Navigation, in Europe, in an Fx, well, I can certainly tell you more.
First of all....I'm NOT importing these cars, I'm NOT reselling them...One of my friend does, and given my background in computers & electronics, asked me to help him.
It was a five month battle, but I (we) won in the end.
Short story, we DO have several solutions
Long storyThe car is an Fx35Initially we wanted to unlock the DVD.We first tried several European DVD disks into the FX Nav. No success, the system is NOT compatible (or locked).Then we sent E-mails to Europe, USA and Japan (all executives we could find), the general answer was that it was not possible to have a US-Nav working in Europe, because the US nav use a specific map format, and the european maps are NOT available (yet ?) in this format, and the format is proprietary...so
We saw dealers/importers telling that they had a working solution, and pretending to be clients, we called them, only to discover that most if not all the dealers claiming to have something working simply do NOT. I'm not msure how to call them, but the word LIARS seems to be appropriate.
Then we tried to browse, dig, and peek the internet...finally we found WERE it was possible to by the car's technical information.I as well got some information from this very forum.
Then unfortunately we were told that Panasonic Units were compatible with the stock navigation and front display....after countless hours kneeling by the passenger's side of the Fx,soldering / unsoldering / checking the nav's harness, I can assure you that the Panasonic units are indeed compatible with the Fx....for UP TO FIVE SECONDS, then the screen synchronisation would be lost....and Panasonic european support sucks (to say the least, helping customers and customer satisfaction is a concept they probably NEVER hear about).
Then it was debug time, trying to understand the root of the problen.Initially, I used an analog multimeter....then a digital one....but this was not enough....so finally I used a handheld digital oscilloscope and a protocol analyser (and it was supposed to be easy.....
)....well, here're the findings.
Many things are multiplexed in the car, including the dialog between the stock nav and the front display.
Finding number one : If you want the car to display any nav, the STOCK navigation MUST stay in the car, and wired in a way it's telling to the front display that it's here. Otherwise the front display would NOT display anything.
Finding number 2 : Nissan / Infinity used a NON STANDARD synchro signal for the front display (synchro on green instead of chrominance), meaning that MOST navigations will NOT work with the front display, unless they're modified, or the signal is translated.
We found some aftermarket nav unit that ARE compatible.We found as well an electronic translator that allows to connect almost everything to the front display (provided the signals are in NTSC, if they're in PAL....won't work).
So.
It's possible to connect a specific navigation, we even have a special sub-harness (for the video), and it's quite simple to install.
Alternatively, it's possible to connect many navigations (but please not that I NEVER said ALL navs), but then there's some wire cutting / splitting (about 10)
If you happen to speak french, send me a private message and I'll return you my friend's phone number, and he'll be able to tell you the whole story, and what's available.
If you don't, then send me a private message, and I'll play the translator.
Best regards
Zee you
And hello from the US
)....well, here're the findings.