Inspired by the work of a few other Carplay and infotainment upgrades posted here, I decided to tackle it myself.

Equipment used:

• Ebay or amazon portable Carplay, I chose the Essgoo TS0001 10.26 inch screen, I bought it on ebay for $140; you may probably find it cheaper. It's more expensive on their official website.
• Jag-CDR Aux modification from discountcarstereo.com ($99) (retains CD-player)
• Back-up cam that came included with the Portable Car-play unit
• On it's way: the PAC SNI-1/3.5 Ground loop Isolator (Crutchfield $11.99)
• I harvested the bracket and frame that the OE Sat-nav system uses.

This solution retains the factory head-unit, Amplifier (if present), and CD-player. It uses a portable Carplay screen connected to the factory headunit via AUX. It also allows an FM-transmitter mode if you want to avoid using an AUX connection. The portable Carplay screen I chose, aside from having an input for a reverse cam (included) also allows plugging in a Dash-cam and an SD card for DVR. Discountcarstereo provides two options for AUX units, one that retains CD-player functionality, and one that doesn't. The model of Aux input you will buy from them also depends on if you have the premium system (Alpine/Harman Kardon). So if you like what you see are looking to copy my build, make sure you buy the correct aux from discountcarstereo. That being said, I tested the FM-transmitter method for the audio output and I was surprised at how good it sounded.

So, here's what I did. I had an extra OE Satnav system lying around that had the screen in terrible condition. I decided to cannibalize it in order to use it as my bracket instead of having to 3D-print one. This worked well.

I disassembled the screen and harvested the backing plate and bracket. The Essgoo screen came with two brackets. A suction cup one for the windscreen, and one meant to be bolted to a surface. I chose the latter and bolted it to the backing plate of the OE nav screen.


So, here's the extra display I had lying around. (Actually this is the one that was in the car, but used this one to take pictures after the fact.)



Lift up to clear the metal tabs that catch on the black plastic on the top



and the bottom



Once you've done that, remove all the bolts you see here



and here



and here



And here. Also, where the wiring harness used to plug into is where I routed the new cables through.



Once I had done that, it was a simple matter to unplug the old screen from the boards



Just two wires as you see



And I removed all of the computer boards like this one



this one



these and the buttons



and the screws which I all put aside and am ready to discard unless anyone wants any of this



I then used self-drilling screws to bolt the Essgoo to the metal backing plate



I was 1 screw short so I used another one after drilling a hole.



Initially I wasn't going to include the rear box , but I decided to keep it.



And routed my wires through it.



and that's how the wires exit through the fascia. Top hole has the Aux cable wire (dangling), middle has the reverse - camera AV cable, and bottom has the power wire.



Here's a side shot of how the system looks from the driver's side



Boot-up logo. I understand it's possible to have it show the Jaguar logo instead. I emailed their support today to see if they can give me instructions on that.



Home screen: Clock, Carplay, Android auto, FM transmitter connect, BT, Phonelink, it also allows airplay, for if for whatever reason you want youtube, netflix or something else you shouldn't have while driving.



AV is for viewing a dash-cam. I don't have one so I haven't tried it. I also haven't plugged anything through USB or the SD card (TF), but SD card is used for storing dash-cam footage. The dashcam connects via USB. I think you can use USB for other stuff. I haven't tried.



DVR is for recording dash-cam footage.



Carplay mode (once it connects to your iPhone, it automatically goes into Carplay). You can return to the system's home via the "Car" button.



Reverse camera (it activates automatically when the gear lever is in reverse). I tapped into the reverse bulb wire at the passenger side (US) tail-light harness (yellow wire). Side note, I'm not happy with the color mismatch between these LEDs (they were all sold to me as white, but...)



The back-up camera is sitting below the tired growler and above the license plate. I routed the wire through a small hole already present between the plinth and the sheet-metal.


[img alt="The Essgoo power wire heads straight into a 12-V cigarette lighter outlet and includes two USB ports for phone charging. Im considering tapping it directly into the cars wiring if I find this annoying.
"]https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.jaguarforums.com-vbulletin/1500x2000/img_9102_a7bddd4970ebe6346237a4500a07cc50ddfb8128. jpg[/img]
The Essgoo power wire heads straight into a 12-V cigarette lighter outlet and includes two USB ports for phone charging. I'm considering tapping it directly into the car's wiring if I find this annoying.



