the carmod pages
i started this project for a friend of mine a couple weeks ago. he had a Valentine radar detector, which is top of the line stuff. from what i understand it retails at about $400 bucks. now the whole motivation for this project was pretty simple. we live in virginia, and radar detectors are illegal, and so cops don't like to find them in a car that they pulled over for speeding; its like a double whamie. he originally had it suction cupped to his windshield, with a "hidden" wire that ran along the trim to a ciggiarate lighter in the back seat where there was the power adapter. it was pretty sketch, and i was determined that i could do better.
the stuff i had to work with made this pretty easy. he had the actual unit, the hidden display, and 2 power adapters.
one was the plug in that he was cureently using, and the other was a wire-in adapter that was still in the bag (he never took it out).
| the hidden display. before the mod he would have either the passenger hold it or put it in the cup holder. | |
| the actual detector. it was attached to the front windshield via 2 suction cups, kinda nasty cuz you had to lick them... | |
| this is the old power adapter... it was plugged in to the accessory outlet in-between the back seats on the arm rest. | |
| the splice in power adapter... i got it in perfect condition, with its inline fuse and crimps still in the original bag. | |
the first thing that i did was to make a plan. we decided that the hidden display should go somewhere on the console and that the detector should go somewhere in the back. with a little bit of frustration, some prying and some dental picks, i popped out the panel underneath the rear accessory outlet (on the back of the front center arm rest). this exposed the wires to the outlet (+12v and gnd) as well as provided a path to run the wire to the console. i got a 7 foot telephone cord, and starting from the back ran it along the inside of the driver's side of the arm rest panel, then next to the shift, then up and to behind the console itself. by removing the pen holder, i gained access to the innards of the console, allowing me to grab the wire with needle nose pliers.
next, i ran a 25' cord from the same location under the accessory jack to the glove box, along the central column plastic panels (on the inside). from the glove box, i ran it down to the door (behind the panel) and then along the door trim, which happens to be continuous to the back seats. the wire comes up behind the seat belt rest which, with a little bit of trouble, can be removed for a cleaner install. from there it goes along the rear firewall to the middle baby seat hook, and then there is about 8" of slack for it to plug in where it was going...
to mount the hidden display, AFTER consulting the owner of the car, i decided that i would cut out part of the pen holder.
there is about 1" of clearance from the back of the pen holder to a A/C duct, and the hidden display was 3" deep.
to get around this, i the display apart with my handy dandy security driver set.
as i expected, it was mostly empty save a display face, a top piece, a bottom piece, and a PCB.
after carefully cutting out the exact size hole in the pen holder with my trusty dremel tool (sorry no pics), i epoxy-ed the display face to the plastic pen holder so that they were flush.
the electronics on the PCB just clips on to the back of the face, and the phone socket was solder-ed to it so it was pretty neat. then i clicked in the wire, clicked the pen holder back in, and vwala!
i think it looks pretty good... it just blends right in. go ahead, click on the thumb for a BIG picture.
the final step, mounting the actual radar, proved to be a slight challenge.
the owner decided that it was going to go in the rear center head rest.
after a quick examination, it appeared that the head rest could not be removed.
but with another dental pick in the right place (right side tiny hole in plastic thing) it popped right out.
then i took the leather boot off, and i was left with a black plastic frame, some foam, and some steal shaft that was stapled (yeah wth i know?) to the plastic.
i marked out the valentine's dementions on a piece of cardboard, and drew a picture of how the detector would sit so that it was closest to how it was in the windshield (i.e. parallel to the ground, front facing front, back facing back).
then i went to work, using at first the abrasive cutting bit and then the drum sander to eat away at the abs.
after hours of drimmling out the plastic (nasty stuff) i got the valentine to fit inside of it.
to hold in the unit i got some industrial strength velcro, and used it librely.
because of the way it was designed, the leather boot was held on origionaly by two little flaps that went it a slot, the only problem was that now there was a radar detector there.
not to worry, more velcro to the rescue, if you strech and velcro it it looks as good as stock, and holds better.
now just slip the cable up between the folds, and its good to go!
in terms of a "hidden switch" i think i did pretty good on the install with 2 radio shack 12 v lighted switches, one for this project and a second for a GReddy Turbo Timer.
they are mounted in the center console arm rest and look stock.
the compartment is waste space from the shaping of the arm rest, and there are just the most perfect little cranies to shove the parts in. i think it worked out quite nicly.
the wiring was pretty simple. there are 3 pins on the back of each switch: power, accessory, and ground. i hooked the power up the the outlet's positive side, the ground up to the outlet's negative side, and the accessory up to the radar detector's positive lead.
the radar's ground is tied in to the negative side of the outlet.
later, i added a relay that cuts off the ground of both switches when the car is off (connected to the outlet power) so that the light on the turbo timer switch does not drain the battery.
the reason for this is that because it is connected to a "constant power" fuse, it will continue to draw power after the car is off.
by breaking the ground, the turbo timer still has power but the neon light does not.
other posable improvements could be: switching the LED colors to match the radio (green) or the gauges (blue). also a front mount antenna hidden inside of the body would be neat. i hope you found what you were looking for!
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