I dove deep into the Honda Civic head unit firmware and SD card to better understand how its Windows CE–based system is structured, how NK.bin really works, and where the actual OS lives. Along the way, I rebuilt flattened memory images, extracted hidden assets, uncovered dealer provisioning artifacts, and ultimately soft-bricked the unit while experimenting with the update process. This post documents the findings, the tooling, and the lessons learned from reverse-engineering a modern automotive infotainment system.
A deep dive into reverse-engineering a Honda Civic head unit: unlocking the SD card, extracting Windows CE assets, modifying the splash screen, and uncovering how these systems really boot.
An experiment to bring CarPlay to a stock Honda head unit using its hidden HDMI input—leveraging a Raspberry Pi, reverse-engineering Honda’s phone projection system, and exploring touch, audio, and control limitations along the way.
A hands-on teardown of the 2014 Honda Civic radio, documenting the internal PCBs, processor, flash memory, RAM, and display hardware while laying the groundwork for deeper reverse engineering of the software and SD card.
After buying a 2014 Honda Civic Si, I set out to understand and reverse engineer the factory Windows CE head unit, exploring its hardware, software limitations, and whether modern features like CarPlay could realistically be made to work.