Hey Telsa Fans! Thought I'd put a write up on my dashcam, radar detector and parking sensors (laser jammers)
Here is my setup
1.) Beltronics STI-R Plus (got bundled from ALP)
2.) Anti Laser Priority (ALP) quad (2 front / 2 rear) hifi
YOU WILL NEED TO BUY 2 Sensor extensions for the rear
3.) Blackview DR650GW-2CH (group deal on TMC... Thanks Andyw2100)
4.) P85D WITH auto-pilot
I have done an install of the STI-R plus on my G37 and was fairly comfortable doing it on the Tesla. Problem was that there was no service manual to show how parts of the panels come off. So I decided to document this to help others out who may want to do it and save time. This install took me about 40 hours doing research and install. A lot of it was trying to figure things out and where to route wires and how to cut holes into the car (3 holes). I also could only do this from 9pm (I have young kids that go to bed at 8) at night till 3am in the morning. Rough the next morning for sure. I tried to take as many pics as I could but after midnight I kind of got out of picture taking mode. This guide is to help you through if you decide to DIY. I take no responsibility if you screw something up. Proceed at your own risk. I’ll try to answer any question through here or through PM. Read this through to see what parts you may need.
THE MIRROR
To start I found a tesla rear view mirror from a 2013 pre autopilot car. I thought the mirrors may be the same. I wanted to integrate the display in the mirror like I did in my G37. But also the STI-R plus display is red and so is the control module. In my G37, I was able to send the unit to beltronics and have them change the display and the control module to blue (kind of like the 9500ci module and display) That took about a week and I had to find the person that did it last time as no one in beltronics customer service knew what I was talking about. I had to bypass them and talk to the original tech that did it. Thank goodness he was still there. Come to find out the mirror on the pre-autopilot and autopilot are different. I did the prep work on the non-autopilot to practice on how to open the mirror and take the foam tape off the back so to put the display in.
In this pic you can see the difference between the non-autopilot vs autopilot mirrors
The internals of the mirrors look to be the same
To get the mirror off you will need to take apart the front of the two piece black covers that is above the mirror. Here you can see the two pieces.
The front part comes apart by pulling forward and down. Look at the 4 clips in the next pic
Next unplug the mirror. Then I rotated the mirror clockwise from the base and it came off. This took a good amount of pressure. It’s a wedge type
Then pop off the cover that was above the mirror. You will be left with this.
Now a little hair raising part. Popping the mirror off. This part I used 2 thin plastic panel removal tools to pop the mirror off. I went in the center and lifted the plastic off and then got another tool and ran along the top. I provided pictures to show you where the tabs are on the plastic housing and on the mirror.
Now that you have the mirror separated, go ahead and disconnect the two connections going to the mirror. No worries, these are two different connectors. I had decided to place the display in the area that already had parts of the plastic missing behind the mirror for two reasons. One was that with my seats, the display would be against the headrest area for me and not really interfere with my visual of the rear. Second was that it’s already cut for you and much easier. I took my STI-R plus display out of housing and measured it up against the mirror and marked it. Now you will need to cut this plastic off. How I did it before was to heat up my x-acto knife and cut into the plastic until I felt it hit the mirror. I wish I could say that I wasn’t worried about scratching the mirror but I was. But I was pretty hard on it and no scratches happened. Then you will need to remove the foam area. I used a new x-acto knife and cut into the foam until I felt hard again and made the outline cut. Then I used a flat blade x-acto blade 17 (seen in the pic below) to clean and remove.
