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Great Lakes Mirror Mount | Voztech Visor Mount | Great Lakes Visor Mount |
You seriously need some kind of radar protection. You can easily spend $1500 or more for a true remote-type unit mounted into your dashboard, with a sensor in your grill somewhere. But this requires someone else to install it. And still, you'd have to install some kind of rear-facing detector as well. This is just way more than the average guy needs.
Instead, consider the setup that I've done.
When I did mine, these two things cost a total of $42 (not including the detector itself, which is about $200 - $300). And in this case it will take you about 15 minutes to install it. This is a good combination.
In 2005, I originally used the Great Lakes mirror mount - but it had a faulty adhesive, it kept falling off the mirror. For a while I kept it, using a "ghetto wire" to hold it up. But finally I changed to the Voztech radar mount. It is a better design because it is attached by a screw to the headboard of the car - NOT by adhesive. So you won't come back to your car on a hot day and find the radar detector on the floor if you use the Voztech mount. Read more about the Voztech mount below.
In fairness, Ed Duprey of Grake Lakes Trophies points out that as soon as the adhesive problem appeared, he shipped out free replacements with a stronger adhesive. Since 2005, he has sold 987 of his mounts with improved adhesive, and less than a dozen have been replaced for any problems. Even better, if you go to the new Great Lakes web site, you'll also see a Great Lakes mount that bolts onto the visor clip - identical to the Voztech. I think this is a much better design, and is actually less expensive than the adhesive version anyway. See below for more notes of comparison.
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First turn your mirror around as much as you can. You'll find a large plastic electrical connector. Press on the TOP of the connector, where you'll feel a tab. While pressing the tab down, unplug that connector. The photo shows the back of the mirror after this large plug has already been disconnected. The large cable that has been disconnected is shown hanging down to the right edge of the photo. The arrow points to the socket where that cable came from, and where you will again connect it when you're done. | ||||||||
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Here's a view of that plug, which you have removed from the back left hand side of the mirror. When you do this, you'll see that there are two rows of 8 electrical contacts. The photo makes it look like there are four rows, but there are only two -- you'll see when you do it yourself. | ||||||||
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You'll be interested in the two contacts labelled in this photo - in the first row, the last contact all the way to the right, is the ground contact.
On the second row, fourth from the right, is the switched +12V contact. This provides the proper voltage from the car's battery only when the ignition is on. This is the wire you want for your detector. It will not turn the detector on when you are in ACC mode, only when the engine is running. As soon as the engine is stopped, the detector goes off. It comes on again as soon as the engine is started. | ||||||||
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Here is the same plug turned around, so that the stock wires are visible. Since you're looking at the BACK of the plug, the contact locations are now reversed, so that the ground wire is the one on the TOP row, first on the LEFT.
The switched power wire is in the second row. It is the MIDDLE PINK wire, the fourth wire from the left. | ||||||||
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Here the ground and power wires are labelled. Do not use the pink wire at contact #1 on the second row by mistake. It does not carry any current. The power wire you want is the one in the middle of the second row at position #4 in this view. | ||||||||
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You'll take theInvisicord and find it's green and red wires. All you'll have to do is stick those pins into the stock black plastic connector so that they are touching the metal contacts from the stock black wire (GND) and the stock pink wire (+12V). These photos show where these contact pins should go. | ||||||||
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The best way to insert the pins is to stick the green pin just ABOVE the black wire. It will be a tight enough fit to hold the pin in place, in contact with the exposed wire inside the plastic connector. Insert the red pin just BELOW the pink #4 wire, so that it makes contact with the C6 pink wire within the black plastic connector. | ||||||||
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Now just plug the stock black plastic connector back in to the rear of your mirror, and it will look like this. The only NEW thing in this picture is the new Invisicord cable hanging down to the left, from its +12V and GND connections that you have now made in the mirror wiring. In the photo, the new power wire hangs down and exits the lower left of the photo. On the other end of this cable is the part that will plug into your dectector. The real name for that plug is an "RJ-11 connector", the same connector used for telephones. | ||||||||
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Now you have to attach the radar mount.
Here is what the adhesive version Great Lakes mount looks like. It just attaches to the rear of your mirror. The detector then mounts by this small bent tab, just as it would have if you were mounting it by it's stock suction cups which hold a small metal tab out for attachment. | ||||||||
 | Final views of the Great Lakes mount and Invisicord. | ||||||||
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By the way, if you order the Invisicord for this usage, the 8 inch cord is more than adquate to reach the short distance shown. No need to order any extra long cord if you are planning on a mirror mount.
You should be aware that the original Great Lakes mirror mount attaches to your mirror by adhesive only. I personally believe this is a faulty design concept - to attach a heavy device by means of adhesive like this. In 2005 it just didn't work - but the Great Lakes people assure me that since then, then have gotten a much better adhesive to fix this problem.
But I really think the design should have simply offered a mechanism to support the weight of the detector directly from the mirror, as I have done with a piece of wire. Without this support, once the car gets hot, that adhesive is going to weaken, and it's a matter of time before the unit is on the floor.
See my discussion above
.I use the Voztech radar mount. It not only BOLTS on, but has a nice hole in it so that the Escort will truly clip on, and not slide off. Since I bought this mount in 2007, my detector has never fallen off. The mounting bolt has never loosened, and I've never even had to adjust it once after the first installation. I can recommend this product from my own use, without reservation.
