Installed Morimoto X.DRL LED's
07-05-14, 11:58 PM
#1
Driver School Candidate
Thread Starter
Installed Morimoto X.DRL LED's
I just partially finished my install of my Morimoto X.DRL LED's on my 2010 and I must say it looks brilliant. Depending what angle you are looking at them they are either very white or have a nice blue hue to them. They match my headlights perfectly.
My headlights have stock D4S bulbs but I have modified the AFS projectors. I swapped out the Fresnel lenses and installed a pair of 2.5" TSX clear lenses. They produce the same color as the LED's (with a little extra "prism" effect added) and have an extremely sharp cut-off.
I didn't use the harness with the DRL's but directly soldered all connections and then used 3M Scotch 33+ electrical tape. Then flex seal. Just a little overboard but I don't want electrical issues. I found a good ground and that was that. For the positive lead I strung a black 18 awg stranded wire to the fuse box (the box with the fuse puller). I used black because I wanted it to look as factory as possible.
I connected this wire, via a piggyback "Add-a-Circuit" fuse (rated up to 10A) lead and wired it into the IGN2 fuse. This is the top fuse, it is red, and is 10A. This way the the LED DRL's turn on and off with the ignition so I never forget to leave them on and possibly drain the battery (though they draw 70W total). There are other ways to wire it but I chose this one as it was the simplest bet for now until I move on to the next phase.
I've attached a few pics that show the piggyback fuse, what it looks like in the fuse box (it's a stock picture from the seller), a Plasmaglow stainless steel on/of switch ($30!!) I plan on using next week, as well as a current picture of what they look like on the car (in daylight unfortunately).
What I plan on doing with the switch is wiring it from the ignition fuse previously mentioned. I will snake another 18 awg wire from the piggy back fuse through the firewall and attach it to the switch. I'll find another good ground located near the switch and then I'll be cookin' with gas.
This has its own hurdles though. Where do I put the switch? I will receive it Monday from Amazon and, from what I can gather, will require a 3/4" hole. From what I have read it is of good quality and is sharp-looking. I initially ordered a white one and then was like, man, what was I thinking?! I need a green one! So I ordered the green one and I will have an extra switch. Now I just have to find a good place to drill a hole. Preferably something like a part that can be replaced or pulled out---such as the area near the ECT switch and seat warmer's/cooler's.
Why the switch, anyway? The answer is that with the power lead being connected to IGN2 the LED's will be on when my projector's are on. Or when the stock DRL's are on (the high beam at half-wattage) if I don't turn on the headlights. To work around that I "found" a MCVI driver, bought an OBDII --> USB cable, downloaded the latest TechStream software and have installed it on my laptop (using Virtual Box as a Virtual machine to run the 32-bit program in Win XP Pro SP3 within my Win7 64-bit environment). With this I will be able to do a host of things. One of them is disabling the factory DRL's. You will be hard-pressed to find a dealership that will do this and if they do it will be about $135). It's against the law in many states. Seems foolish as I have installed far brighter DRL's that are more efficient brightness-wise and in terms of long service life.
Anyhow, that's where I am now. Have to find a place to mount the switch. One thing I forgot to add about why I want the switch---I want to turn it off at night and just use my headlights and turn it on during the day without using my headlights.
Cheers,
Stiles17
My headlights have stock D4S bulbs but I have modified the AFS projectors. I swapped out the Fresnel lenses and installed a pair of 2.5" TSX clear lenses. They produce the same color as the LED's (with a little extra "prism" effect added) and have an extremely sharp cut-off.
I didn't use the harness with the DRL's but directly soldered all connections and then used 3M Scotch 33+ electrical tape. Then flex seal. Just a little overboard but I don't want electrical issues. I found a good ground and that was that. For the positive lead I strung a black 18 awg stranded wire to the fuse box (the box with the fuse puller). I used black because I wanted it to look as factory as possible.
I connected this wire, via a piggyback "Add-a-Circuit" fuse (rated up to 10A) lead and wired it into the IGN2 fuse. This is the top fuse, it is red, and is 10A. This way the the LED DRL's turn on and off with the ignition so I never forget to leave them on and possibly drain the battery (though they draw 70W total). There are other ways to wire it but I chose this one as it was the simplest bet for now until I move on to the next phase.
