Reverse OEM Car Stereo Wiring

I decided to put sound in my fun car, and I'm thinking I'd like to use an OEM stereo from a newer car and mold it to a custom fiberglass dash rather than go with the regular square aftermarket stereo options.

However, I've heard this is really hard. I want to use one out of a ~2007 Camry because the colors match and just for brand compliance (Toyota).

I'm 99% sure the system has an external amplifier. Would I need this amp, or could I use another one? I think that's the only question I have for now, unless anyone happens to have diagrams for this car :D

For the amount of effort for mediocre factory sound you would be MUCH farther ahead to go to Best Buy and pick out a stereo you like.

OEM stereos are all square anyway. All car stereos are designed to fit a certain number of "Din" slots. Usually 1, 1.5, or 2. All of those are rectangular.

Brand compliance doesn't matter for anything.

If you want to "mold it to a custom fiberglass dash" you could always do that with an aftermarket unit. Just look for one that doesn't have a lot of gaudy lights.

If your system already has an amplifier, there are a couple of options. No, you don't need that one. You can use it. You can bypass it and use the amp in a new head unit. Or you can wire in an aftermarket amp.

Pretty much any head unit will come with a built in amp. However, there's a strong possibility it won't be enough to power all of the speakers in your car. That really depends on how many you have though. When I did the stereo in my car, I bypassed the stock amp and decided that sucked, and wired it back together. It was recommended that I wire in a device that lowers the signal from the head unit, but I found this unnecessary, and just don't crank the volume up all the way, ever.

Wiring in an aftermarket amp is more work.

Your best solution is just to buy a new deck, and plug it in. Leave the stock amp in place. If you want to go any fancier than that, start by replacing the stock speakers.

I don't know... but I'm not much of a sound connoisseur, and have been pretty impressed by any stock sound system I've been in for a while. The one I'm looking at is this... not really square at all..

http://cgi.ebay.com/07-08-CAMRY-CD-MP3-PLAYER-RADIO-STEREO-and-SPEAKERS_W0QQitemZ120303621132QQihZ002QQcategoryZ39754QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

According to this auction the amp is internal, would that make things easier or harder to work with?

Wiring should be the same that's been used by Toyota since the late 80's. Circuit City may (I know that they used to) sell a "reverse harness" so that you could rewire a car that had had it's stereo stolen. They had the version for these Toyotas. Not sure if they still do. Here's one on Ebay.

OEM stereos are all square anyway. All car stereos are designed to fit a certain number of "Din" slots. Usually 1, 1.5, or 2. All of those are rectangular.

Looked in a Volvo lately?

Tim Baxter wrote:

OEM stereos are all square anyway. All car stereos are designed to fit a certain number of "Din" slots. Usually 1, 1.5, or 2. All of those are rectangular.

Looked in a Volvo lately?

My Sable was the opposite of square.

Stuc wrote: According to this auction the amp is internal, would that make things easier or harder to work with?

That means there is an amp built into the head unit. If your car already has a separate amplifier, it means the signal will get amplified twice. It won't necessarily hurt anything, but if you crank it all the way up you'll get horrible distortion and possibly blow out your speakers.

A lot depends on how strong each of those amps is. You may want to bypass the current amp. Just find a wiring diagram and snip and splice some wires.

That's odd seeing those stereos with different shaped faces. I don't like the idea of making it look tacky to swap in an after market unit. I suspect that, if you pull one though, they're still rectangular and slide into Din slots.