Felt cheap, upgraded Sync with navigation

[mattlqx]

I balked at the $599 navigation option when I knew I'd have my phone plugged in and using CarPlay most of the time anyway. When I got the car and started playing with the digital cluster, pressing the nav button just brought up the compass poking fun at me for not ticking every box on the order form. So whatever, I've swapped out Sync modules before on other cars time to get to work.

There's a deluge of Sync modules on eBay from wrecked cars, so I ordered a Sync 3 Gen 4 unit. Ran me $300 all in. A few days and a little dash disassembly later, popped it in and updated it from the 3.2 it had on it to 3.4. Changed a few variables on the IPC and APIM with Forscan and voila, working Nav for half the price.

Any Gen 4 Nav unit should work, though 2020 mfg dates apparently have issues upgrading software versions. This particular one has a mfg date in 2018. PN KR3T-14G370-CCB. The non-Nav part that it came with is LR3T-14G370-BBS.

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[MiamiGT350]

Nice work! Out of curiosity, what are the vars you needed to tweak in Forscan?

 

[mattlqx]

Nice work! Out of curiosity, what are the vars you needed to tweak in Forscan?

Specifically I think it was called Navigation Repeater in the IPC was needed to talk to the APIM for the Nav and that enabled the menu selection rather than compass. I tried to restore the Asbuilt from my old APIM onto the new one but every setting just turned out to be default so I just basically went through everything and made sure it was sane.

 

[StangTime]

When you're ready, you can take it up a notch and jailbreak your APIM.
Head on over to Naviupgrade and follow the instructions.
All you need are three separate USB memory sticks.

The only mod I added was the custom background loader.
Wasn't too hard just had to get the timing right.
One of our forum members wrote a tutorial: Sync3 mods

I run in Night Mode 24/7. Day mode is just too washed out and you need a separate background for that.

Some backgrounds you can download: Backgrounds
Examples:
Honeycomb pattern to match the grille with some blue highlights.

Running dark horse.

Pure black. (My favorite and the one I still use)

 

[swoop1156]

When you're ready, you can take it up a notch and jailbreak your APIM.
Head on over to Naviupgrade and follow the instructions.
All you need are three separate USB memory sticks.

Looks like I am gonna do this on my Edge ST and play around before trying it on the Mach. Currently looking at multiple USB drives on my desk...

 

[traxiii]

I just spent the extra $500 and got Nav, thinking that there might be times when I'd be out of Cell tower reach. I found it to be the case more times than you'd think on our trip home to CA from Iowa. If you're not in a tunnel, you have coverage with the GPS based Nav. The interface isn't always the greatest, but it's better than my 2013 was and works fine.

 

[swoop1156]

I just spent the extra $500 and got Nav, thinking that there might be times when I'd be out of Cell tower reach. I found it to be the case more times than you'd think on our trip home to CA from Iowa. If you're not in a tunnel, you have coverage with the GPS based Nav. The interface isn't always the greatest, but it's better than my 2013 was and works fine.

My car came with the NAV so it wasn't a big deal but for anyone wanting to use Android Auto (and I assume Apple CarPlay) I just always ensure to download my maps before setting off on a trip and Android Auto always works for me regardless if I have cell coverage or not. Sure, I won't get traffic info or the like - but the route is at least there. Also, I'm a fan of knowing where you're going and having a map in your back pocket. It helps immensely but that's me.

 

[mattlqx]

When you're ready, you can take it up a notch and jailbreak your APIM.
Head on over to Naviupgrade and follow the instructions.
All you need are three separate USB memory sticks.

The only mod I added was the custom background loader.
Wasn't too hard just had to get the timing right.
One of our forum members wrote a tutorial: Sync3 mods

Yep, I actually did that too but I could write a whole separate post on messing around with that.

I haven't gotten any background I'm happy with since the buttons are all transparent. Only subtle patterns really work out well IMO. I do like your list though, I'll definitely give some of those a try.

But from my pic, you can kinda see the rear view camera activation button. It overlapped with driver temp when climate control was on, so I installed the SSH mod and poked around and figured out how to move around the button. Fun stuff.

I really can't wait until they release the app loader and telemetry stuff. That'll be really fun to mess with.

 

[StangTime]

Yep, I actually did that too but I could write a whole separate post on messing around with that.

I haven't gotten any background I'm happy with since the buttons are all transparent. Only subtle patterns really work out well IMO. I do like your list though, I'll definitely give some of those a try.

But from my pic, you can kinda see the rear view camera activation button. It overlapped with driver temp when climate control was on, so I installed the SSH mod and poked around and figured out how to move around the button. Fun stuff.

I really can't wait until they release the app loader and telemetry stuff. That'll be really fun to mess with.

Oh wow. I didn't even notice that camera icon there. So you are way further ahead than I am with this.

 

[mach2k]

Yep, I actually did that too but I could write a whole separate post on messing around with that.

I haven't gotten any background I'm happy with since the buttons are all transparent. Only subtle patterns really work out well IMO. I do like your list though, I'll definitely give some of those a try.

But from my pic, you can kinda see the rear view camera activation button. It overlapped with driver temp when climate control was on, so I installed the SSH mod and poked around and figured out how to move around the button. Fun stuff.

I really can't wait until they release the app loader and telemetry stuff. That'll be really fun to mess with.

Mind sharing how you moved the rear view camera activation button? I installed that mod but haven't taken the time to mess with fixing it.

 

[SemperFi]

You got a thing for Circle K? Daaaaamn!

 

[mattlqx]

Mind sharing how you moved the rear view camera activation button? I installed that mod but haven't taken the time to mess with fixing it.

I went to go refresh myself on this. I had originally edited the QML (QT Markup) at /fs/mp/fordhmi/qml/hmihome/StatusBarDriverTemperature.qml where the X offset was. But upon actually reading it closer, I see that (and this doesn't appear documented in the mod's README) the RVC icon is in fact implemented as a draggable. So you can just press and drag it a long the top bar to a position that's good for you and doesn't overlap with other things when they're activated.

The camera deactivates above like 20mph, but the README mentions some Forscan places to tweak so I'll give that a shot.

You got a thing for Circle K? Daaaaamn!

Circle Ks are kinda weird, they can sell different brands of gas so one near me has Chevron branding while others are self-branded or Shell. It's all the same to Sync I guess.

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