Great Lakes now sells the GL visor mount, similar to the Voztech, which bolts on, and would avoid the adhesive problem entirely. The new GL visor mount is very similar to the Voztech, except it has a slightly different curve. The manufacturer tells me that the GL visor mount will allow you to lower the sun visor about 10% past half way - my interpretation is that this is the same as the Voztech. Neither product will allow the visor to go all the way down.
The Voztech cannot be installed on the passenger side if you have an OnStar box. But, according to the Great Lakes people, the GL visor mount CAN be installed without problems, on the side of the OnStar box. The GL visor mount does have a slightly different curve from the Voztech, so maybe that is why it works. I cannot confirm this because I do not own the GL visor mount, so if you have installed the GL visor mount over your OnStar box, and it works, please let me know so I can post it up here ! This point may be moot - in my opinion, you do NOT want to mount your detector over the passenger seat - you will miss too many visual alerts (which you REALLY need when you have Sammy Hagar cranked all the way with the top down and your ears bleeding !
Unfortunately, the GL visor mount does not have a hole for the detector to "click" into, as the Voztec mount does. You do want this, because otherwise the detector does eventually shake itself off the mount. But stay tuned - I've talked to the manufacturer at Great Lakes, and he may incorporate this into a later generation of his product.
Look at all the above features before you choose your mount. Each has some advantages and disadvantages. I now have used the GL adhesive mount, and the Voztech mount, and strongly prefer the Voztech solution. But here again is a summary of the shortcomings of each mount type:
| COMPARISON | |||
| Great Lakes adhesive mount | Voztech | GL visor mount | |
| Attachment to car | adhesive | Bolt | Bolt |
| Hole for CLICK on of detector | none | YES | none |
| Can lower visor? | 100% | only to vertical | only to vertical |
| Mount position | Under mirror - can miss visual alerts | Below visor - easy to see visual alerts, but might obscure sight line for tall drivers. | Identical to Voztech. |
| Cost | $32 | $35 | $27 |
| Can install over OnStar box? | N/A | NO | YES* |
* Stated by the manufacturer. I have not confirmed this myself.
If you have trouble with your adhesive mount, I'd suggest getting a bolt-on version instead. But if you want, you can try Bugman's "Ghetto wire", as shown below - it does work ! Oddly, the original Great Lakes mount had a hole in it that perfectly suited my wire - see below. The "ghetto wire" as I call it cannot be seen at all in real life.
The Voztech (Vettemods.com) is the mount that I use, and it is perfect (read below). Unfortunately the vendor may be AWOL. if so, click on the other links above for other vendors that make a product almost identical. The main difference in these other look-alikes is that they do not include a mounting slot for your detector to CLICK into place on the mount. So there might be a risk of the detector eventually sliding off. If you buy one of these mounts, let me know your review so I can update my page.
The Voztech mount is simply a better design than an adhesive mount . There are several reasons that it is a better choice:
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The Voztech mount is simply a piece of lightweight, sturdy aluminum bent with just the right curves to fit your C6 head panel. What you get:
The part of the metal that contacts the head panel is lined with felt so it will not scratch. |
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The part that actually connects to the radar detector is bare aluminum (silver colored), and has a hole cut in it so that your Escort or Valentine will click into place when mounted. Important: the Southern Car Parts version AND the Corvette Central vesrion do NOT have this hole. |
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Just pop your driver's side visor out of the plastic clamp. Take out the stock screw that holds the plastic clamp in place, put the Voztech mount in place, and then screw it down with the longer mounting screw that comes with your Voztech mount. Done ! You'll see that the attachment is completely solid, with no wiggle, no chance of falling off ever. |
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Right oblique view of unit mounted |
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Again (as shown in the hookup for the Great Lakes mount, above), find your proper contacts and connect the "Invisicord". For GROUND, you want your green invisicord to make contact in the 1st space on the left, in the top row. For switched 12V current supply, you want the red Invisicord wire to make contact in the bottom row, 4th space from the left (at the place where the "middle" pink wire enters the connector). To test your connections, you'll have to actually start the car. This pink supply wire carries current only when the engine is running. It will not turn the detector on when you are in ACC mode. For more pictures of the Invisicord connections, see the section on the Great Lakes Mount. |
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Now just put your detector on the mount, plug in the Invisord to the radar detector, and you're done. There are a few special notes to make, however:
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You cannot lower the visor all the way with the detector mounted. |
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Real cockpit view of installation. |
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If you want a driver's side installation (which I would highly recommend), go with the shortest cord you can. The 8" cord fits well, and you can hide the excess behind the mirror. This is the 8" cord with no attempt to hide it at all - it has just enough slack to be be comfortable. |
Well, here is the "pinout" diagram from the service manual. Note this diagram shows you the face of the connector, not the rear of the connector. So the numbers are a bit different that what I showed above in my photos. When you look at the rear of the connector, you'll see the pink wires at position 0 and 4 on the bottom row, this turns out to be position "16" and "13" respectively, when viewed from the front of the connector in this diagram.
As this table and diagram show, there is another pink wire, "#16", which is not the proper wire for your connection. Also, You can use the orange wire location (#6), which is the courtesy lamp supply voltage, but then the detector will always be powered on, rather than switched. It's much better to use the pink wire at "#13" as your supply voltage for your radar detector, because this way:
Of course, the black wire location ("8" from the front view here, or "top left position zero" when viewed from the back) is your ground wire location.