Grill accent lights

[weatherdan822]

After watching the Grand-Am Rolex boys at Daytona this past weekend and rooting for my ever favorite team SpeedSource Inc. and their beautiful Mazda Rx-8, I became inspired by something they did to their car for nighttime driving. That is, install red LED lights behind the front grill, tucked up above and below the opening, so as to give the car a menacing look at night. So, has anyone ever done anything like this before? If so, what is involved? I know it doesn't seem too terribly difficult, just mount the lights, wire them and hook up a switch inside the cabin essentially, right?

 

[Atkins Dan]

I seen this on a Mercedes the other night and it looks really cool even with the wight light behind the emblem in the grill

Dan

 

[_Chris]

We have never done it but if you are mounting the lights behind the bumper and you want them to come on with your lights you could always just wire them to your headlight wiring and they will come on when you turn your lights on. Or just wire them to your parking lights. Or like you said wire them to its own switch. That would involve running the wiring inside the car.

 

[weatherdan822]

I think it would be cool to wire the lights to a switch inside the cabin, probably in the same switch bank as the headlight adjustment dial (the 4 slots to the left of the steering wheel)

 

[PocketAces]

I put blue LEDs in my lower front grille. I had my bumper off doing something else, had these extra strips from doing my footwells, so thought I'd try em up there. I don't want/like the underbody lights myself, so I was hoping for a more subtle effect going behind the grille. I had 2 strips, both about 5" long. I placed some 3M double sided tape to the underside of the front bumper, then the LEDS to that. If you pop your hood on look down below the hood latch, you'll see the frame/bumper. I put them on the underside of that. You can probably do it without removing the front bumper, but I'm not sure. I wired mine to my fogs but will eventually install a switch in my ashtray to control those together w/ the footwell LEDs. Once I wire a switch for them all, I may add another small strip behind the upper grille too. I just don't want to have all those on w/ my headlights/ignition. I would rather be able to control when they're on. Here's what I've got for pics...

 

[weatherdan822]

That's nearly exactly what I want to do, just with red LED's instead and a few more to really illuminate the whole grill. I have no idea what to do electrically though, I never leaned anything, so who could I take it to that could wire and mount everything?

 

[PocketAces]

It's really easy to do. I thought. If you are comfortable turning a wrench at all, you'll have no problems. Like I said, I had my front bumper off because I was doing something with my headlights anyway, but I'm pretty sure you can reach down to were I mounted/stuck these w/o removing the bumper. These are just LED strips from Pepboys/Autozone/Kragen. 5" strips I believe. Again, I just stuck them to the underside of the bumper/frame and ran the wires to my foglights, and spliced into those. Sealed up the connections with some silicone.
I'm runnin out for a min, I'll try to get some more detailed pics of the install for ya.
Super easy, If you're nervous about doing it yourself though, I'm sure any car audio place could do it for you.

 

[PocketAces]

After looking at the front again, you do need to remove the front bumper. Or at least loosen it and pull the upper part away, to give you access to the fog lights. I assume you have fogs lights? If so, it's that much easier.

I dont know how much different the 04 is as far as how the bumper is attached, but on my 07, there are just 4 fasteners on the front, and the clips on the sides. You can go as far as removing the 10 or so fasteners under the lip of the bumper, but that isn't totally needed. I don't remove those anymore unless I really have to. Just have a case of water or something similar sived to set the bumper on when you pull it away from the car.


The yellow arrows are where the 4 screws/fasteners are on the front. The red arrows are the clips on the side, and where you remove the couple screws in each wheel well that attach the fender liner to the bumper. Remove those screws in the wheel well first, DONT PULL ON THE CLIPS ON THE SIDE YET!, then the 4 fasteners in the front.

The screws circled yellow are self explanatory, remove those. Then the rubber stops I pointed at in red, if you look at them from the side, you'll see at spot where you can pry it up with a small flathead. Do that,then if I remember correctly, you just pull out a plastic fastener. Or maybe a screw sits underneath that rubber stopper, I don't remember. Either way, it's not too difficult.

This pic is how the bumper clips onto the side. The yellow arrows are where the screws were in the wheel well, the red circles are where the bumper and that bracket meet up to 'clip' together. Be careful with these as they are pretty easy to break if you force it the wrong way. Just gently pull the bottom part of the bumper away,from where it attached to the fender liner. Then with a small flat head, look into the seam and you can see the clips in there, gently use the flathead to pry down on those clips while you pull the bumper away.
In the first pic you can see that I just propped it up on the case of H2O, this kept me from uremoving those pesky screws along the whole underside.

This pic, the far left is the frame/bumper where I mounted the LEDs, you can see the wires running up and to the right (in this pic) to the fog lights, where I just spliced into the OEM wires and away I went putting it all back together.

 

[infamouszoltan]

I have done this. It was about 2+ years ago but it is incredibly easy!

 

[Incdalton]

 

[WillD]

Your picture isn't showing up Incdalton. Try hosting it with Imageshack or Minus.