I’ve owned them all, from Bel, to Cobra, to Escort & Passport.But the Valentine One is the only radar detector I trust in my Porsche 911. Yes, I know that in the days of instant-on and VASCAR a radar detector isn’t going to guarantee you won’t get a ticket, but coupled with alert driving a Valentine One is going to save your butt over and over.

The V1 radar detector has three key characteristics that make it the best radar detector in the world:

I also really like the optional remotely mounted display. It lets me put the radar readout in an easy to read spot and let’s the detector be mounted in an effective position without "giving itself away" at night.

They are expensive, but worth it. One thing that mitigates the price vs. other radar detectors is Valentine One’s upgrade policy. You can always upgrade your unit to include the latest improvements.

I also have a 1995 BMW 540i Sport. For details on how I mounted my V1 in that car (way cooler than what I did in my Porsche) check out my BMW site.

In attempting to figure out how to mount my V1 in my 911 I considered the following:

 The mounting information on the V1 web site is pretty clear about suggesting that the V1 be mounted in the middle of the car. 

Anyway, there are three pieces to my V1: the detector, the remote display, and the direct wire power adapter. Below I describe where and how I mounted each. To give you an idea of how it looks when I’m driving see the picture to the right.

There’s a flat surface on a bracket just to the left of the ashtray under the dash. I affixed the direct wire power adapter to this bracket using velcro (dual lock) that was included with the unit.

The picture to the right (click to view at higher resolution) illustrates this. That’s the ashtray to the right of the adapter.

I used the same 12 volt power lead that powers my stereo to power the V1. This lead is switched with the ignition so that the V1 turns off when the car is off and is on when the car is on.

The power adapter has two RJ11 jacks on it. One for plugging in the detector and one for connecting to the remote display. The wire that comes with the unit for connecting the remote display is loooong, so I cut it to length and used a RJ11 modular jack crimp tool to put a new connector on (that’s another great thing about the V1: the use of RJ11 connectors!). This wire is threaded up through the gap between the instrument cluster and the steering wheel to the remote display (see the image below).

The coiled wire plugs into the other RJ11 jack and goes to the left, under the steering wheel and up to where the detector is attached to the windshield. If you look at the remote display image below you’ll see the coiled wire in the background.

I really like the remote mount, especially at night.

The remote display is mounted to the steering column with some velcro. Note that you want to remember to mount it on the part of the column that doesn’t turn (Trust me. I felt pretty stupid the first time I went around a corner after installing it incorrectly!). The wire from the remote display goes through the dash (between the columnand dash) to where I mounted the direct wire power adaptor. 

The image at Images/radar1.jpg shows where the remote display is mounted.

The image at Images/radar2.jpg shows the detector itself mounted via the suction cups to the left side of the windshield. I don’t put it here anymore (I put it in the middle where it has the best rear-looking sensitivity.