If you look at the bottom photo, you will see a round hole that is to the right of a circuit board and to the left of a red wire. That hole was perfect to install the ALP external led light. The hole has no plastic in there and just the foam. I used a small blade and clean the foam out and put the led light in. I held the display and the led light in place with hot glue. Works great
Now to run these wires through, you DO NOT need to cut the ends off. Just disconnect the connector as seen below and run the wires through and then reconnect the connector. Reconnect the wires and then snap the mirror back together. MIRROR DONE
FRONT CABIN WIRING FOR RADAR CPU AND DASHCAM
Since we have the mirror off, it was a good time to get the wiring for it and the front dashcam going. The front blackview cam has two wires that need to go to it. Power and rear. For power I read on a forum that I am on, Tesla Motor Club (TMC) that there could be an untapped constant 12v power supply in the upper mic area. I pulled the front part of the grill down and was welcomed by the site of the empty plug with 3 wires. I got my volt meter and measured the voltage on each wire. Looking at the picture you see the 3 wires. Black of course is ground, the green provided a little more than 10 volts (not enough) and the orange was what I needed for my 12 volt source. This is 3 wires into a 4 hole connector. I really did not want to tap into these wires, SO I found some PWM female connectors and wired it to where I could use the ground and the 12 volt orange wire source. The blackview comes with so much cabling that I would not use that I cut the wire really short so I would not have a bunch of wire hanging in the mic area rattling. I cut the fuse out as well. I’m letting Tesla’s fuse handle it. I tapped that in and placed it in the mic area.
This is the wire I tapped into
This is running the power wire and the rear cam wire to the mic area
I ran the rear cam wire on the inside of the headliner and taped it down. It fits in the space between the headliner and the glass. See the line in red. I ran it to this spot and left it hanging for the time I run the two rear laser wires.
The radar display and laser led was run along the glass and the headliner toward the driver’s side A pillar. The A pillar was removed by using a plastic trim pry tool on the airbag logo and removing the screw. Pull down.
The side dash trim piece will need to be removed. It’s held in by 4-5 clips. Pry from the bottom using a plastic trim pry tool.
I used a 50 ft. nylon fish tape from amazon to fish most of my wires as seen in the pic below to run the display and led wires down.
Amazon Link to 50ft. nylon fish tape
My problem now is that the wires stop here at the side of the dash. I will need a coupler and extended wire. Problem is that these connectors are not your usual telephone plug jack. This is what took some time to research and get parts for. Good for you that I did the research and can tell you what to get. You will need RJ22 aka RJ10 aka 4p4c connectors, a 4p4c crimp tool and telephone wire.
The telephone wire I had. I had a good quality thick one that I cut the ends off. I found the connectors at a local supply store but I’ll put an amazon link down below. Also I have a normal network crimping tool, but this will not work as a telephone crimping tool is 6p and you will need a 4p crimper. Amazon link for the crimper below. I also needed a coupler for the rj22 connector. I found some on amazon and had shipped to me.
AMAZON LINK FOR CRIMPER
AMAZON LINK FOR CONNECTORS
AMAZON LINK FOR COUPLER
The above coupler is a rj11 coupler with a plastic piece to make rj22 fit.
Now this is something I am going to bring up now that took me awhile to figure out. I thought all phone couplers were straight through…. Well I found out the hard way it is not. It’s crossover. I have no idea why. But keep this in mind when wiring and putting on the connectors to the extended cable. I crossed the cable. This means if you look at the connectors and the color wires going into the connector, they will be opposite.
Now that this is out of the way, I had to figure out where to place the brains for the STI-R Plus and the ALP units. In order to get underneath the areas you need to pry out a lot of trim pieces. First start with the leather side pieces (held on by clips) on BOTH SIDES of the lower center console tray. I DID NOT remove the cubby below the screen. Then remove the carpet that is underneath the leather (also held on by clips) behind the knee airbags is a plastic cover that is held in by 2 torx screw. Take this off on both sides. Now on the passenger side I left the door sill in place but the driver’s side I removed for usb plug placements and to put excess wire underneath this area. This is the area where I broke one blue clip. In the pic below you will see the two red circles and red arrow showing where the clips are at. I broke the one on the far left. That is vertical. Luckily Highland Park, IL Tesla Service center is close by and I got replacements.
The plastic foot rest has 3 plastic clips that when you pull up on the foot rest will release. This is done so you can pull back the carpet for wire running later. Now I have access up into the dash from below I see this.
And decide to put the radar brains here with double sided 3m automotive tape or you can use 3m foam tape from home depot here.
The brains for the ALP I decided to put under the screen / cubby area as seen circled in yellow
Next was getting switchable power to the units. Thanks to WK057 from TMC He posted up a “tech note” about a switchable 12V power supply. Below is his picture and credit for this goes to him
INSERT tnphoto.jpg
I did not want to actual tap into the wire that is list on the picture but I found that if I get a Molex power connector from a computer PSU that the female end is circular but can be flattened and fit into the plug securely. I chose the red wire from the psu molex to use obviously and then tapped into that wire for both radar and alp. I ran the power cable from here underneath the screen area and behind the drivers carpet to the brains for both.
