Got my Passport 8500, straight wire kit, and external speaker ready for install. Ordered a DCI and adapter rings as well as WLaurent's prewired Hornet and the siren & sensor. The Focals are getting ordered soon. The JL stealthbox, 5005, and SPods probably won't be far behind.

Now I've started looking at wheels and aero kits. Does it ever end?!? Is there any type of support group I can join before the wife kills me?

 

I hear ya!

My wife accuses me of having more "cosmetics" for my car than she has for herself. Sadly, it is probably a true statement.

You know you need a support group when you start planning the UPS delivery of a group buy so that it arrives when your wife is out of town on business. This week it was drilled/slotted rotors.

 

I thought I was bad! I'm lucky that I don't have to hide it though. All I have to do is either point out all the Longaberger baskets in the house or my personal favorite.... go in her closet and start opening shoe boxes saying "I haven't seen these yet Mrs. Marcos. "

 

D'ya know if anyone has come up with a way to interface a radar to the sound system so you can hear it?

 

I haven't heard of anything. Escort makes an external speaker for the 8500 that you tap into the straight wire and run power to it. I'll let everyone know how it goes.

 

I would be interested in this as well, maybe some of the guru's like McGyver could come up with something. Perhaps we should start a new thread to see if anyone has done this successfully.

I will be installing a V1 radar detector over the weekend, and I'm concerned that I may not be able to hear the detector if the stereo is cranked up!

 

I've thought of doing this too, but it can get a little messy.

I see two ways to do it:

1. Have a small amplifier/speaker just for the radar detector. The unit would tie into the speaker outputs from your stereo and measure how loud the stereo is playing. It then makes the radar alert louder in proportion to the stereo volume. This method does not mess with the stereo/speaker connection, just taps into it. (no additional speaker wire or added resistance).

2. Insert a relay into your speaker line so if the detector goes off it disconnects the speakers from the HU or amp , and connects the speakers to the detector output. This method adds some (miniscule) resistance to the speaker lines which some people might not like and takes more wiring, but it would be a very obvious alarm since it kills the music in addition to sounding the alert.

I've not played with either of these ideas. The second one is simpler, but still takes some circuitry to detect the sound output from the detector and activate a relay. It would have to be a fairly expensive relay too, with high-current contacts and lots of them (at least 4 sets for door speakers, another 4 sets for rear speakers).

Some people might prefer option #1 because it won't interrupt their tunes, just play the alert loud enough to be heard, but that's a more complicated and expensive solution.

 

The Valentine 1 has an audio module with a headphone jack. For a short time, I had a cable plugged into the headpone jack that connected to an RCA 'Y' cable at my amp. This fed both the output of the HU and the V1 audio module into my amp. After I tried it, I realized that I don't have the stereo on all the time and that the remote audio control provides plenty of sound where I have it mounted (under the climate controls).

 

This IS the support group!

Check out all the mods I have done to my car. (They are listed in my Sig) Then take a close look at this picture:



If you look REALLY close you can see the factory oil filter. Not just a Honda oil filter, I mean THE oil filter that the car came with. I have done all this work on my car, and I have not even changed the oil yet!

 

It should be pretty simple. Most HUs these days have a "MUTE" lead in the back. Depending on the HU, you ground that lead to mute the stereo in a graceful way - some HUs will even display "MUTE" or "ATTN", etc. once mute is triggered.

All you'd need to do is somehow hook-up this "MUTE" lead to the radar detector. You might need a relay but is should be simple.

I'm sure Modifry can further explore this possiblilty. I'm currently using my MUTE lead for a Pioneer wireless cell phone mute - mutes the cell phone when i get a call, cell phone is not connected to anything it's all wireless.