling I ended up removing the MIC and reinserting as well as the USB, but at least this orients you on how it will eventually go. Also note that the 4 additional wires hanging off of the Harness are not used.

Now you've earned another beer

 

Ok, let me backtrack -
to help pull out the inital under-dash tray, it helps to alsp pull out a small trim panel (kickplate?) that is on the transmission tunnel under the dash as well - I have no picture of this move, sorry. Also I forgot to take a picture of the pin adjustment on the KPLAY unit, but it is pretty obvious

 

Now is time to run the MIC cable. Apparently the MIC is necessary for voice activation of Google assistant, and, depending how your phone is synced, maybe also for phone calls. Many ways to do this, but what I did was pull the little plastic perforated (mic) cover off of the headliner that is directly above and in front of you as you sit in the driver's seat. I then tucked the microphone from the KPLAY unit in there after running the cord laterally out the door frame trim. I pulled the cord to length so that the mic would sit in the hole without any slack. The mic has an alligator clip on it and I clipped it to the existing car mic wire (I think that's what it is!) that lives there so that it wouldn't rattle. The cable can be neatly run under the rubber door trim gasket all the way to the underside of the dash, where it can join its friends.

 

The next part is to run the USB port. I think this too can be managed in a few ways. It seems most will hook it into the USB ort under the climate controls in the center column. accessing this is tougher than I thought- it is true that you have to wedge a flathead screwdriver or less traumatic tool into designated spots on the upper edge of the plate, but the clips behind this are pretty robust and you have to put quite a bit of force to release them. I'm not happy with how this went because I ended up with the opening in the trim becoming enlarged permanently, although probably not that noticeable to others. The USB port has two plugs, one fore a mini USB (old style) and one for power to light the trim around the USB port. There is a little circuit board inside the housing as part ot the set-up. You can get a short USB to Mini-USB conector and that way switch the connection from the car to the KPLAY unit. This would be the most elegant way to do things. When I tried this, my android auto connection was unstable. What I ended up doing was taking apart the whole USB plug and directly inserting the KPLAY USB female plugpoint in its place. I kept the trim ring, so it looks stock, but it won't light up. By doing this I ended up with a good wired connection for android auto and hope to have imporved the cahrging ability of the phone: someone pointed out that their phone slowly drained despite being plugged in earlier, and I wonder if excess cables and connections contribute. Basically, I think what I did was pretty inelegant, but I am more interested in a secure, high quality hard-wired connection. Running the USB cord from that port out to the footwell through the opening of the previously removed kickplate is not too hard, but I did fish it with a piece of wire. Sorry but I have no pics of this step. Also they would have been super ugly.

 

Now ( I think step 5?) connect everything up
a.KPLAY harness "splitter" female side connects to main (BIG ASS) harness from car. KPLAY BIG ASS harness then plugs into head unit to replace stock harness. The white plug from the KPLAY unit and the speaker jack should already be plugged into your KPLAY unit.
b. The car's pink LVDS plug now gets plugged into the KPLAY LVDS-out port
c. The KPLAY LVDS cable, which is already plugged into the KPLAY LVDS-in port is now plugged into the head unit to replace the stock LVDS cable.
d. If you haven't already, plug back in the MIC and the USB cables into the KPLAY unit.
e. hopefully your buetooth and wifi antennae are still connected

At this point everything is hooked up. I would turn on everything and take some time to make sure your connections are good and android auto or carplay works. turn on the car in accessory mode. Fo some reason, the first time I did this the display showed a smaller menu screen. later that went away, so not sure why. Hold the menu button down for two seconds. this will switch the screen over to the KPLAY unit. (Now go to the settings icon and make sure carplay is set to wireless if that's what you want.) come out of the settings and go to android auto. Make sure android auto is installed as an app on your phone and working. with the phone plugged in, android auto should open with the maps interface on the car's display. If you find the it repeatedly connects and disconnects, or won't connect, you have a bad USB cable. Turns out, of three cable, I only had one that works well enough. It seems to work well thankfully. Until then I was quite perplexed, wondering about software upgrades needed or security blocks on my phone - the usual anxieties. It's none of that - its the cable my friends. (Whew!). SO to backtrack, I did all this before running the USB cable through the center stack port, and that is why I opted to plug it in the way I did. I would say try out the connection as simply as possible and make sure it works before you add in a more complex path.