Speakers. Unfortunately one speaker cannot be used for both radar and laser. So I had to put both in there. I found a tight but perfect spot for it and I can hear both quite well. The laser comes with a speaker if you get the hifi control set. I used 3m double sided foam tape and taped the two speakers together and then used double sided foam tape and mounted the speakers here.
USB I wanted USB for the radar for updates later and the ALP needs it for config and firmware updates. I used the driver side kick panel to mount the usb ports. The beltronics comes with a nice usb mount but the ALP does not. I got a StarTech panel mount cable (seen in pic below) so it would look cleaner. I will paint the screws black later.
Top is beltronics and lower is the ALP
ALP USER HINT: I found near where we tapped the 12v switchable power the cables going to the USB ports near the cigarette lighter port. You can disconnect one of these and buy and adapter on amazon, and plug your ALP into this and use one of your ports for the ALP USB. I decided on the drivers kick panel since I was already putting the beltronics there, BUT if you got the STI-R Plus head only with the ALP then this may be a great option for you.
See this pic that shows the two connectors in black on the right pic
INSERT TNphoto
Disconnect it and it’s a mini USB connector
AMAZON LINK TO USB ADAPTER
Front bumper sensors and getting through the firewall.
Sensor Placement: Ok, now on to the sensors in the front bumper. I first figured out where I wanted my sensors. I finally decided to put them in the locations as you see in the pic below. I did not want to cut a hole in the nosecone as I have seen someone do (but was really clean) and wanted a little more discreet. I have had the radar behind the bumper of my G for years and its worked fine so I had no problem putting it behind my nosecone. The GPS module was put near here as well for fastest pickup as in the cabin its tough to get signals out and in.
Front Disassembly and Wiring: First you will need to pop off the nosecone off. Autopilot cars will have sensors they will need to disconnect here. I’m going to say search for this if you don’t know how to get this off. It’s easy. Now remove the rubber seal around the frunk. Remove the carpeted liner of the frunk. Next the side black panels pop off by pulling up and away from the metal clips that are around the frunk edge. The big rubber stopper (mushroom shaped) that is on each one of them will slide through when you pull the panel up. Next is the back panel. It pops up as well. Set these aside.
When the liner is out of the frunk, you will see 4 nuts that hold the plastic frunk in place. These are 2 different sizes. Remove these and remove the frunk. You are now left with this.
There are 4 clips that hold the back piece that attaches to the windshield on. I highlighted the areas in Yellow. The lower areas have a rubber boot over them and will have to move the boot out of the way to get to them.
With the 4 clips out this piece pops up, but will not come off due to the wipers being in the way. I was not about to remove the wiper arms. I was able to work around it. The left side area has the air filter. Remove that and there are 2 screws holding the air filter holder in. Sorry I don’t have a pic of this.
Now rout the cables to the rear firewall area as I did seen in green.
Be sure to keep the wire below this beam as the frunk sets on it.
Radar: You will want to find the place for your radar antenna. I mounted mine with double sided foam tape and used multiple tapes stacked to get the detector level. Also make sure the detector is facing forward straight and not at an angle and not up or down. I used a mini bubble to make sure it was level. The below pic you will see how much tape I had to use to level it. One tape in the back and about 5 pieces in the front. I did not use the mounting brackets. I have this done on the G and it works great. The 3M foam take is weatherproof as well. Make sure you wipe the support beam down from dirt, dust and debris.
Laser: The laser sensors I put below the nose cone and into the grill. I saw someone have the lasers double sided taped the the nosecone but that is not a level part on the bottom of the nosecone. I cut the grill with some wire cutters and x-acto knives to a point the sensors would be level and straight forward facing.
I ran the 4 wires (2 laser, 1 radar antenna, 1 GPS for radar) toward the passenger firewall area.
HELPFUL HINT: I put a small piece of painters blue tape around all connectors of the laser sensor that belong to the driver side so you can differentiate passenger from driver in case of troubleshooting.