Apple music, you can control it via the touchscreen.



Carplay home-page.



Carplay Apple Maps



This view gives you Maps and Music at a glance.

I am surprised by the quality of this portable carplay system and am very happy with it. A few things to note. It isn't the most responsive system. There is a small delay when swiping between screens. The back-up camera takes a second or two to begin displaying footage when the gear lever is set to reverse. However, camera resolution and screen resolution are very nice. The screen brightness is good and at night is not overbearing due to a light sensor that adjusts brightness accordingly.

The AUX and back-up camera wires are routed behind the center veneer, downwards towards the climate control pack and radio-headunit, beneath the center console along the transmission tunnel, underneath the rear-seat bottom and runs up through the rear-seat back-rest beneath the rear parcel shelf (coupe) and down through the grommet that's underneath the center tail-light (coupe) and then towards the right side where camera wires are routed in two directions: the RCA and power wire go through a grommet that leads to the trunk-lid, and inside the trunk lid towards the plinth where it exits out through a hole and into the camera itself, and the red (positive) and black (ground) wires that come out the camera go back through this route, behind the amplifier where the red wire taps into the tail-lights yellow wire for the reverse light, and the black wire is secured to the chassis for a ground. The aux wire from the Essgoo on the other hand plugs in at the center console, but the female in that connection (discountcarstereo JAC-CDR) is coming from the rear. The added aux is routed through the parcel-shelve's grommet and then runs along until it connects the amplifier and CD-changer where it plugs in to Ai-net ports following Discount-car stereo's instructions. The Jag-CDR allows switching to CD-player by just disconnecting the Aux input. So, if you want, you can have the Jag-CDR and the Essgoo's connection inside the center console arm-rest storage ( you will need a slightly longer Aux cable than Essgoo supplies.

Finally, the incoming ground-loop insulator that I have on order will plug between the Aux from the Essgoo and the Jag-CDR to remove the static noise that is being caused by the car's 12V cigarette lighter.

 

That's worked well - looks good!

 

nicely done

 

Wow! Looks great.

You mentioned Bluetooth in the description. Did you set it up? How does it connect and how is the quality?

I am about to tackle a similar project, and starting to rethink my $650 Pioneer head unit after seeing this.

 

Looks great indeed. I'm looking to do pretty much the same thing, other than I'm gonna mount it without using the old nav unit, to keep option to go back to original. Thanks for explaining how the back up camera is routed. I've been trying to find details on how to remove the various parts to route the cable. Would you have any pictures or links that expand on removing the parts?
Many thanks!

 

I haven't set up just bluetooth. Since I have an iPhone, I'm going straight to Carplay. It works via WiFi and Bluetooth (wireless Carplay) simultaneously. It connects automatically without fail and performs very well. Music quality is great. I have no complaints there except for the buzzing from the ground issue, but the ground loop insulator I am soon to receive should take care of that. My only gripe is that it seems, that call quality is not that great. Other people have reported that they can't hear me too well. I'm guessing that has to do with the microphone being on the Essgoo screen rather than near me. Although, I've only done one phone call and my reception wasn't great, so I need to do this again when I have good reception.

Re. your Pioneer head unit, if it's Carplay or Android Auto enabled, I would keep it. I'm guessing that it puts out better music quality than the OE Alpine unit.

Sorry, I didn't take pictures of how I disassembled the interior, but it's mostly straight-forward. You will need a plastic trim removal tool, a torx-bit set, some phillip's head screwdrivers, 7 mm, 8 mm, and 10 mm sockets, and a fan because it gets hot inside the car. As for a tutorial on removing the interior panels, I'm guessing ReverendSam (forum member that sold his XK8 years ago) probably has videos on youtube, and perhaps To The Garage in youtube may also help. If your car is a convertible, routing a cable to the boot might be a little more complex than on my car.

 

Thanks for that. There doesn't seem to be anything to explain the whole process of routing the cable, but there's separate bits for back seat removal, centre console etc. Since your write up confirmed where I thought the cable would run, I should be able to work it out. Thanks!

