JDM Levorg STI head unit upgrade

I’m based in the UK and am soon to become the owner of 2017 JDM Levorg STI. I have been doing as much research as I can ref the likely possibility of having to upgrade the head unit and still retain all the relative switch functions Having owned a couple of JDM toys over the years (Forester STI and Accord CW2 Type S wagon) this could be the first situation where an ICE upgrade maybe a necessity, so I thought I might offer a roundup of what I’ve gleaned so far.

I already see the IDOING unit seems popular, but I am unsure as to whether these have been fitted directly to JDM vehicles (like mine), or to import versions sold in the Australian or New Zealand market, which look to have a very similar set up as to those available on our UK spec Levorg’s. Maybe someone could enlighten me

My vehicle is a facelift with Eyesight and has the original JDM Apple car play/Android unit installed. This has the facia with silver edging along the top and sides and my top vents do not have silver surrounds. It also has the two-dial climate control unit. It has been confirmed to me by the importer that although the car’s multi-screens are easily converted to different languages, including English, the head unit is JDM mapping only with no way of changing the language.



Now, whilst the current head unit screen appears nice and big and does have Apple car Play and Android Auto, I am yet to experience how user friendly this will be long term. So, although the importer has not long had their auto electrician fit an aftermarket unit to another Levorg owner, it appears it wasn’t a simple ‘fix’, and I believe they ended up using UK XV parts to make it work. I don’t know the full spec and I’m not 100% sure if they are prepared to look at the inside of another Levorg again, so I’m looking at an alternative if I have to look elsewhere!

So, what type of facia does my 2017 car come with?

The facia from what I can tell, is this one, and although It's not clear if it has the silver edging, it does appear to have integrated top vents.



This one does have the silver edging and again appears to have the upper vent moulding incorporated. Maybe someone could clarify if that might be a separate piece, but just attached in the photos?



The above facia also looks very similar to that used on late Gen 6 UK Outback's too!

So, from what I have researched so far (I haven’t got the vehicle yet so not inspected the components) it looks like I have a JDM specific HU fitted within a JDM specific Levorg facia, along with a JDM Levorg specific climate control unit. No sh*t Sherlock! So, if I can’t get any decent functionality out of it, I need to find out how can this be improved upon and upgraded.

Silly question time

Before looking at the steps required to get the best solution, and I’m sure it would have been mentioned already, as it would be the simplest fix, but does anyone with a VMG JDM Levorg know if the HU has mapping on an SD card? And, if it does, has anyone tried installing a UK mapped card into the JDM HU?

Presuming the answer to that is ‘wishful thinking’, its looking more likely that a chunk of money will have to be invested!

Before looking at these options lets first look into what existing upgrades there are already available, and here we have to turn to what folks have done down under, and what Australian and New Zealand audio suppliers already offer. Please correct me if I’m wrong but I concluded from the double din upgrades available in these markets that upgrades to Vorg STI’s are generally the same offered to WRX vehicles. These look to come with a full facia that covers both the upper vents and has a contoured cut out for the lower climate control unit. I'm not sure if the vents are included with the new facia, or you incorporate the exsisting ones and also whether you retain your original climate control unit or have to switch to the WRX three dial style one. Can anybody confirm?

Is this the sort of aftermarket double din upgrade facia commonly offered in Aus or NZ?




My preference and options:

The IDOING option would be a last resort, so I’d like a decent double din unit from a well-established manufacturer. I don’t need built in Satnav and it must have wireless Apple play and Android Auto. I would not be carrying out the work myself and would prefer to buy goods available domestically. The facia plate needs to look OE clean, and if it’s possible I’m not fussed if I have to retain both the JDM upper vent moulding (if it is indeed a separate piece) and the lower two dial climate control unit.

First up was to look at what upgrades are available in the UK, and the answer to that question appears to be ‘NOT A LOT’ The guys I may well trust to carry out the work reckon that pulling out and inspecting what’s already fitted would be a good first step, to take a look at what’s going on and to decipher if a compatible and fully working alternative is possible. Then we can look at what’s on offer.

