The Blind Spot

[LateApex]

Anybody driving the Coupe knows "the Blind Spot". It has got to be 60 degrees wide and is where the PS rear pillar is. Strapped into the Simpson harness emphasizes that blind spot. If one is at an intersection where one road intersects the other at a 45-degree angle, you just cannot see any traffic approaching from the right.

I can't always have a passenger in the car who can give me the "all clear". I've taken to swinging out to the center line, and cocking the car to the right, kinda like what one might do if they were driving a UPS box truck, to get the view at approaching traffic. Not elegant

I am wondering what the creative juices of this esteemed forum have come up with to address this issue. Little dome stick on mirrors on the BRE PS side mirror doesn't cut it. I have an Alpine Deck installed in the dash with support for cameras, but haven't figured out where I should mount a camera, and how to plumb it so that it might seamlessly be enabled when needed.

All thoughts appreciated!

[Nigel Allen]

Retractable seatbelts for daily driving.

[Rsnake]

I have the audiovox T9 rear view mirror camera and I can change lanes by looking at it as its 170 degree view.
Highly recommended.

[Namrups]

I have the audiovox T9 rear view mirror camera and I can change lanes by looking at it as its 170 degree view.
Highly recommended.

X2. Just installed mine along with the Peter Brock mirrors.
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=182488&d=1680552399

[Rian_Colorado]

Hey Bob!

I set mine up to display on my Alpine head unit (have a switch on the dash that will allow me to have that on 100% time should I want). Camera is one that mounts to the license plate mounting bolts (looks like it's part of the license plate frame). Should allow me to see that spot pretty well. (as long as the camera is on at least....).

Also, I saw one guy that set this up to turn that camera on and display when the he hit the turn stalk to signal a lane change. Pretty damned trick....

RR

[LateApex]

Hey Bob!

I set mine up to display on my Alpine head unit (have a switch on the dash that will allow me to have that on 100% time should I want). Camera is one that mounts to the license plate mounting bolts (looks like it's part of the license plate frame). Should allow me to see that spot pretty well. (as long as the camera is on at least....).

Also, I saw one guy that set this up to turn that camera on and display when the he hit the turn stalk to signal a lane change. Pretty damned trick....

RR

Which camera did you settle on Rian?

[Rian_Colorado]

I didn't go too crazy - just got this from Amazon. The camera wiring is the same as 80% of cameras out there h so if I want to change later it should be easy

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07GWXFQJB?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

[Slow and Slightly Angry]

Are we talking auto-vox? Seems reasonable but want to make sure it's the same thing.

[LateApex]

Are we talking auto-vox? Seems reasonable but want to make sure it's the same thing.

Sorry about the delay in my response. Spring has sprung here in CO, and there are too few minutes to spend on the forum.

My Alpine deck, like Rian's has both rear view and front view camera support, The rear view is integrated with reverse gear (or reverse bulb) actuation and parking guidelines, and so forth. It is really a good option in many ways, as for one, you have a greatly expanded view to the rear (when for example the camera is mounted as a license plate bracket device). Some cameras come with nuclear powered reverse lights too.

But I started thinking about this a bit, and realized that I don't use the rear view camera on my daily driver. This is more of a philosophical thing, born of driving motorcycles I suspect, where I don't use mirrors much: I turn my head to see what is going on around me. Of course this is problematic with the Big-A$$ blind spot on the coupe. I need a good view off the rear right quarter.

So I have settled on a Natika WD-779 camera. It comes with the standard harness for mating with a head unit, and is cheap'ish on Amazon. I am going to connect this to the front camera RCA jack. And I am going to mount it on the roll bar behind my head, angled to the right a smidge to capture the blind spot area. Wiring to this location involves wrapping the roll cage (I don't have to modify my harness through the tranny tunnel to the rear lights). I can use the Alpine touch screen to flip to that view in a moment.

Have not installed yet.

Go-Pro is installed on the PS-side of the roll bar. The rear view will be on the DS. I am sure there is a joke to plumb there somewhere :-)

[LateApex]

FWIW .,..

The Alpine deck, and likely others, have a "Nanny feature", where the "Parking brake" lead must be grounded to be able to access "Setup" features via the head-end interface, so that somehow one doesn't find themselves configuring their stereo system in a "distracted driving" manner. What a PITA:-). As you are wiring any head-end unit, I'll suggest reading the fine print ... Ughh :-) Else, what should be a simple matter of hooking up a rear (or front) view camera can turn into an exercise of upending your dash to find some wire that must be grounded. Attention to detail!

