Remote Mounted Radar Detector Install Under 45 Minutes?

During my 14 year career in the speed counter measurement industry I’ve perhaps installed over 300 remote mounted radar detectors for clients on everything from cars, trucks, RV’s, motorcycles and even a few tour buses for a few notable rock and roll and country western bands.

Typical installs can take me a couple hours and more complex installs can even take days. So when I heard about the Escort Radar’s claim that the typical install for the QI45 was under 45 minutes, I was a little skeptical.

QI45’s name represents Escort’s commitment to develop a radar detector that any automotive buff could install in under 45 minutes. I.e.; Quick Install 45.

During our installation we also installed Escort’s Shifter Pack during this same install.

Prior to our install we read the user manual and install manual for both units in full and laid out our plans.

We chose to us an “Add a Circuit” to the positive wiring harness so we could plug into an accessory socket in our fuse box. We chose the radio accessory as the detector would activate when we started the car and then turn off when we removed the key.

We then removed the lower portion of our Toyota’s dashboard and installed the controller module by zip tying it to a bracket under the dash.

The front of the antenna of the QI45 has laser diodes for laser detection. Therefore the front of the radar antenna should not be blocked by the grill or any other object. We chose a location in the lower drivers side grill area.

We choose the upper bumper area of our Toyota to mount the two Shifter heads. As we didn’t want to drill into the bumper or grill, we selected 3M double sided automotive tape to secure both the radar antenna and both Shifter heads.

To the rear of the QI45’s antenna, there are two jacks to plug in the Shifter heads.  This is a great feature as typically the cabling for the laser jammer s must be run through the firewall along with the radar detector cable.

Care must be taken to align the plugs to the antenna by aligning two white dots. If this is reversed you could damage your system.

A little tip; tape over the head of the RJ45 plug prior to pushing it through the firewall, this will help protect the little plastic tab on the jack.

Next we installed the display module on the lower right portion of the dashboard.

We then plugged the three RJ45 cables into the controller, screwed down our ground and turned the key.

Within moments the QI45 came to life.

We screwed on the lower portion of the dash, made last minute adjustments to the laser shifter heads and closed the hood. Total time for install, 54 minutes!

The installation of the QI45 easiest remote radar detector install that I’ve ever made and I’m certain that anyone with basic automotive repair skills can do a similar install in under an hour.