So I got a passport 8500 X50 for my birthday and was looking online for ways to install it. People mentioned locating the smartcord controller in one of the faux buttons next to the ASC button over the minifuse bay. So using an engineer's scalpel (a dremel) I decided to see if I could make it work. I bought a $8 hardwire kit with a minifuse tap on ebay and ran the wire through the headliner down the pillar. use a piece of coathanger to run it past the pillar into the fuse area to make it easier.
using the fuse tap kit tap into the #13 mini fuse (blue 15 amp)
Then I basically followed the directions on this forum for wiring the smart cord to the direct hardwire kit.
http://www.scoobymods.com/diy_direct...ord-t4336.html
need to be a member to view images, but essentially after you open up the smartcord, the big red wire is power, the big green one is ground. once you cut the phone cord, line up the plug on the hardwire to the plug you just cut and match those up and solder them together. I also soldered extra length of wire to the power and ground to get some extra room to wire them to the fuse tap and ground point. take a lot of care in stripping the wire because some of them are extremely thin single wires and you only have about two inches of it to work with from the smart cord side. I also suggest using shrink wrap on the wires because of how frail they are.
the only thing i regret is taking too much off the top of the smart cord. but here is a picture of what it looks like installed.
To install it into the trim piece, I had to cut off an angle from the bottom (due to the angle of the smartcord face on the body). and use a sanding bit to shave off a little from the sides. lack of pics now but i'll put them up because it's all installed in the car and didn't have the foresight to take pics as i was working on it(1am when i did all this..) but basically used some AC foam insulation the stuff that goes around the window and a small screw to hold in in place at the bottom. fits very snug, i've used it a bunch on my recent road trip (hence working on it at 1am) without it coming loose and falling in or anything. feel free to ask questions here i don't check my pm's often. hope this helps.
