Has anyone mounted their radar detector inside their fairing? If so what type and what type of remote warning devise or control did you use?

 

it can be done, but will not work as well.


there have been units that mount in a car grill with interior light/buzzer.

the higher and unobstructed the better.



Mike

 

I have thought about it. My father-in-law used to get K40's installed in all his cars. And when I went to their website (www.k40.com), they did have a link to how they have done various motorcycles, including Harley's. Seems like a lot of the install pics were from some place in GA.

 

I haven't yet, but I have thought hard about it. I run a radar detector in my truck all of the time. It's the Escort i9500. I consider it one the two best detectors in the world. The other of the "best" is the Valentine One. You can buy cheaper radar detectors, but you will get an inferior unit when compared to these two. I have tried several and speak from a slight degree of experience on this particular topic. The I9500 is around $500, and the Valentine One with the remote display is around $350. The I9500 has a built-in GPS sensor- great for warning you about speed camera location, etc. The Valentine can distinguish how many threats there are and tell you if they are behind or in front of you. Both are great units and you will be happy with either one.

For motorcycle applications, I would recommend the Valentine One. It has as an optional remote "head" that you can mount somewhere on the faring or in the bottom center of the windshield allowing you to visibly see if there is a threat ahead or behind you at any given time. There is also a company that sells a helmet-installed LED indicator that mates with the V-One to alert you to a threat. The detector could then be stashed remotely in the faring or possibly in the lower left storage compartment...with appropriate power wiring run to the unit. In fact, this is where I may end-up mounting mine. That way it's easier to get to if something needs updating or resetting, and it can be removed and used in another vehicle to add to the value of owning the unit in the first place. I have also thought about mounting it in the tour pak. It would work fine either place, and the tour pak would provide security and protection from rain. I would just have to run a little more wire to hook things up.

Since the outer faring, lowers, and tour pak are all non-metallic, there should be little degradation in performance. There may be some attenuation for the rear sensor, but this would be true only if there were significant metallic interference with the rearward looking sensor on the unit. Always try to mount the units to where the sensors do not have to look through any metallic object on the bike.

Mounting it high or low, in my experience, does not significantly affect performance. The higher the better, however at the frequencies that they operate (receive from 8 to 40 GHz) with the high-end units you will get good results as long as you are two or more feet off the ground. Remember this stuff is line-of-sight, so on long straights you will pick up LEO far off, but if you run into him rounding a curve, the beam will not hit your unit, regardless of where it is mounted, until you get in line with his vehicle.

Let me know in a PM what you end up doing.

 

Mine is mounted to the top of the radio with Velcro. Took the the audio out and ran it to the AUX input on the stereo. Works great.

 

LowCountry- thanks for the reminder. Been using the V1 over a dozen years in my 4-wheelers, and thought about trying it on the bike. I'm headed for the website to see what I need to make a covert install. I really don't want to mount it inside the fairing -- too permanent.
Thanks -- I'm checkin'