I've attached a few pics that show the piggyback fuse, what it looks like in the fuse box (it's a stock picture from the seller), a Plasmaglow stainless steel on/of switch ($30!!) I plan on using next week, as well as a current picture of what they look like on the car (in daylight unfortunately).
What I plan on doing with the switch is wiring it from the ignition fuse previously mentioned. I will snake another 18 awg wire from the piggy back fuse through the firewall and attach it to the switch. I'll find another good ground located near the switch and then I'll be cookin' with gas.
This has its own hurdles though. Where do I put the switch? I will receive it Monday from Amazon and, from what I can gather, will require a 3/4" hole. From what I have read it is of good quality and is sharp-looking. I initially ordered a white one and then was like, man, what was I thinking?! I need a green one! So I ordered the green one and I will have an extra switch. Now I just have to find a good place to drill a hole. Preferably something like a part that can be replaced or pulled out---such as the area near the ECT switch and seat warmer's/cooler's.
Why the switch, anyway? The answer is that with the power lead being connected to IGN2 the LED's will be on when my projector's are on. Or when the stock DRL's are on (the high beam at half-wattage) if I don't turn on the headlights. To work around that I "found" a MCVI driver, bought an OBDII --> USB cable, downloaded the latest TechStream software and have installed it on my laptop (using Virtual Box as a Virtual machine to run the 32-bit program in Win XP Pro SP3 within my Win7 64-bit environment). With this I will be able to do a host of things. One of them is disabling the factory DRL's. You will be hard-pressed to find a dealership that will do this and if they do it will be about $135). It's against the law in many states. Seems foolish as I have installed far brighter DRL's that are more efficient brightness-wise and in terms of long service life.
Anyhow, that's where I am now. Have to find a place to mount the switch. One thing I forgot to add about why I want the switch---I want to turn it off at night and just use my headlights and turn it on during the day without using my headlights.
Cheers,
Stiles17
Last edited by stiles17; 07-06-14 at 12:03 AM.
07-08-14, 12:08 PM
#2
Looks amazing! I'm glad you used a fuse tap rather than wrap a wire around a fuse and shove it in there. It's a dangerous fire hazard and breaks your few hundred dollar fuse box.
Good job!
Good job!
Looks good.
08-02-14, 05:17 PM
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I just partially finished my install of my Morimoto X.DRL LED's on my 2010 and I must say it looks brilliant. Depending what angle you are looking at them they are either very white or have a nice blue hue to them. They match my headlights perfectly.
My headlights have stock D4S bulbs but I have modified the AFS projectors. I swapped out the Fresnel lenses and installed a pair of 2.5" TSX clear lenses. They produce the same color as the LED's (with a little extra "prism" effect added) and have an extremely sharp cut-off.
I didn't use the harness with the DRL's but directly soldered all connections and then used 3M Scotch 33+ electrical tape. Then flex seal. Just a little overboard but I don't want electrical issues. I found a good ground and that was that. For the positive lead I strung a black 18 awg stranded wire to the fuse box (the box with the fuse puller). I used black because I wanted it to look as factory as possible.
I connected this wire, via a piggyback "Add-a-Circuit" fuse (rated up to 10A) lead and wired it into the IGN2 fuse. This is the top fuse, it is red, and is 10A. This way the the LED DRL's turn on and off with the ignition so I never forget to leave them on and possibly drain the battery (though they draw 70W total). There are other ways to wire it but I chose this one as it was the simplest bet for now until I move on to the next phase.
I've attached a few pics that show the piggyback fuse, what it looks like in the fuse box (it's a stock picture from the seller), a Plasmaglow stainless steel on/of switch ($30!!) I plan on using next week, as well as a current picture of what they look like on the car (in daylight unfortunately).
What I plan on doing with the switch is wiring it from the ignition fuse previously mentioned. I will snake another 18 awg wire from the piggy back fuse through the firewall and attach it to the switch. I'll find another good ground located near the switch and then I'll be cookin' with gas.
