Jaguar Forums - Jaguar Enthusiasts Forum

OK, probably doesn't mean much to anybody so let me explain.

Almost the only thing I'm disappointed in with my XK8 is the choice of audio media available to me: Cassette tapes up the front or standard audio CDs in the rear and no aux input. In previous cars, I'd just change the deck but that's not such a straightforward option here.

I've seen some options for hacking into various parts of the systems and soldering wires. Whilst I rate my soldering skills fairly well, that's really a last-ditch option.

FM Tuners - not so much.

However, it occurred to me that VW owners have faced a similar issue and came up with a pretty good solution.

Seems the connector to the CD changer in the VWs consisted of two line level audio connectors and several data channels. Simply hooking up an audio device to the line-level pins didn't work because without some data traffic between the head unit and the changer, the head unit would refuse to do acknowledge anything was there.

So some bright spark decoded the data signals and made a small circuit board featuring a PIC microcontroller that would emulate the data handshaking and the head unit would happily handle whatever was connected and all was well with the audio world. As a bonus, the board (called the VWCDPIC) would also forward some of the button presses on the head unit to an MP3 player called the PCJR and I believe there was even firmware available that could talk to and control IPODs.

Does anyone who knows anything about the XK8 audio system know if this could be done there? Anyone who would be interested in one of these boards if I got a small production run done?

All the info was on a site called k9spud which, unfortunately, seems to no longer be out there (I did make a full archive of the site though so I have a basis to work from)