David Hawkins said:
Am I reading correctly that if you have a stock 3/1 with 8 speakers and the twin plugs in the back of the head unit that this is basically plug n play? Looks nice.
I also see that you have the auto climate control head...does it work in Auto mode? I looked into that when I was in Japan, but there were more parts involved than I wanted to figure out.
Yeah, if it has the twin connectors in the back, this is plug and play. In fact, as long as it has the correct physical dimensions, any Toyota stereo will work with the two plug set-up. Either because the stereo itself is internally amplified, and thus has the two connector output, or you plug the two connectors into one of two Toyota amplifiers, which then have a plug that goes into the back of the headunit.
There are two different types of these external amps, one used ~97-99 and the other from 00-present. They're about 6x3x2.5 or so. They easily tuck behind the stereo toward the passenger side. Which one you'll need depends on which year stereo you end up using, since the main difference between the two is the connector that goes from the amp to the headunit.
As for the auto-climate control, I'll let you all in on a dirty little secret. It's just the facade.

I swapped the control unit in, and while doing so I swapped in the switch from the US-spec unit, so "auto" is just the low setting. To do the entire swap would not only be difficult, it would be impossible. No LHD car ever got the climate control function. That means that all the little servos and controls that go in the ducts are all designed for ducts on RHD cars. One thing I have wondered about though is if it might be possible to do with a combination of climate control parts from an 85 MR2 and from a 90-93 Celica. But yeah, in reality it's just sort of a "for show" thing. I couldn't even use the dual button "a/c" "econ", because it doesn't work with the stock wiring configuration.
-Nathan