If you have accomplished a successful double din HU upgrade (not the IDOING unit) into a JDM Levorg import into the UK I would love to know how you got on, as I am sure other UK owners would

Thanks

Los

Hey, UK owner here with the same heating controls, but original subaru dvd head unit.
I looked into what you've asked but never bit the bulket on buying uk maps to see if it would work.
I dont think it will as japan use their own satalites for navigation.
I contacted Idoing years ago, and they were great. They showed me what head unit I needed and that I needed a different side trim from Subaru, as my stereo has buttons on either side of the screen.
I never did change the stereo as I only listen to music through Bluetooth.

Hey there,
If this is Torque GT then it was my car headunit they did recently on a 2018 Levorg STI. It was a bit of a trial and error but I managed to get everything sorted though my steering wheel controls are slighly misaligned (volume down is volume up and mute is volume down) which I will get round to sorting at some point.

In the end I needed:

• Three dial AC/heater controls (mine were from a subaru XV part number 72311FJ801)
• Double din car fascia (mine was a connects2 CT23SU12)
• Top centre air vents (mine were from a Subaru XV again with part number 66110FJ040). These have a silver surround and clip into the fascia different to the original levorg ones that where all black.

Hopefully that helps!

I've just helped my father in law change his over today and it looks basically the same as above but I can give a few more technical details as I did the install myself:

Initially I ordered a fitting kit for a Forester which came with a fascia, steering wheel control unit and loom, but we ended up removing the steering wheel control box and hacking up the loom to make our own as it didn't work and none of the connectors matched.

The connectors behind the head unit seems to match some earlier Subaru models that use a 20 pin connector. The UK car has a completely different set of connectors so the UK service manual is no help at all.

I used:
- Head unit of your choice (We used Kenwood DMX7722DABS)
- Kenwood steering wheel remote fly lead (from ebay here, its not included with the head unit https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/126831263673)
- Climate control buttons from a Subaru XV/Forester SJ/UK spec levorg
- Vent panel from Subaru XV/Forester SJ/UK spec levorg as the JDM levorg one is a slightly different shape. You may be able to cut some parts off this to make it fit but ours had the centre tab broken off already so chose to replace it.
- Fitting kit Connects2 CTKSU02. We only really ended up using the Fascia and fitting the Kenwood unit using the cage from the Panasonic unit as it was a better fit. The steering wheel control box was not used and the loom was cut up https://connects2.com/Product/ProductItem/CTKSU02
- Subaru 20 pin connector with wires for use in the custom loom https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BFL1W163?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

With this setup the steering wheel controls work as you can make the head unit "learn" them using rather than having to rely on a the preconfigured control box, which we couldn't get to work properly

You will also need to remove the "air purifier" unit from behind the climate controls that seems to be part of the JDM head unit (god knows what that was actually going)

The USB in the arm rest we just removed the cover around the port and used the existing cable to pull through a new extension.

Our car had an absolute mess of aftermarket wiring behind the dash with various wires spliced in going to multiple dash cam recorders, toll cars reader and additional cameras - although after this was tidied up it did help somewhat as someone had already wired up an RCA plug to the reverse camera so this just plugged right into our head unit. Unfortunately I think if you have the factory head unit with unmodified wiring then you will have to do some additional wiring here (see the Panasonic wiring diagram at the end which should help)

DAB antenna (windscreen mounted), GPS antenna and microphone we just used aftermarket ones supplied with the head unit. You may be able to adapt the factory stuff but we didn't try.

It's not too bad an install once you have the pieces figured out as there is a reverse, vss (needed for head units with GPS navi build in) and handbrake signal available easily on one of the connectors behind the factory HU. Often you have to run extra wires and splice into signals elsewhere so this saves some hassle.

Side note - After i'd already figured it out I did find another company selling a pre-made loom with steering wheel control that may work without modification but I didn't try it as i'd already cut up the Connects2 one at this point - it might be worth a try if you're not confident doing your own wiring Subaru (2011 Onwards) Steering wheel audio control interface & ISO cable

Here is the spreadsheet I created to wire up the loom if you want to have a go at making your own:


And here is a google translated document showing the pinouts for the original Panasonic head unit which we used to help trace the cables (it's from the manual for a similar model - Panasonic only appear to sell car head units in the Japanese market)



Some useful pinout information here:
Subaru Head Unit Pinouts - T'EYES

Finished install:


Hope this helps someone!

Thank you for sharing a detailed write up.