I wanted a easy to fit det cans that don´t require me to fit a knock sensor or fiddling with analog det-cans as many engines
are just horrible to fit these things to.
Analog det-cans
So I remember my friend having a aligator clamp that is used to detect vibrations in suspension systems and such.
Basically a mic you can hook up to anything and then listen to the mic from within the car while you drive, this helps find bad bushings and or joint and so on.
I decided to make one for det detection.
Firstly I bought one of these microphones
http://www.maplin.co.uk/omni-directional-ultra-miniature-microphone-4566Cost : 3.49 pounds
And one of these in black
http://www.maplin.co.uk/50a-insulated-battery-clips-45675Cost : 2.79pounds
And some
MONO Mini jack extension lead of 2 or 3meters. I cut of one of the ends and soldered the microphone to the wires.
So total cost less then about 10pounds.
I then used a plastic glue gun and glued the mic to the aligator clip like so
And this is what it looks like finished
Now you still need heaphones so the choice there is yours. I bought some noise cancelling ones that didn´t work out as well
as I wanted but get some that are able to silence out as much outside sound as possible or maybe even little earplug ones and some
ear protection like so
Now normally from the internet I have seen people buy little gadgets that allow them to connect the microphone and the headphones and then listen to the microphone.
However since you are going to be tuning with a laptop then I figured that connecting the mic to the laptop and then the headphones as well would be the easier solution, unfortunately the laptop I´m using at work for tuning has a bad mic input.
But I have tried this out with another laptop and the sound is as clear as day, If the engine is off I can hear gearchanges and throttle shutting.
I´m still missing a equalizer program I can adjust the microphone input to isolate some frequencies away for even better operation but
for now this will work just like analog det cans.
And with the laptop you can adjust the volume anyway you like.