Installing a phone holder in my S2000

The Problem

Anyone with a Honda S2000 will tell you there's practically no logical place to mount a phone in it other than on the windshield with suction cups. Sure there are solutions that allow you to mount a phone down by the gear shift, but if I have look down that far to see my screen, I might as well leave my phone in the cupholder. I also don't like having the phone obscuring part of the windshield nor the possibility that suction cups might fail as I'm making a high G turn. What I really want is a way to mount the phone on the vast emptiness of the dash. Turns out there's a company that's figured out how to do just that with only minor modifications in hidden areas to my S (all of which can be visually returned back to stock).

The Goods

Modifry is a company that makes cool custom stuff just for the S2000. They have a custom bracket, that attaches between the bezel of my console and the dash. The other end of the bracket has hole patterns for various mounting solutions. I opted for the ProClip holder which, although a bit pricey, had the most convenient way of inserting and removing my phone (the phone just slides in like a holster for a gun).

ProClip iPhone5 holder (left) and Modify S2000 Dash Bracket (right)

Installation

Blue painter's tape protects the dash while I
remove the hidden inner lip of plastic

There's a very detailed sheet of instructions that come with the bracket. I was able to follow them pretty easily, however someone on youtube posted a howto which helped immensely with the process. I was able to put several layers of tape over a '"5 in 1 painter's tool" and use that instead of a professional pry bar they recommended. Cutting the hidden plastic wasn't nearly as scary as others had mentioned on forums. I pretty much cut away all I needed on my first try. I did take several scoring passes with my utility knife until it finally went completely through the plastic. I did cover the areas I was protecting w/ blue painter's tape, but I'm not sure how much protection that really provided since my knife could have easily pierced through both it and the vinyl dash. I also had to scrounge around my nuts & bolts organizer for something that would fasten the ProClip holder to the bracket. I'm just using some nuts and bolts w/o any thread locking compound so we'll have to see if any of them get loose over time.

Final thoughts

The whole setup looks like the picture below. As you can see, the bracket puts the phone in just the right position without obstructing any view of the windshield. The ProClip seems like a good fit for my phone, but the level of effort they put into telling you that you can't return it once you use it, is a bit off putting, especially for such a relatively expensive product. I could understand that being the case for cheap low margin knockoffs, but ProClip seems to be marketing itself as a premium solution. As such, I would expect a much more liberal return policy. Just my 2 cents.

ProClip mounted to the Modifry Dash Br