I bought a cheap wireless CarPlay/Android Auto receiver and preliminary tests show it should work well if I can install it in place of the factory navigation screen in my 2004 Mazda RX-8. This is not the type of procedure covered by Mazda's official workshop manual. I would need to check the RX-8 owner's forum at https://rx8club.com to see what others have done before me. One advantage of a twenty-year old car is twenty years of other people sharing their stories of tinkering with theirs.

Surprisingly, I didn't find anybody doing the exact same thing. Perhaps standalone wireless receivers are too new for this DIY crowd? There were plenty of threads about CarPlay/Android Auto audio head units with the Metra kit, like this relatively recent example, but I've already decided I'm not going that route.

The closest matches were from people who installed a 7" tablet in their factory navigation hood, as my new wireless receiver is basically a 7" tablet. I found several threads and many of them referenced one of these two pioneers: one project installing a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, and another project installing a Huawei MediaPad. Both of these were long threads with reference pictures and many good questions followed by valuable answers.

For connecting tablet audio to the car, later RX-8 came with an auxiliary audio input jack. Early RX-8 did not but this is a well-solved problem. People reverse engineered the audio head end circuit so we can get an auxiliary audio port that the car believes to be the optional cassette tape deck or minidisc player modules. Implementations range from an Arduino-based DIY solution to commercial products for sale. I bought and installed a Sylfex AuxMod Basic years ago, a product that has now been discontinued. Current-day alternatives include the GTA adapter kit.

My wireless CarPlay/Android Auto receiver came bundled with a backup camera. I'm going to postpone that project until a future phase but, when I get around to it, there are forum threads I can reference as well like this one.

Armed with knowledge, I opened up my toolbox and started dismantling my center console.