I’ve had my Escort passport x50 in my car now for about a year and a half, mounted high above the rear view mirror, but just finally got around to hardwiring it. Since I wanted to make this look very nice and unnoticeable in my car, I put a little extra work into it.
I went to best buy, and bought the hardwire kit for my radar detector. What you get is the main unit, that has a mute button, power indicator, and alert indicator, and the wiring that is needed to hook it all up (power, ground, and detector wire).
Hardwire kit:
![](http://www.escortradar.com/images/SO-directsmart_red.gif)
I took the main unit apart, putting the sticker off to the side. Then I pulled the interior panel out of my car where I wanted to install the hardwire kit. I drilled 3 holes to match the 2 led’s and mute button into the interior panel. Then I had to sand down the face of the hardwire main unit so that everything would show nicely, and the mute button was usable. I then lined up the main unit behind the 3 holes I drilled, and epoxy’d it all around to hold it in place. Wired it up, and put everything back together. The last thing I did was put the sticker of the hardwire kit back over the 3 holes I drilled.
I have it wired to a source that only gets power when the car is on, but I also added a switch to it so I could turn it off if I wanted. You can see that in the following pictures as well.
This is the final product. I know a lot of people have done this, and I think it looks great. Sorry I didn’t take any “in progress” pics, but if you have any questions just ask, it really wasn’t too difficult.
![](http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/4677/sn850115vq3.jpg)
And the x50 located above the rear view mirror, just below the tint strip
I went to best buy, and bought the hardwire kit for my radar detector. What you get is the main unit, that has a mute button, power indicator, and alert indicator, and the wiring that is needed to hook it all up (power, ground, and detector wire).
Hardwire kit:
![](http://www.escortradar.com/images/SO-directsmart_red.gif)
I took the main unit apart, putting the sticker off to the side. Then I pulled the interior panel out of my car where I wanted to install the hardwire kit. I drilled 3 holes to match the 2 led’s and mute button into the interior panel. Then I had to sand down the face of the hardwire main unit so that everything would show nicely, and the mute button was usable. I then lined up the main unit behind the 3 holes I drilled, and epoxy’d it all around to hold it in place. Wired it up, and put everything back together. The last thing I did was put the sticker of the hardwire kit back over the 3 holes I drilled.
I have it wired to a source that only gets power when the car is on, but I also added a switch to it so I could turn it off if I wanted. You can see that in the following pictures as well.
This is the final product. I know a lot of people have done this, and I think it looks great. Sorry I didn’t take any “in progress” pics, but if you have any questions just ask, it really wasn’t too difficult.
![](http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/4677/sn850115vq3.jpg)
And the x50 located above the rear view mirror, just below the tint strip
![](http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/3725/sn850117zu9.jpg)
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