Continued, next post ->
Here is my setup
1.) Beltronics STI-R Plus (got bundled from ALP)
2.) Anti Laser Priority (ALP) quad (2 front / 2 rear) hifi
YOU WILL NEED TO BUY 2 Sensor extensions for the rear
3.) Blackview DR650GW-2CH (group deal on TMC... Thanks Andyw2100)
4.) P85D WITH auto-pilot
I have done an install of the STI-R plus on my G37 and was fairly comfortable doing it on the Tesla. Problem was that there was no service manual to show how parts of the panels come off. So I decided to document this to help others out who may want to do it and save time. This install took me about 40 hours doing research and install. A lot of it was trying to figure things out and where to route wires and how to cut holes into the car (3 holes). I also could only do this from 9pm (I have young kids that go to bed at 8) at night till 3am in the morning. Rough the next morning for sure. I tried to take as many pics as I could but after midnight I kind of got out of picture taking mode. This guide is to help you through if you decide to DIY. I take no responsibility if you screw something up. Proceed at your own risk. I’ll try to answer any question through here or through PM. Read this through to see what parts you may need.
THE MIRROR
To start I found a tesla rear view mirror from a 2013 pre autopilot car. I thought the mirrors may be the same. I wanted to integrate the display in the mirror like I did in my G37. But also the STI-R plus display is red and so is the control module. In my G37, I was able to send the unit to beltronics and have them change the display and the control module to blue (kind of like the 9500ci module and display) That took about a week and I had to find the person that did it last time as no one in beltronics customer service knew what I was talking about. I had to bypass them and talk to the original tech that did it. Thank goodness he was still there. Come to find out the mirror on the pre-autopilot and autopilot are different. I did the prep work on the non-autopilot to practice on how to open the mirror and take the foam tape off the back so to put the display in.
In this pic you can see the difference between the non-autopilot vs autopilot mirrors
The internals of the mirrors look to be the same
To get the mirror off you will need to take apart the front of the two piece black covers that is above the mirror. Here you can see the two pieces.
The front part comes apart by pulling forward and down. Look at the 4 clips in the next pic
Next unplug the mirror. Then I rotated the mirror clockwise from the base and it came off. This took a good amount of pressure. It’s a wedge type
Then pop off the cover that was above the mirror. You will be left with this.
Now a little hair raising part. Popping the mirror off. This part I used 2 thin plastic panel removal tools to pop the mirror off. I went in the center and lifted the plastic off and then got another tool and ran along the top. I provided pictures to show you where the tabs are on the plastic housing and on the mirror.
Now that you have the mirror separated, go ahead and disconnect the two connections going to the mirror. No worries, these are two different connectors. I had decided to place the display in the area that already had parts of the plastic missing behind the mirror for two reasons. One was that with my seats, the display would be against the headrest area for me and not really interfere with my visual of the rear. Second was that it’s already cut for you and much easier. I took my STI-R plus display out of housing and measured it up against the mirror and marked it. Now you will need to cut this plastic off. How I did it before was to heat up my x-acto knife and cut into the plastic until I felt it hit the mirror. I wish I could say that I wasn’t worried about scratching the mirror but I was. But I was pretty hard on it and no scratches happened. Then you will need to remove the foam area. I used a new x-acto knife and cut into the foam until I felt hard again and made the outline cut. Then I used a flat blade x-acto blade 17 (seen in the pic below) to clean and remove.
