I installed a Startac hands free kit in my S70 earlier this year. You can pick up all of the Startac accessories on eBay for next to nothing now. These phones still work great. If you want a phone that is good as a phone and don't care about color screens, email access, playing games, etc, then these are still great phones (model 7868 variety). Someone was asking how to do this over at Swedespeed and it motivated me to put this together.

I put together some notes and pictures in case others are interested in what I did either specifically with Startac or in general.

-Power connections are made to the accessory block under the dash. Your owners manual will list the signals available there.

-I stuffed the base unit into a cavity on the drivers side just to the left of the center console up by the dash switches (near the sunroof switch for example)

-For an antenna I used a Stealth Antenna. It glues to the windshield behind the rear view mirror.

-The microphone is clipped to the rear view mirror support.

-At the same time I ran hardwired power for my radar detector that also comes out by the rear view mirror. I looped the cord around the mirror bracket in case the detector comes loose. In that case it will just dangle from the mirror instead of falling and ripping the wiring from the headliner.

-Wires for the antenna, microphone, and radar detector power run along the top of the windshield under the headliner and then down the A-pillar and end up under the dash on the driver's side. You have to remove the plastic A-pillar trim to run the wires (or at least pull it away).

-The speaker is installed in the little storage cavity under the "ash" tray. It just sits in there.

-The phone itself sits in a cradle on top of the center console just to the right of the Winter mode switch by the gear selector. I used a piece of strapping metal and bent it in a double L shape. One end is secured to the passenger side front seat front attachment bolt. From there it goes a couple inches across the floor, makes a 90 degree turn and runs up the side of the center console. Once it gets to the top of the console it makes another 90 degree turn to lay on top. The phone cradle just attaches to that. I put some rubber feet under it so I don't scratch the console.

-To run the wires, I had to remove the center console. Instructions on how to do this an be found on Bay13.

The whole installation required no permanent changes to be made (i.e. holes drilled). It wasn't super hard....A lot of time was spent scratching my head to think of a way to install the whole mess without making permanent changes.

Here are some pics:

http://brickboard.com/GALLERY/images/3741.jpg
http://brickboard.com/GALLERY/images/3742.jpg
http://brickboard.com/GALLERY/images/3743.jpg
http://brickboard.com/GALLERY/images/3744.jpg
http://brickboard.com/GALLERY/images/3745.jpg

I also did the same install on my 240. I can post pictures of that if anyone is interested. In the case of the 240, I attached the strapping metal to the lower right side of the lower storage compartment. Also a nice install.


-Ted