Hey guys! This is my first post on this page so please forgive me if I do this wrong. I would like to share my experiences installing an aftermarket headunit in my 2004 RAM with the infinity audio system.

• You may encounter that during the installation proccess you'll find that you might not get sound out of your speakers even after purchasing a wiring harness.

So heres how it went, I got my hands on a headunit from my previous vehicle ( Sony XAV-3250 ) with the Apple Carplay. This did come with a harness from the radio but did not have the harness that would connect to the factory harness so I got one from BestBuy which I'll go ahead and link : https://www.bestbuy.com/site/metra-w...?skuId=9811203

• So you got your wiring harness! Great

So I did what most people would do at first and matched the colors to colors and plugged it into my factory harness and the other end into stereo and to my dissapointment there was no sound so I talked to a few buddys of mine and got a couple ideas how this could work.
I did not want to cut into the factory harness and risk messing something up. So I went ahead and undid the wiring I did previously ( connecting colors to colors ) and did NOT connect those connections back to the harness purchased from BestBuy.

Next Step :
I had some speaker wire laying around and figured this much - If my speakers are wired to my factory harness I'd much rather cut that so I did so - I meticulously connected the wires coming from my speakers to the speaker wires ( Negative and Positive ) and ran them to the harness provided from Sony that came with the head unit and voila ! Sound!! I was super excited but there was more work to be done. This will work on all the speakers throughout the truck.

Final touches :

• So when you do this make sure that the speaker wire that you run is out of the way of the windows ( I would recoomend doing this with your windows rolled down so you can get an idea on clearence )
• I found that about 14 feet of speaker wire will be enough to do the two front positives and 14 feet of negative to do the negatives. Keep in mind you're still going to need to do your rear doors as well so add in 2 more sets of 14 feet wire or maybe more

Other than than you should beb all set to go. Hope this helps anyone

 

Did you use metra's kit to mount the head unit in the dash? Pics? I put my original head unit from my 04 1500 into my 04 2500, but considered putting in the large display with reverse camera for towing hookups... but didn't like cutting the dash support to do it.

I put a Sony AXV-AX100 into my 06 Mustang a few years ago. It has nice features. The only complaint I have is it seems to always be picking a different time zone for the clock.

 

Plug and play Android head unit with backup cam:

 

@Magnoom, license plate camera mount, or ? Is that a metra dash kit? Have to hack the dash support to install? What head unit is that?

 

Looks to me like a master tailgater camera, or maybe a similar brand, I have one in my 06, great quality camera, but the handle does not like cold weather

To the OP, you have great write up, but I believe you could also just power the infinity amp using the blue acc wire from the aftermarket headunit and run the factory speaker wiring, unless the infinity amp is dead. Thats how it worked in 2nd gens, and near as i can tell 3rd gens used the same stereo setup until 05 minus the headunit styling. My memory is foggy but my 04 had the infinity system and POS factory navi headunit and I swapped in an aftermarket single DIN and it worked just fine that way.

 

It's actually a site called 'tailgatecamera.com' lol: https://tailgatecamera.com/collectio...2008-dodge-ram



Did a bunch of upgrades a few years ago; coupled this one with a power tailgate lock (ties into the stock power lock system):



Stock 02-05 dash, no hacking. I wanted a head unit that would fit the stock opening and have all the capabilities I wanted, including properly interfacing with the stock Infinity amp. Actually found one by a company called Insane Audio. It's not cheap at all, but it is plug and play and they have very good after purchase customer service.

 

It does fit nice, looks like its made specifically for that radio opening

 

It is, and that was one of my requirements.

 

How cold is it where you are? I have the master tailgater camera and the handle did not like below freezing temps, they would warranty them no problem but after awhile it got old always having to break into my own box (tonnue cover) so I swapped the handle out for an oem dodge one and never another issue, still using their camera housing on the outside

 

Gets into the single digits here sometimes, never had a problem with it though.