If you look at the bottom photo, you will see a round hole that is to the right of a circuit board and to the left of a red wire. That hole was perfect to install the ALP external led light. The hole has no plastic in there and just the foam. I used a small blade and clean the foam out and put the led light in. I held the display and the led light in place with hot glue. Works great
Now to run these wires through, you DO NOT need to cut the ends off. Just disconnect the connector as seen below and run the wires through and then reconnect the connector. Reconnect the wires and then snap the mirror back together. MIRROR DONE
FRONT CABIN WIRING FOR RADAR CPU AND DASHCAM
Since we have the mirror off, it was a good time to get the wiring for it and the front dashcam going. The front blackview cam has two wires that need to go to it. Power and rear. For power I read on a forum that I am on, Tesla Motor Club (TMC) that there could be an untapped constant 12v power supply in the upper mic area. I pulled the front part of the grill down and was welcomed by the site of the empty plug with 3 wires. I got my volt meter and measured the voltage on each wire. Looking at the picture you see the 3 wires. Black of course is ground, the green provided a little more than 10 volts (not enough) and the orange was what I needed for my 12 volt source. This is 3 wires into a 4 hole connector. I really did not want to tap into these wires, SO I found some PWM female connectors and wired it to where I could use the ground and the 12 volt orange wire source. The blackview comes with so much cabling that I would not use that I cut the wire really short so I would not have a bunch of wire hanging in the mic area rattling. I cut the fuse out as well. I’m letting Tesla’s fuse handle it. I tapped that in and placed it in the mic area.
This is the wire I tapped into
This is running the power wire and the rear cam wire to the mic area
I ran the rear cam wire on the inside of the headliner and taped it down. It fits in the space between the headliner and the glass. See the line in red. I ran it to this spot and left it hanging for the time I run the two rear laser wires.
The radar display and laser led was run along the glass and the headliner toward the driver’s side A pillar. The A pillar was removed by using a plastic trim pry tool on the airbag logo and removing the screw. Pull down.
The side dash trim piece will need to be removed. It’s held in by 4-5 clips. Pry from the bottom using a plastic trim pry tool.
I used a 50 ft. nylon fish tape from amazon to fish most of my wires as seen in the pic below to run the display and led wires down.
Amazon Link to 50ft. nylon fish tape
My problem now is that the wires stop here at the side of the dash. I will need a coupler and extended wire. Problem is that these connectors are not your usual telephone plug jack. This is what took some time to research and get parts for. Good for you that I did the research and can tell you what to get. You will need RJ22 aka RJ10 aka 4p4c connectors, a 4p4c crimp tool and telephone wire.
The telephone wire I had. I had a good quality thick one that I cut the ends off. I found the connectors at a local supply store but I’ll put an amazon link down below. Also I have a normal network crimping tool, but this will not work as a telephone crimping tool is 6p and you will need a 4p crimper. Amazon link for the crimper below. I also needed a coupler for the rj22 connector. I found some on amazon and had shipped to me.
AMAZON LINK FOR CRIMPER
AMAZON LINK FOR CONNECTORS
AMAZON LINK FOR COUPLER
The above coupler is a rj11 coupler with a plastic piece to make rj22 fit.
Now this is something I am going to bring up now that took me awhile to figure out. I thought all phone couplers were straight through…. Well I found out the hard way it is not. It’s crossover. I have no idea why. But keep this in mind when wiring and putting on the connectors to the extended cable. I crossed the cable. This means if you look at the connectors and the color wires going into the connector, they will be opposite.
Now that this is out of the way, I had to figure out where to place the brains for the STI-R Plus and the ALP units. In order to get underneath the areas you need to pry out a lot of trim pieces. First start with the leather side pieces (held on by clips) on BOTH SIDES of the lower center console tray. I DID NOT remove the cubby below the screen. Then remove the carpet that is underneath the leather (also held on by clips) behind the knee airbags is a plastic cover that is held in by 2 torx screw. Take this off on both sides. Now on the passenger side I left the door sill in place but the driver’s side I removed for usb plug placements and to put excess wire underneath this area. This is the area where I broke one blue clip. In the pic below you will see the two red circles and red arrow showing where the clips are at. I broke the one on the far left. That is vertical. Luckily Highland Park, IL Tesla Service center is close by and I got replacements.
The plastic foot rest has 3 plastic clips that when you pull up on the foot rest will release. This is done so you can pull back the carpet for wire running later. Now I have access up into the dash from below I see this.
And decide to put the radar brains here with double sided 3m automotive tape or you can use 3m foam tape from home depot here.
The brains for the ALP I decided to put under the screen / cubby area as seen circled in yellow
Next was getting switchable power to the units. Thanks to WK057 from TMC He posted up a “tech note” about a switchable 12V power supply. Below is his picture and credit for this goes to him
INSERT tnphoto.jpg
I did not want to actual tap into the wire that is list on the picture but I found that if I get a Molex power connector from a computer PSU that the female end is circular but can be flattened and fit into the plug securely. I chose the red wire from the psu molex to use obviously and then tapped into that wire for both radar and alp. I ran the power cable from here underneath the screen area and behind the drivers carpet to the brains for both.
