THE PROJECT

THE CAR

I’m the proud owner of a 2004 Cadillac CTS (V6 engine and 181 HP). It’s black raven and Comfort finished, what in Spain means base equipment (no sunroof, no leather, no navigation). As you are aware all the CTS versions between 2003 and 2007 are basically the same, until the release of the brand new model this year.

THE PROJECT

I started thinking about upgrading the audio system once I realized the original is very basic and it doesn’t offer an auxiliary input to connect an external source such an iPod or any other MP3 player. I know there are original CD changers and navigation systems but they don’t have that aux input either. In the USA you can add an external source through the Xm radio device but in Spain that system is not very common so Cadillac doesn’t offer it.

http://www.cadillacfaq.com/faq/answers/auxaud/index.html

Once I made my mind about changing the audio system I searched for different options. The first one was to upgrade to the original navigation system, following the guide provided at:

http://www.cadillacfaq.com/faq/answers/navconvert/index.html
http://www.cadillacfaq.com/faq/answers/navpart2/index.html

You can buy the navigation system via internet but the wiring job looked too hard to me and the fact that I would loose some functions anyway finally made me give this idea up. I turned my eyes to Cadillac then just in case they could give me a solution but they stated that it’s not possible to install the navigation unit if the vehicle has not the pre-wiring from factory (??). Cadillac in Spain offers an Alpine solution at € 3,500.00 with an In-Dash touch screen and a DVD player but you must sacrifice the DIC information.

Too bad and too expensive, so I thought for a while about an aftermarket system to be installed inside the radio chassis. I don’t like in-Dash solutions so my option was a double din system like the one described at:

http://www.cadillacfaq.com/faq/answers/aftermarketradiodic/index.html

CARPUTER

Reaching this point, with a lot of DIY no matter what I decided to do, I thought that a computer would do it better because I could play all the existing audio and video formats, use the GPS navigation, internet connection, Bluetooth, a hard disk to store thousands of files, etc ..

There are loads of information via internet about how to integrate a computer in your car, but 2 guys had already took to reality what I have in mind:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mattbai/
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=85263

Lately I checked another project at:

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/worklogs/100118-2006-cadillac-cts-install.html
http://www.scottpm.com/cts/

Some other forums helped me to complete my Project:

http://www.solocarputer.es/ http://www.mp3car.com/
http://www.cadillacforums.com/ http://www.cadillacforum.com/
http://www.cadillacfaq.com/ http://www.tupila.com/