This has its own hurdles though. Where do I put the switch? I will receive it Monday from Amazon and, from what I can gather, will require a 3/4" hole. From what I have read it is of good quality and is sharp-looking. I initially ordered a white one and then was like, man, what was I thinking?! I need a green one! So I ordered the green one and I will have an extra switch. Now I just have to find a good place to drill a hole. Preferably something like a part that can be replaced or pulled out---such as the area near the ECT switch and seat warmer's/cooler's.
Why the switch, anyway? The answer is that with the power lead being connected to IGN2 the LED's will be on when my projector's are on. Or when the stock DRL's are on (the high beam at half-wattage) if I don't turn on the headlights. To work around that I "found" a MCVI driver, bought an OBDII --> USB cable, downloaded the latest TechStream software and have installed it on my laptop (using Virtual Box as a Virtual machine to run the 32-bit program in Win XP Pro SP3 within my Win7 64-bit environment). With this I will be able to do a host of things. One of them is disabling the factory DRL's. You will be hard-pressed to find a dealership that will do this and if they do it will be about $135). It's against the law in many states. Seems foolish as I have installed far brighter DRL's that are more efficient brightness-wise and in terms of long service life.
Anyhow, that's where I am now. Have to find a place to mount the switch. One thing I forgot to add about why I want the switch---I want to turn it off at night and just use my headlights and turn it on during the day without using my headlights.
Cheers,
Stiles17
My headlights have stock D4S bulbs but I have modified the AFS projectors. I swapped out the Fresnel lenses and installed a pair of 2.5" TSX clear lenses. They produce the same color as the LED's (with a little extra "prism" effect added) and have an extremely sharp cut-off.
I didn't use the harness with the DRL's but directly soldered all connections and then used 3M Scotch 33+ electrical tape. Then flex seal. Just a little overboard but I don't want electrical issues. I found a good ground and that was that. For the positive lead I strung a black 18 awg stranded wire to the fuse box (the box with the fuse puller). I used black because I wanted it to look as factory as possible.
I connected this wire, via a piggyback "Add-a-Circuit" fuse (rated up to 10A) lead and wired it into the IGN2 fuse. This is the top fuse, it is red, and is 10A. This way the the LED DRL's turn on and off with the ignition so I never forget to leave them on and possibly drain the battery (though they draw 70W total). There are other ways to wire it but I chose this one as it was the simplest bet for now until I move on to the next phase.
I've attached a few pics that show the piggyback fuse, what it looks like in the fuse box (it's a stock picture from the seller), a Plasmaglow stainless steel on/of switch ($30!!) I plan on using next week, as well as a current picture of what they look like on the car (in daylight unfortunately).
What I plan on doing with the switch is wiring it from the ignition fuse previously mentioned. I will snake another 18 awg wire from the piggy back fuse through the firewall and attach it to the switch. I'll find another good ground located near the switch and then I'll be cookin' with gas.
This has its own hurdles though. Where do I put the switch? I will receive it Monday from Amazon and, from what I can gather, will require a 3/4" hole. From what I have read it is of good quality and is sharp-looking. I initially ordered a white one and then was like, man, what was I thinking?! I need a green one! So I ordered the green one and I will have an extra switch. Now I just have to find a good place to drill a hole. Preferably something like a part that can be replaced or pulled out---such as the area near the ECT switch and seat warmer's/cooler's.
Why the switch, anyway? The answer is that with the power lead being connected to IGN2 the LED's will be on when my projector's are on. Or when the stock DRL's are on (the high beam at half-wattage) if I don't turn on the headlights. To work around that I "found" a MCVI driver, bought an OBDII --> USB cable, downloaded the latest TechStream software and have installed it on my laptop (using Virtual Box as a Virtual machine to run the 32-bit program in Win XP Pro SP3 within my Win7 64-bit environment). With this I will be able to do a host of things. One of them is disabling the factory DRL's. You will be hard-pressed to find a dealership that will do this and if they do it will be about $135). It's against the law in many states. Seems foolish as I have installed far brighter DRL's that are more efficient brightness-wise and in terms of long service life.
Anyhow, that's where I am now. Have to find a place to mount the switch. One thing I forgot to add about why I want the switch---I want to turn it off at night and just use my headlights and turn it on during the day without using my headlights.
Cheers,
Stiles17
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