ECU, Wiring, Sensors
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By kingjmack
#257583 Well, with alot of time and little money, what is a person to do? I know, install a VTEC light. It's a mod I've been wanting to do for a while, but just haven't gotten around to it until now. I'm not sure who to give credit to because I looked thru so many DIY's on the internet and nobody really had what I wanted to do, so I'm just going to say THANKS!! The light is where the SRS light used to be.

I started by removing the trim around the insturment cluster. Remove these two screws
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Then, pop out the hazard switch and remove the screw behind it
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Now you can gently pull on the trim and it should come out of the dash. The Clock will have to be unplugged. If I was thinking, I would have done the amber clock mod while the trim was out.

Remove the four screws that hold the cluster in the dash
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and the cluster will come out. I think there are 5 plugs going to the back of the cluster.

Now we have to take the front off the cluster
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I used a small flathead screw driver to ppop it loose.

The plastic button will have to come off the trip odometer reset to get the rest of the cluster apart
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Once that is done, you should end up with this
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Last edited by kingjmack on Wed Jun 01, 2011 11:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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By kingjmack
#257585 The tach and speedometer will have to come out to get the SRS light box out, so turn the cluster over and remove these six screws
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The gauges should come right out and you should end up with this
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Turn the cluster back over and depress this tab
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and the SRS box will come right out

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There are two screws on the circuit board that need to come out
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so we can get this thing out
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Now just take a small screwdriver and pop the red plastic out
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Let's set this stuff aside and work on the front of the gauges.
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By kingjmack
#257587 This is what we will pop out
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There isn't really anything on the back that holds it in
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So you can take your finger and push it out
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Once it is out
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Take some 400-600 grit sandpaper and lightly sand until the red "SRS" comes off

Next I put clear label tape in my label maker and printed out "VTEC" in a BOLD block-style font
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I stuck the label on front of the "SRS" tab

Then I took a green clear folder
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and cut out a square to put on top of my vtec label, and put it back in the cluster trim
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We can set this aside for now and go back to work on the light
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By kingjmack
#257589 I wasn't going to use any of the circuits on this board
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so I took my soldering iron and removed everything
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Most of the DIY's I've seen use LED's, but I chose to keep the stock bulb so no resistors were needed. I had to make some jumper wires to complete the circuit so the bulb will get power and ground. One jumper could have been used, but I goofed when I put the first jumper and realized it wouldn't complete the circuit, so I added the second one
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Next, I screwed the board back into the box and checked pluged in the yellow plug to double check that I had everything on the right circuit. The black/yellow wire is not needed, so I just looped it back into the connector
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Last edited by kingjmack on Wed Jun 01, 2011 11:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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By kingjmack
#257592 Next I put everything back in the cluster housing and put two coats of red sharpie on the needles
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I cut some more of my green folder to make some more green squares to put in front of the Vtec light housing
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Now the cluster is ready to go back together
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Before I put the cluster back in the dash, I took my yellow "SRS" plug and attached about 3 feet of red wire to the blue wire for power, and about 3 feet of black wire to the black wire for ground. At this point before I put everything back together, I pluged my yellow plug in back of the cluster, and took the power and ground wires and hooked them to the batter to make sure my circuit worked and the light would come on and everything as all good.

I ran the wires thru the dash. Hooked my ground to a post behind the glovebox
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I ended up running the power out to the engine bay and hooked it up to the green w/yellow wire right off the vtec solenoid(I'll explain this more in-depth later)
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Next I put everything back together so I could test drive this sucker!!
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Last edited by kingjmack on Wed Jun 01, 2011 3:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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By kingjmack
#257596 OK, back to the power wire for my vtec light. I had it hooked up to the green w/yellow wire on the ECU, and the light wouldn't come on while driving. I knew the light itself worked from where I checked it earlier.
I don't know why it wasn't working so I just ran the power out to the engine bay to get the signal right off the vtec solenoid.

I'll have to look into why it will only work this way because I think the way it's connected now isn't clean enough. Any suggestions?

Anyway, this is my very first DIY and I hope that at least one person finds it useful. Please ask any qustions or point out something that needs more explination.

The only money that was spent on this project was for the green folder and the clear label tape. Everything else I already had.

Thanks!
Jeremy
Last edited by kingjmack on Wed Jun 01, 2011 11:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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By dbrooks
#257602 i like it! very thoughtful! :thumb:
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By TrailerTrash
#257611 dude thats awesome :woot:
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By Robbys89
#257752 Very neatly done man :thumb:
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By kingjmack
#257763 Thank you for the positive comments!! Also, I would like to give a HUGE shout-out to my wife and step-daughter, who put up with me and my projects! :cheers:
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By elrompetoto
#259295 4 some resin my vtec seams 2 ingage twice at around 5500 Roma the light turns on a lil dim then at around 6200 rpm the light turns really brite.... Is this normal ?