I finally got my Mazdaspeed Rear Bumper which left me in a bit of a bind on where I could install my rear camera. My only options were to cut a hole in my third brake light from a thread I saw in here... Or to cut out the keyhole in the right side tail light.

I chose the tail light because... A.) In the 2 1/2 years I have owned the car, I have never used the key cylinder. and 2.) Figured it would be an easy plug and play deal.

Just a small flaw in that logic.... the camera was bigger than the keyhole...lol... So I brought out my trusty Dremel tool and had to carefully cut the hole to the proper dimension.

After I had installed the camera, which came out quite nice, i realized that I would have to enlarge the diameter of the key hole on the frame of the car...ughhh.... Anyways, long story short, it took about 2 hours, but now I get a much better picture, and it actually looks pretty cool....I dont think the pics do it justice.

I also added my hold bumper before the Mazdaspeed to show where the camera was placed before.

 

How come your camera have what looks like LEDs surrounding it?

 

Its actually an infrared camera. Perfect day or night vision. They glow red at night... nothing too obnoxious...just a light glow

Here is the one I bought:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Night-vision-Sup...QQcmdZViewItem

 

I like it. I only wish I had a monitor inside the car. Another member here first installed it in the keyhole as well and afterwards, installed it in the third brake light housing because of the awkward view it created. Do you have that problem? Do you have worries about your friends/family/mechanic accidentally using the key to open your trunk and scratch up your camera lens?

 

Actually, from where I had it before, the view is an INCREDIBLE improvement. The camera is also more stable, less vibration from where it was before.

I liked how the third brake light mount turned out for the one guy that posted, however, that camera was a little smaller than this one. The night vision cameras are just a bit larger, and it wouldnt fit properly.

As far as other people getting trying to get into the trunk... Its a non-issue. I am the only one that ever has the key, and if my mechanic doesnt have the sense to see that there isnt a key hole there, well... I guess I need a new mechanic. =)

Thanks for the comments though...im really happy how it turned out. I was really leary taking a Dremel to the thing.... i have messed up a few projects before with one small slip...but luckily...this time it turned out OK =)

 

So you had the camera down by the rotary accent and you didn't like the view as much as you like it now with the camera in the right tail light? I thought that putting it in the rotary accent was going to be the best deal since it's a centered view. Guess it was too low to the ground for your taste.

 

Yeah.... its all about what you like... I personally love the field of vision from the keyhole and the fact that it blends in with the car alot better

 

When you had it all the way down there, did the view really seem too low on the screen? And now that you have it on the tail light, the view on the screen doesn't seem a little too angled to the right? For instance, can you actually see an entire car that is driving behind you, or would the left side of the car get cut off?

 

Oh no.. . Its a wide angle lens... I can see all the cars on the whole road! Its all about the camera you buy. I went throught 3 different cameras before I found one that worked right, and provided full field of vision, and excellent night quality.

 

I went for a smaller less noticable camera

 

Here is a link to the entire install:
http://rx8.no-ip.org/reversecam1.htm

Good work, just make sure it doesn't leak.

 

Did you have to dremel your existing key hole to fit the smaller camera? How cool is it to have it automatically switch to the camera when you engage reverse!? Is your car a manual or automatic?

 

I wish I knew how to do that to my car.

 

Good job on the install. Any pics of how it looks on the screen?

-hS

 

rasp, did you ever get the moisture water out of the lens?

 

Looks like the camera is ths same size, but you are right, without the infrared it is less noticable. The cam you installed was my first camera... but it didnt do so well at night. When I was cutting the tail light I knew there might be issues with water so I siliconed around the entire area. So far no leaks for me. Picture quality is perfect day or night.

 

Yea, it took less than a minute to take it out and dry it. It turns out that I installed a seal backwards. It shouldn't happen again.

 

Nope, I didn't touch the tail light at all. I did have to mod the camera housing a little. If you start messing with the tail light itself you run the risk of breaking the seal which can cause it to fog up over time. I have a manual. It is really easy to make it auto switch. All I had to do is tap the reverse lights and the Xenarc did the rest.

 

on your screen thingy its says "shake that" what is that?

 

Shake that ***... new song by Eminem =) I had the MP3 player on while I took the pic

 

Hell, im on my third set of brake lights, before I even touched them with a Dremel tool... The way I see it, its just a matter of time before these start to fog up too... =P

 

damn this is hella nice! i wish i have navi in my 8. keep up the good work!

 

Eventually (still haven't gotten the time), I'll be buying one of those rear accent fog lights, and enclosing a camera inside of it. It's going to look clean as hell, and the rear accent on the back of the car will finally have a decent reason for being there.

 

Thats what I was going to do too... I think that will look sweet! I do like how clean the MS bumper looks, so im pretty happy with this set up.

I tried ordering the rear fog lights, but they are really hard to get.