I am connecting a Kenwood stereo (DMX7706s) to my 2011 GS with the well-renowned PAC RP5-GM11. I do not have Bose but have steering wheel controls on both sides of the wheel with bluetooth calling and Onstar. There are a few wires that I have questions about. The main speaker wires were a breeze, but there are a handful of other wires that I couldn't find what to do for sure, so I need to ask for help. In having this clearly documented, I'm hoping this helps others too.

Here's what I've documented based on what I read by searching the forum, along with questions that I still had. Was really trying not to make this thread but I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for.

Brown Wire:
Kenwood has a brown (mute) wire but the manual says not to use it.
PAC also has the brown wire and says if the loop is not cut, it will turn the accessory out off when bluetooth/onstar call is made/received.
Question - I'm assuming I leave this loop in place on the PAC and don't connect it to the Kenwood brown wire since I have BT calling and Onstar, correct?

Purple/white for reverse from PAC goes into Purple/white on the back of the Kenwood to detect when reverse is triggered.
Question - It's as simple as this right? Then I just connect the yellow RCAs from the front/rear cameras to the back of the stereo, and power the cameras with the red/black cables between the stereo and RP5?

Light Green:
I'm going to ground this wire coming from the back of the stereo to the back of the stereo to bypass the parking brake feature as shown in this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYb6A...eStarCarStereo
Question: The PAC still has a light green wire coming from it, do I just tape this off and not use it, or do I need to ground it too?

Pink:
This wire is coming from the PAC module
Question: I do not use this since I don't have factory navigation or a corresponding wire on the Kenwood, correct?

Blue/White:
I connected these together between the PAC and the Kenwood stereo for the signal to turn on the stock amplifier(s).
Then I spliced in an additional blue remote-turn-on wire for an aftermarket subwoofer amp to this connection to make a 3-way connection. I'm not adding a sub now, but am wiring it now so I don't have to take it apart to add in the future. Will also be connecting subwoofer RCA cables and running those to the back.
Question: Correct?

Black: Connect both from RP5 into Kenwood harness (tap into this for cameras)
Yellow: Connect both from RP5 into Kenwood harness
Red: Connect from PAC to Kenwood stereo (tap into this for cameras)

Orange:
I connected orange from PAC to orange on Kenwood.
Question: A 2015 post from DoubleD Mods shows an extended orange wire from one of the harnesses (not sure which one) going to the grey w/black stripe wire for the traction control button to enable the dimming. Is this needed? Someone also asked this and from what I could gather, you just connect the orange wire from the PAC to the orange wire on the Kenwood, no need to tap any other lights, right?

Cameras:
Don't connect anything from the cameras to any reverse circuitry, Kenwood automatically detects this and is sent a signal from the purple/white on the PAC. I just need to plug the yellow RCA cables from each camera in the Kenwood and power the cameras off the black/red wires above.

RCAs from PAC- Tape off and don't use.

 

Brown Wire
Concerning the brown wire, do you have OnStar activated and use it ? If so I believe you want to cut the loop and connect the brown wire from the Kenwood but I could be wrong, if not, then leave it as it is and don't connect the brown from the Kenwood to anything. On my PAC GM1A-RST, to be able to program the steering wheel phone buttons to actually answer the phone via bluetooth through the head unit, I had to pull the OnStar fuse (OnStar is no longer supported on my 05 anyway, so no loss there), otherwise when I pushed to buttons it would default to OnStar no matter how I tried to program them, not sure if it'll do the same thing however with the RP5-GM11

Purple/White
You are correct on it's connection as well as the connection of the red and black wires.

Lt. Green
Yes, if you are grounding the Lt. Green wire from the head unit, then you just tape off the Lt. Green wire from the interface as it won't be used.

Pink
Correct, this won't be used since you don't have a pink wire on the Kenwood. This is the VSS (Vehicle Speed Sensor) wire thats used with head units that have navigation, since yours doesn't it won't be used

Blue/White
You're correct

Black Correct
Yellow Correct
Red Correct

Orange
Correct, connect orange to orange, this is the illumination circuit that tells the head unit when your head lights are on so it'll dim the screen accordingly. not sure why Double D hooked it up the way he did but you don't need to do that. My guess is since it's a 12V+ signal when the head light are on, he was also using this to illuminate another switch he installed for something else.

Cameras
Yes that's correct.

RCA's
The RCA's are for the RSE (Rear Seat Entertainment) system on vehicles, since the Vettes have no rear seats, these won't be used. The reason they are there is because this interface can be used in multiple vehicles, some of which have the RES option. On mine instead of just taping them off, I pulled the terminals for them out of the connector to reduce the wire clutter, but it's up to you if you want to do this, or just tape them off.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

Awesome, thank you so much! For the brown wire, I'm going to leave the loop in place at first and see what happens before I go cutting and splicing.

I don't have OnStar enabled, but I would like to retain it because I've read it can help in accidents and theft whether you subscribe or not.

I'm going to try programming the steering wheel controls myself. From what I've read, the right side of the wheel should work as-is but the answer/hang-up buttons on the left will need to be programmed. The directions aren't super clear on how this works so assuming I figure it out, I'll be sure to post the process to show others how it's done.

