bretm

I bought a '99 C2 a few months ago and have been doing little projects here and there - changed the oil, removed the cassette holder and replaced it with a storage cubby, rewired the double DIN radio that a PO had installed (and left the AM/FM connection off), etc. It's my daily driver through the winter and has been an absolute joy, in large part due to a good set of blizzaks.

Anyway, I've never gotten pulled over for speeding in all my years of driving - knock on wood - but have been thinking for quite a while about getting a detector. I've read quite a bit about them over the years and decided to make the jump with a Valentine 1 and use a Blend Mount for a relatively simple and clean install.

So, here's some winter reading to pass the snowy days...

bretm

First up was to remove the overhead light panel. There are some other threads on here and on the net which detail it out in pictures, but idea is:
1. Pry the three-light cluster downwards on the front side (by the mirror). There are two spring-loaded metal tabs in there and it's a little hard to get a pry tool in between the mirror and the lights. Once you pry the front down, it slides out and down towards the mirror.
2. Remove the two black covers that look like alien eyes (that cover the infrared detector for the alarm) by prying them out with a small screwdriver in the small indent.
3. Remove the two philips head screws behind those covers.
4. Pry the overhead panel downwards back by the sunroof. Once it is release from the lock tabs, the whole panel can move forward towards the windshield and down.
5. There are two wiring connectors that have to be disconnected as you remove it (in addition to the wiring harness that you disconnected to get the light cluster out).

Towards the top left of the second pic you can see the two black female clasps that the overhead panel clips into. The two screw holes in the zinc colored tabs are where the philips head screws came out of.

bretm

Next up is to position and install the V1 with the blendmount. They provide directions and it's pretty straight forward - just have to spend a little time getting it positioned right where you want it.

It has star washers for some of the screws, but I used a touch of loctite on each to be sure.

bretm

For some cars, right from blendmount you can get wire taps that go into the rearview mirror making for a super-easy and clean install. That's not possible with the 996 though, so you either have to hardwire or use the slinky like cord to the cigarette lighter.

I chose to hardwire, but I didn't want to run a wire all the way to the fuse blocks. Instead, I took the straight 8-foot cord that comes with the Valentine 1 and cut it so I could wire it into the 996's overhead panel.

The V1 uses a 4-wire telephone line. I tested them all with an ohm meter and confirmed what I found online:
Green = Ground
Red = 12V
Other two wires are unused

I crimped and soldered a small ring-type connector onto the ground wire. I then cut up the hardwire harness that comes with the V1 so I could get the 2A inline fuse out of it. I soldered that and then crimped and soldered a 1/4" female connector on the 12V side.

For both wires I used 4:1 polyolefin adhesive type shrink tubing. You can get it from McMaster. It makes the connections weather tight and provides stress-relief for the solder joints.

bretm

Before I made the harness in the post above I planned out where it was going in the car. The tricky part about using the overhead panel is that nearly all functions are powered all the time and I needed a 12V wire that was on only with the ignition (so that the detector would come on and off with the car).

I tested each wire in each of the three harnesses with an electrical tester.
- The overhead lights are on all the time, as in most cars.
- The infrared sensor is obviously on when the car is off and locked.

That led me to the sunroof controls... Initially it looked to be powered all the time, which didn't make much sense. The logic is that it turns on with the accessories, but turns off when the key is removed and one of the doors is opened. The door opening is what drives it.

So, the 12V power wire I used is the brown/green wire for the sunroof connector. It's #3 on the connector.

I used the wire tap that comes with the V1. Normally I crimp and solder, but admittedly I didn't want to get into soldering overhead. For the ground I used a small self-tapping screw. Dielectric grease on everything.

bretm

It's alive!

bretm

A PO installed a lot of carbon fiber goodies in my car. Most are actual carbon fiber parts, but a few are just overlays. One of those is for the overhead panel.

The adhesive on the overlay was giving up the ghost, so the night before installing everything I took it apart and re-glued it using loctite cyanoacrylate gel (crazy glue basically). I dries fast, so Mrs. Bretm had to help holding everything and then we put some binder clips on to let it dry overnight.

bretm

Back to installing stuff. The infrared cluster snaps back into the overhead panel. It uses a small 4-wire connector similar to that for the overhead lights.

In the second pic you can see how the back of the infrared cluster is flush with the screw holes (that the philips head screws go through). This is why it's important to layout the wires for the detector ahead of time - this piece is flush right up against the red steel bulkhead above the panel. That's why I hid the 2A inline fuse above the headliner and had the red positive wire make a U-turn back to get to the the sunroof power wire. i.e. it has to take the long way around.

bretm

Next I used the side of a flat file to file a slot into the overhead panel for the wire to pass through. You have to make the slot deeper than just the wire width because the overhead panel slides into a plastic panel attached to the headliner (which will crush the wire if you don't give it extra room).

bretm

Then I installed the panel and lights back in place using dielectric grease on all the connectors.

bretm

One black zip tie to hold the wire to the mirror base and we're in business.

The pics got a little washed out with the glare, but it's close enough to the mirror that most people wouldn't even notice there's a detector when looking from the outside.

Vasir

Oh that looks good! I normally hate radar detectors because of the wires everywhere and the fact that its not permanently affixed to the window; this is nice!

Will be doing this for sure

Thanks for sharing!

mike8

Pretty work

rbc123

Very nice install. Thanks for info.
2 comments - No need to solder if you crimp correctly and if you don't want to use expensive Belken mount you can use a bicycle reflector mount that will also attach to mirror.
Radar detect. mounting is on my list before my next road trip to S. Carolina.
rbc

bretm

Thanks for the kind words, guys.

In general, the 996 has been a really enjoyable car to work on. You can see how much thought the engineers put into each component.