Okay ... enuf griping ... After all, I did build my dash to be "easily" removed :-)

[Rian_Colorado]

There's a way around that issue with the Alpine deck.

https://www.amazon.com/PAC-TR-4-Remote-Turn-on-Module/dp/B0002J22BE/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=alpine+parking+brake+bypass&qid=1682490230&sprefix=alpine+parking+%2Caps%2C127&sr=8-1

Fools the head unit into thinking the parking brake is on.
NO you can't just ground the existing wire to fool it - the damned engineers got wise to that - so now you need one of these with a delay.

[LateApex]

Thanx Rian.

Yes, you cannot just ground the parking brake lead. And different head units have different protocols. I believe that for the Alpine iLX-W650 I have, the protocol is set, release and set the parking brake before the unit will allow "hazardous activities". I tried grounding. No-go. So I am installing a momentary switch, normally closed, in a very small form factor. I believe this will resolve my access problem. This means I need to drill an appropriate hole in my carbon fiber dash for this little switch, which I will place close to the stereo head. One of the mysterious hacks that I have done;-)

Of course, one might question my sanity for installing a stereo unit ++ in the first place. Hah!

Next up is a decent communication / headset system between driver and passenger. THAT is going to require some brain cells! For the initiated on this forum, this car is loud, you must wear hearing protection, and _IF_ you have a traveling companion, you too will tackle this problem at some point too :-) Not as simple as it may seem ...

Sure am glad I designed my dash to be removed as needed to study wire colors ;-)

Looking forward to seeing your ride after it comes back from the paint shop Rian!!

[LateApex]

Just to put a wrap on this hack :-)

I purchased a Natika camera (available on Amazon for $34). This is a nice package, with zip-ties, foam pads, various mounting options, configurable via snipping jumpers, and with good quality instructions. I mounted this behind my head on the "roll bar" aimed to the right rear, looking through the upper right corner of the hatch glass. It is small, and I wrapped wiring around the driver's side upper frame and down the A-pillar to connect power and video. Pretty clean actually, although I will likely 3D-print a better mount for that round roll bar with a canted camera. That was easy.

Finding 12V and ground was straight-forward, as I already had wiring in place for my radar detector which I coupled to.

The Alpine deck I have is the iLX-W650, which I had chosen as it is a "short" double-DIN form factor. In other words, it fits in the space behind the dash. Alpine makes good stuff which I have used in other cars. Rian_Colorado has a nice alternative with a remote screen, which is handy if you have a very busy dash and wiring scenario.

The Alpine decks have a "nanny feature", which disallows one to configure things, like bluetooth devices, ... or cameras ..., without a certain protocol. That protocol is engaging, disengaging, and re-engaging the parking brake. Yes, this is why there is a parking brake lead in the head-unit wiring. Alas, there is no parking brake wire in the Ron Francis harness, and to Rian's earlier post, one cannot just ground that head unit parking brake lead, which I had thought might solve the puzzle initially. I call this a puzzle, because Alpine documentation does not address this protocol. Other head units may have different protocols.

The solution is very straightforward. I found a micro, Normally Closed, push button switch for about $3 on eBay, and drilled a 9/32" hole for the switch under the dash to the left of the steering wheel on the flange, and tied the switch to ground and to the parking brake lead from the head unit. Now I can configure cameras and other nanny-feature protected items on my head-unit. Shoulda done this a while ago ...

To the camera setup: The Alpine deck has two RCA video jacks for cameras; One is labeled Rear and the other Front. The Rear camera feature is usually triggered by a reverse switch (or reverse light power source). It also comes with "Parking Lines". A Front camera does not require a trigger, and has no head unit Parking Line artifacts. I decided to go with the Front camera option for simplicity. I think either option is workable, but I'll leave that to others to comment on.

However, a front camera should not generally reverse (or mirror) the image. This is an interesting thing (to me anyway) to think about. If we look at a display on the dash that is showing an image behind us, we are more than used to that image being reversed, or mirrored. That is exactly the configuration one should choose for a camera aimed at the blind spot. DO NOT cut the "front camera" jumper: rather let the camera reverse the video image auto-magically, which is the default.

Ta-Da! I have a great wide-angle view through through the upper right corner of the glass hatch, which I can use to help me negotiate "diagonal intersections", or other situations where the blind spot has me squirming in my seat.

Biasing the camera view to the right rear, as opposed to relying on a wide-angle lens mounted to for example the license plate bracket (pointing straight aft) is really needed IMO. Having retractable seat belts is probably a really nice option as well, but really check this out carefully. On the track, or on the highway, the blind spot is not a big issue. Navigating angled intersections is the challenge. I'd hate to be taken out by a mini-van :-)

Hope this helps :-)

'Nuff for now ... Bob

[rhk118]

Anyone consider to using a 170 degree digital rearview camera and mount the camera in the center of the rear rollbar pointing out the hatch glass? Was thinking that might at least allow me to see cars coming up on the blind spot....going to be going with ray dots for mirrors.