 

Yeah, like I mentioned you may not be able to program the phone buttons on the left if OnStar isn't disabled, at least thats the way it was with my PAC GM1A-RST, perhaps someone who's tried it with the RP5-GM11 will chime in here and let us know their experience with it.

 

My wire harness is all built and ready to plug in. I'm waiting for my MGW shifter to come in so I can replace everything at once without having to take the dash apart multiple times.

I did have another question about cameras though. I'm installing front/rear cameras and was planning to get power to them from the red wire of the stereo as mentioned above. Would two cameras always drawing power cause any types of issue with the power going to/from the stereo? Would it be better to put an "Add-a-circuit" fuse in one of the heated seat fuses since I don't have heated seats (or another recommended, switched fuse circuit) and power them that way?

 

No, they don't draw enough power to cause any issues.

 

Good deal - thanks for all the help. I'll definitely post some pics when it's all installed.

 

 

Finished the harness as much as I could tonight until it's in the car. Left the brown loop out so I can test it in the car. Left the red wires out so I can add the cameras to it once in the car. And left the purple/white wire out to splice into the stereo, again, once it's in the car. Also added the remote signal wire to run to the back of the car with some RCAs so I can add a sub at some point without having to take it all apart again. Hopefully it works!

 

Looks good from what I can tell. You connected the Blue/Yellow wire for your steering wheel controls also correct ? And don't for get to set the radio select switch on the PAC unit to three for the Kenwood, and I suggest turning the volume on the chime module to the lowest setting and then adjusting from there to where you prefer.

 

Don't forget the video rca wires for the cameras. And also your USB cables.

 

Good point Vince, but those plug into the Kenwood itself, he's just getting the PAC all wired up at this point so it's ready to go when he gets ready to install the Kenwood.

 

Yep, blue/yellow connected for SWC, PAC set to 3 before plugging in the harness, and chime already turned down to lowest setting. I did a lot of reading, haha.

Correctamundo!

 

 

So, any updates on your install ?

 

Still waiting on the MGW shifter I ordered on 9/27. Trying to do everything at once so I don't have to remove the center console multiple times.

 

 

Called MGW and they said it will be shipped out next week, but I'll be at World Cup Finals next weekend so won't likely get a chance to install everything until 11/13. Got up under the car last night to install an OEM front lip and I'm not seeing a way to get behind the lower grill without removing the bumper, so I don't think I'm going to install a front camera until I can take it all apart next spring. I need to drill into the bumper and put a nut on the other side, but I can't reach it without taking the bumper off. I'll do the wiring now so I don't have to take the dash apart in the spring, just plug in the camera once it's mounted.

I also called both Crutchfield and OnStar.

As it works today, the emergency button on the rearview mirror will work if you aren't an OnStar subscriber. However, there is a hardware change (OBD module) required in March 2022 to keep this functionality, and the only way to get the module is to be a subscriber.

Based on this and the fact that I won't be a subscriber, Crutchfield said to just leave the brown wire in place and to remove the car's bluetooth connection from my phone's stored bluetooth devices. Only pair the phone to the new radio. Then the steering wheel controls and everything should work as designed. I may end up reprogramming some of the steering wheel controls though, stay tuned...

 

Day 1 of hopefully 2... great progress but a lot left to do.

Plugged everything into the car, made the connections for the cameras, reverse trigger wire, everything. Tested the cameras and they work both on-demand and when I put the car in reverse.

Left the brown wire loop in place and all seems well. I'm not using the OEM bluetooth or onstar at all anymore.

Everything seems to work except the chime module. What's a fool-proof way to trigger the interior chime? I'm not sure how to test it's working.

The default Kenwood settings for the steering wheel controls on the PAC were not correct. The right side of the wheel was, but the pick up and hang up buttons on the left were wrong. I reprogrammed it so they work.

I grounded the green parking brake wire on the Kenwood to a screw on the back of the stereo to bypass the parking brake lockout and confirmed I was able to do things like change my address in Waze while the parking brake was off.

Garage doesn't have cell reception so I still need to test that the mic works on phone calls, but it's mounted on the A pillar by the OEM mic and the wire is run down the pillar, into the dash, and to the stereo.

Still to do:
Run the camera wires to the front and back of the car and permanently connect them.
Run the remote turn on and RCA cables for my subwoofer to the back.
Wire the power for the subwoofer and mount it.
Mount the stereo to the dash.
Install the MGW shifter while everything is apart.
Put it all back together.

 

If I recall correctly I believe a fool proof way to test it is to open the drivers door while the car is turned on in Acc mode at least it does with my PAC GM1A-RST, I can't remember for sure if it did when I had the PAC RP5-GM11 in my car, perhaps someone else can chime in here (no pun intended) and tell us if it does or not for sure. The chime module also has a volume adjustment on it, try turning it up. If that doesn't do it check the pins where it plugs into the interface and module to make sure they didn't get bent out of shape to where they're not making a connection. If that doesn't do it, I don't know what to tell you. Sounds like you're well on your way to getting everything hooked up though.