New ZR4: Install Pictures, Highway Tales, and Questions

[Lucky225]

yea I just looked at the mute button pic when you mentioned that, hah that is slick, memtek, like I said look into Light'N'Boltz, they're a little pricey (like $30 for 2), but well worth it

[focalcivic]

There is no issue leaving the rear head attached to the lower bolts, since the rear head is minor protection if none, but more of a receiver, and with the rear you will not block illumination.

[TSi+WRX]

Good stuff, John, and a big welcome to a fellow Buckeye!

Like the others here have said, I'd also say to move the heads further up - without conclusive testing data, it's hard to say, one way or the other, but looking at your diagram above, it does seem a bit far of a reach to cover the entire headlamp units....and I would imagine that your centerline, as you move further "up" the vertical axis, would also show weaknesses.

I'd say that yellow would be ideal, particularly as you should also pay good attention to the front plate - but without some measurements as you've done, and without true testing, it's hard to tell whether or not the pink setup might actually be better.

In terms of the rear, I feel your pain - indeed, my vehicle is configured similarly, in terms of the rear plate illumination, and I also could not put the rear head (my ZR3) above the plate.

In residing "under" the plate, you now have two considerations:

(1) The jammer head is less effective - they're now so low that they're effectively only, well, effective for direct-plate shots, in terms of protection. Don't carry any illusions in this respect, my fellow Escort user and Buckeye - particularly for vehicles of your size, and with such a rear hardpoint profile, rear jamming is *not* something to be optimistic about. I see my rear ZR3 head as a receiver only - with the primary benefit being that it will alert me to the direction of the incoming LIDAR threat.

(2) Regardless of performance concerns, make sure that the head is properly leveled - it looks from your picture that there's a bit of incline to the plate-mount plane (this is true on my car), so you may need to bend the bracket a bit (or shim), to achieve good placement/aim.

If you do bring the head up and over the plate, aftermarket lighting solutions (LED strips, LED-impregnated bolts, etc.) can allow you to work around the illumination issue (be sure to double-check that the aftermarket solutions do offer enough light, of the correct "color," to the plate, too), and if you get creative with some pieces of plastic or metal, you can also effect - if there's sufficient space - an "above the plate" mounting by "extending" the factory rear jammer head's bracket, and fitting the bracket *behind* the plate, allowing only the jammer head to drape over the rear plate.

[John From Cincinnati]

Thanks everyone for chiming in. Few things to update. I messed around with relocating the front heads. I actually bent one of the supplied brackets to the point that I stressed it too much and it broke. Luckily Bel/Escort, being right up the road, was kind enough to offer 2 replacements for free (shout out to David, good guy up there). I bent some temporary brackets out of light gauge aluminum and mounted the heads roughly in the spots indicated by the yellow bars. Mounting with the replacement brackets is going to be difficult. The plastic portion of the top part of the bumper is nowhere near level, requiring a pretty extreme bend in the bracket, which the bracket doesn't like one bit. We'll see how it goes. I am going to go with the yellow bar spots unless someone makes a strong case in favor of the pink. I feel that the yellow more adequately centers me between the headlights and license plate both vertically and horizontally. With the pink spots, the edge of the shifter head is roughly 24" from the edge of the head light, which I'm not entirely comfortable with. In the yellow spots, I should have no more than 18-20" out to the very edge of the headlights, and a couple inches less from each head to the headlight. I will go with Veil on the headlights as well.

As for the rear, I'm probably going to go with mounting the head on the lip on the back bumper directly above the license plate. This picture Ironic Police Car Picture shows the lip I'm referring to better than my crappy picture. I think it will be much more level, and will alleviate any light blocking issues. I plan to Veil the crap out of the actual tail light sections of the rear, but it would take an awful lot to cover that entire rear area. Hopefully the rest of that area with the exception of the tail lights isn't too reflective. With the addition of Veil and the fact that the vehicle is black, it's probably as good as I'm going to get with the ZR4 rear, and I'm just going to treat it as a receiver from here on out.

[MEM-TEK]

Either the yellow or pink locations -- not too much difference there. Notably, for the rear, definitely shoot a night flash shot of the rear of your car. You need to find out where the rear corner-cube reflectors are installed on your rear tail lights. The flash camera shot will show where they are since they will stand out in the photo plain as day. Those things are critical to cover with Veil.

[los scion xa]

I did install my self I didn't think it wood work till I was doing 58 in a 30 the Escort 9500i when't off lasr shifter on the Escort ZR4 Jammer stated jamming the cop looked at his gunn and I keeped on going. NICE

[AirMoore]

Los Scion Xa: Welcome to the board... its great to see more female members on here! (Especially ones whom do the install on their own). It looks nice. Personally I would be a bit worried about PT at closer distances, though your set-up seems to be at an optimal placement. I would look into lasershield for that front plate.


That is a hard car/automobile to cover, especially with the front plate from NY. (I live there also... in Central NY), and the troopers on the thruway, are just amazing with lidar.

In anycase nice set-up and its great to hear you had a save already! (Though thats a bit quick to be going in a 30 and hoping a jammer is going to save you... had he been using instant-on: You would be toast.)

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To the original posters, I think the moving of the head placement is a good idea. I cant wait to see some more pictures of the set-up.

[BossMan4Life]

I bet you no woman alive installed jammers on her own car.

[PMoth]

Originally Posted by BossMan4Life

I bet you no woman alive installed jammers on her own car.

Unfortunately, I think you're 100% correct on this one.

[TSi+WRX]

^ Hopefully, my baba-Anna will change this, in the years to come.

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But actually, there's always been a subset of auto-enthusiasts who are women, and many of these are, actually, DIYers.

Only more recently have I met "tuners" who fit this bill - in the past, it's always been hot-rodders of the classic Detroit genre.

Things are changing.