So that's where I'm at. Plan to put everything back in today. Really good news: this Korean unit works in US cars!

 

thanks rumifaizer really a good writing. I am also thinking where should I connect the usb, the origin slot or connect directly to the CarPlay unit. I will need the hook to remove the from cover of the usb under the climate control.

 

Does anyone have a suggestion for a tool to purchase to remove the trim piece to gain access to the USB port below the AC? I know Moose mentioned some sort of soft tool ?

Also as Walter mentioned I was wondering where the factory USB cable that is attached to the USB port below the AC terminates? Would it be possible to use the existing cable rather than a mini USB to USB adapter ? I dont think I would want to move the USB port in the armrest to the new CarPlay unit. Only the one below the AC. Not sure if they both connect to a hub somewhere or if the USB port below the AC is run directly to the factory head unit?

 

Anything like this would do:

Auto Trim Removal Tool, Phyles 14 Pieces Door Panel Removal Tools for Dash Center Console Installation and Remover Auto Trim Removal Tool, Phyles 14 Pieces Door Panel Removal Tools for Dash Center Console Installation and Remover: Amazon.co.uk: Car & Motorbike

thats a fairly big kit - there’s smaller ones for about 6/7 quid if you just search trim removal tool.

can anyone confirm if you can hear the satnav from CarPlay over the radio?

thank you
Dave

 

Final section on install.
6. Now that everything is connected and confirmed working, time to clean up and put stuff back in place.
In the phots, I am including one of the kick panel because I didn't earlier. it comes off just by pulling. No screws.

 

Here is the kick plate

 

Moving on to putting things back:
I decided to attach the KPLAY unit to the headunit. Many ways to do thi, but I'll show you what i mean.
1. I put some gorilla tape (duct tape really) on the Kplay unit so that it would have some padding when against the head unit.
2. I wrapped it with another piece of tape, to later affix to the head unit - putting them together first would make it hard for me to squeeze them up into the hole.
3. Put the head unit back up into place. The extra main cable that involves the BIG ASS harness can fit mostly above (in the direction of the sky!) the headunit under the dash. put the two screws back into place to lock it in.
4. I snuk the KPLAY unit up into the same hole as the headunit, parrallel to it and just infront of it (toward the firewall). press it against the headunit and then use the gorilla tape to lock it into place by sticking (tape wraps onto the head unit).
5. Now I took a really long zip tie (actually I connected 4 zip ties to make a long one) and used it to strap the headunit and KPLAY units together.
6. removed 3M backing and stuck both wifi and bluetooth antennae up (I stuck them to the lip of the underside of the dash, but anywhere hidden will do - you don't have much length.
7. tucked all the wires away.
8. put the foam piece back in place and reattached the plastic trim fastener for it.
9. At this oint everything looks clean, but cables are still accessible. Good time to test everything out. Started her up and went for a short drive, testing how the GPS works, podcast apps, switching to radio etc. DID NOT CHECK if I could hear navigation directions over the radio. Will check on my next drive.
10. Put the plastic trim tray back into place. Reinserted both the floor lights using the clips. ocl back into place with clips and then put back in the 5 torx screws.
11. ALL DONE - time for a congratulatory beer.

 

On testing yesterday, I think you can't get navigation sounds over the car radio. It will do it over another KPLAY source of sounds like a podcast.

 

That’s a shame but I suspected as such. Thanks for letting me know.

 

Moose8106 or others, do you know if the rear view camera could have been routed through the KPLAY unit to get a full screen view?

 

Wow ruminator! Nice work, so excited to get one of these units... Need my subwoofer first

 

Do we know if after install are we able to update the firmware by USB? I do have one installed and seems to have January firmware looks like there's a March release

 

George3630 - where did you find that there is a firmware update? can you send the link?

For all to know - My KPLAY froze - stuck on the map display not moving. Would not respond to center controls. Tried powering off car and restarting after everything went blank with no effect. The long press on the menu buttin still switched back over to the stock alfa display, so no major crises. Ended up having to unplug *********** connector to KPLAY unit and replug. This fixed things. Seems to be working fine again. Not sure why this happened and if updating the firmware would help. At least be warned to make sure that you place the unit where you can get at the plug points without too much difficulty...I will see if the vendor has any comments.

 

Hi coudnt you hust leave the car off for 5 min instead of unplugging?
Kap just got back to me saying the new firmware is for the touch screen alfa only, no need to update