 

Is yours a convertible or a coupe?

 

It's a convertible

 

Excellent job, thanks for posting it. I didn't know they made that aspect ratio - it's a great size for us. I was going to try a similar approach - removing or chopping up the nav to make a mag safe mount for my phone, but this looks much better and covers the unused button spots better.

I'm currently using the discount auto bluetooth CD adapter and it works great. Any reason you didn't use that instead of aux? Seems bluetooth would be better SQ than the aux and especially the FM adapter, and wouldn't have ground loop issues. Also thinking I could get away with the USB power being the only cord necessary to the unit if I didn't care about the backup camera. Anything you can think of that I'm overlooking that would make that not work? Maybe using bluetooth for the phone to connect and also as the audio output would be a limitation?

 

I actually had the discountcarstereo bluetooth with the Carplay screen initially since that was the bluetooth solution I'd been using for years. The problem is, at least with iPhones, perhaps it's different with Android, is that the phone would be directing audio through the bluetooth module which would be ok for music, BUT, because the iPhone directs map voice directions, Siri, and phone calls, through the Carplay screen regardless of the bluetooth module, you would not have sound for phone calls, gps alerts, notifications, through the car's speakers. The Carplay screen does not have its own speakers either. So essentially, you only get music audio. My thoughts that is that this is primarily a SOFTWARE limitation on Apple's part. You also cannot get the Essgoo to connect to the bluetooth module on the car. Instead, the iPhone connects to the Essgoo via bluetooth + wifi (that's how wireless Apple Carplay works) and then the audio that the phone transmits to the Essgoo screen can ONLY output to the cars speakers either by an Aux connection, OR the FM-transmitter mode that the system has within it. The bluetooth module that discountcarstereo makes DOES have an Aux port, but it doesn't allow input of music through it, but instead only input of a microphone for calls. (It's not exactly a 3.5 mm jack on it, but instead it's only physically capable of receiving mono audio input).

The Aux connection (CD quality) actually produces superior sound to the bluetooth connection (CD quality) and much better than FM (although surprisingly good with this system). I find that, even with the ground loop issue (which is easily solved), the bluetooth through the carplay system which is wired to the aux coming from the CD changer produces better quality audio than I got with the bluetooth module plugged to the CD-changer.

To clear up, the system's power cord is from a DC jack in the unit (about the size of a 2.5 mm jack) to the 12V ligher socket. The USB on the Essgoo screen is NOT for powering on the Carplay system, and the USB ports on the 12V connector that powers the unit is for you to still be able to charge your phone (yours and a passenger's) without having to disconnect the Essgoo screen from power. You could possibly tap into the car's wiring and forgo having to plug into the 12V socket. You might circumvent the ground loop issue that way.

 

This looks fantastic.

 

Reporting that the Ground Loop Isolator that I bought solved the entirety of my buzzing or static noises without any detriment to the audio quality of the music playback.

Now that I have been using this system a little longer, one big drawback is that although call quality through the car's speakers is excellent, the fact that the unit sits so far from the driver in the dash means the other person on the line may will report that the call quality on their end is subpar. It's because the unit has an internal microphone and I haven't yet found any way of connecting an external microphone to improve call quality for the person on the other side of the line. If you're planning to do this mod, beware that phone calls may be an issue.

 

Wanted to add to this thread - which i like the approach of. I did just get a similar form factor cheap Chinese carplay from amzn that looks very similar:
It was on sale for $64 so I figured worth a try. The difference, I believe, is that it has a dual bluetooth - or something that allows me to run the carplay but also to play audio through a secondary bluetooth device. It's a little confusing and I'm not exactly sure how it's working, but I tried it in the house and was able to have it running carplay with bluetooth audio playing out of a BT speaker in the other room.

So it's an easier install if BT quality is good enough for you and you have the BT cdchanger module already. I do see some bad reviews, so I'll give it some time to see how reliable it is before I follow the install procedure from this thread... so far so good in the house though.

 

Here are some photos from my approach. I did something like the original poster. I did find an old GPS touchscreen module which I took apart. I ran the CD Changer to Aux wire because I got tired of constantly putting in the CD Cassette bluetooth adapter. I found a bluetooth fm modulator not to work well either.