Speakers. Unfortunately one speaker cannot be used for both radar and laser. So I had to put both in there. I found a tight but perfect spot for it and I can hear both quite well. The laser comes with a speaker if you get the hifi control set. I used 3m double sided foam tape and taped the two speakers together and then used double sided foam tape and mounted the speakers here.
USB I wanted USB for the radar for updates later and the ALP needs it for config and firmware updates. I used the driver side kick panel to mount the usb ports. The beltronics comes with a nice usb mount but the ALP does not. I got a StarTech panel mount cable (seen in pic below) so it would look cleaner. I will paint the screws black later.
Top is beltronics and lower is the ALP
ALP USER HINT: I found near where we tapped the 12v switchable power the cables going to the USB ports near the cigarette lighter port. You can disconnect one of these and buy and adapter on amazon, and plug your ALP into this and use one of your ports for the ALP USB. I decided on the drivers kick panel since I was already putting the beltronics there, BUT if you got the STI-R Plus head only with the ALP then this may be a great option for you.
See this pic that shows the two connectors in black on the right pic
INSERT TNphoto
Disconnect it and it’s a mini USB connector
AMAZON LINK TO USB ADAPTER
Front bumper sensors and getting through the firewall.
Sensor Placement: Ok, now on to the sensors in the front bumper. I first figured out where I wanted my sensors. I finally decided to put them in the locations as you see in the pic below. I did not want to cut a hole in the nosecone as I have seen someone do (but was really clean) and wanted a little more discreet. I have had the radar behind the bumper of my G for years and its worked fine so I had no problem putting it behind my nosecone. The GPS module was put near here as well for fastest pickup as in the cabin its tough to get signals out and in.
Front Disassembly and Wiring: First you will need to pop off the nosecone off. Autopilot cars will have sensors they will need to disconnect here. I’m going to say search for this if you don’t know how to get this off. It’s easy. Now remove the rubber seal around the frunk. Remove the carpeted liner of the frunk. Next the side black panels pop off by pulling up and away from the metal clips that are around the frunk edge. The big rubber stopper (mushroom shaped) that is on each one of them will slide through when you pull the panel up. Next is the back panel. It pops up as well. Set these aside.
When the liner is out of the frunk, you will see 4 nuts that hold the plastic frunk in place. These are 2 different sizes. Remove these and remove the frunk. You are now left with this.
There are 4 clips that hold the back piece that attaches to the windshield on. I highlighted the areas in Yellow. The lower areas have a rubber boot over them and will have to move the boot out of the way to get to them.
With the 4 clips out this piece pops up, but will not come off due to the wipers being in the way. I was not about to remove the wiper arms. I was able to work around it. The left side area has the air filter. Remove that and there are 2 screws holding the air filter holder in. Sorry I don’t have a pic of this.
Now rout the cables to the rear firewall area as I did seen in green.
Be sure to keep the wire below this beam as the frunk sets on it.
Radar: You will want to find the place for your radar antenna. I mounted mine with double sided foam tape and used multiple tapes stacked to get the detector level. Also make sure the detector is facing forward straight and not at an angle and not up or down. I used a mini bubble to make sure it was level. The below pic you will see how much tape I had to use to level it. One tape in the back and about 5 pieces in the front. I did not use the mounting brackets. I have this done on the G and it works great. The 3M foam take is weatherproof as well. Make sure you wipe the support beam down from dirt, dust and debris.
Laser: The laser sensors I put below the nose cone and into the grill. I saw someone have the lasers double sided taped the the nosecone but that is not a level part on the bottom of the nosecone. I cut the grill with some wire cutters and x-acto knives to a point the sensors would be level and straight forward facing.
I ran the 4 wires (2 laser, 1 radar antenna, 1 GPS for radar) toward the passenger firewall area.
HELPFUL HINT: I put a small piece of painters blue tape around all connectors of the laser sensor that belong to the driver side so you can differentiate passenger from driver in case of troubleshooting.
Continued, next post ->
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