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View Full Version : HOWTO: Wire up those S13 Silvia Fog Lights "56k BEWARE!"


radhaz
07-23-2005, 10:02 AM
Safety Notice: Work on your car at your own risk. While this project may work flawlessly in my car it might cause your's to explode. Having said that evaluate what you are doing carefully electrical fires are no fun

Hello all I just wanted to shed some light on wiring up the silvia fog lights in the triple projectors. Many folks already know how to wire the lights into the existing circuitry by splicing into the brown and the black wire located on the old popup harness. That is initially what worked for me and I had no complaints as the pop-up button functioned as a foglight on/off button & whenever I turned on my headlights at the stalk the foglights would also come on.

It wasn't until I was following a friend that it was pointed out to me that when the headlights were on the foglights were prone to random flickering. I could resolve this problem by turning the pop-up button on but to me that wasn't an acceptable permanent solution. I decided to take the time and go over the 90 240sx schematics and figure out how to isolate the stalk from turning on the fog lights and just allowing the pop-up light to work. Initially I was overwhelmed by the mess of diagram's nissan passes off as schematics, but once I got to tracing it out on paper I was able to come up with a ridiculously easy fix. All you have to do is remove the retractor relay #4 and this knocks the headlight timing circuit out of the loop for the fog lights. In the attached schematics I took the time to highlight the path the current takes through the circuit "Blue" is for the circuit under battery power, "Green" is under alternator power, Red is for the power that gets sent from the pop-up switch to the lights (This power you can see comes from either the alternator or the battery source). I took the time to include the diagram of the engine bay and highlighted the relay to pull.

Further inspection of the relay ladder resulted in me removing all 4 retractor relay assemblies; however, if you chose to remove relay's 1 & 2 you will have to jumper the connections that are NOT across the coil. This has to be done because the relay is an NC type (Normally Closed) and when you pull the relay you open the circuit and remove the ground signal going to your headlights.

I hope this is useful for anyone out there trying to figure out how to wire up the circuit or how the circuit works. If anyone care's to point out mistakes or misconceptions I would be happy to discuss them. I am a technician and not an engineer so I'm bound to have oversimplified it :p Feel free to ask questions and I will be happy to address them.
Here is the Diagram in question (http://www.whospilledcoffee.com/a5og-coppermine/albums/userpics/10079/combined_sm01.gif)
http://www.whospilledcoffee.com/a5og-coppermine/albums/userpics/10079/combined_sm01.gif

Rittmeister
07-23-2005, 12:32 PM
Let me get this straight -

If I wire the fogs to black/brown at the popup motor plugs, and pull the #4 relay, the lights will work as follows:

1. High/low beam controlled from stalk
2. Fogs controlled ONLY from popup button, and won't come on with the stalk at all.

Correct?

HyperTek
07-23-2005, 03:01 PM
pretty nice write up.. zilvia should make a seperate forum just to sticky "how to" threads...

radhaz
07-23-2005, 04:48 PM
Let me get this straight -

If I wire the fogs to black/brown at the popup motor plugs, and pull the #4 relay, the lights will work as follows:

1. High/low beam controlled from stalk
2. Fogs controlled ONLY from popup button, and won't come on with the stalk at all.

Correct?

You are 100% correct! You can also remove relay #3 and no harm will come to your car either as it is no longer used with silvia triple projectors.

I agree about the howto forum, but there's a zilvia install's page which I've made two submission's to some time ago but they never made it up there. In fact, I don't think I've seen those pages updated since I became a member, anyway we also have the archive/faq section here which is a good place to put the useful post's. If anything we just need someone to maintain a database of the useful threads with a synopsis of the titles, but I'm not volunteering for that job.

ThatGuy
07-23-2005, 08:44 PM
Well done radhaz, have you added this to the INSTALLS section? If not, check the 4th button from the left at the top of the screen. You have to contact Mark West, but I think this write-up could be added.

radhaz
07-23-2005, 11:14 PM
Well done radhaz, have you added this to the INSTALLS section? If not, check the 4th button from the left at the top of the screen. You have to contact Mark West, but I think this write-up could be added.

C'mon now don't be a pain in the butt, read my post ...I agree about the howto forum, but there's a zilvia install's page which I've made two submission's to some time ago but they never made it up there. In fact, I don't think I've seen those pages updated since I became a member, anyway we also have the archive/faq section here which is a good place to put the useful post's. If anything we just need someone to maintain a database of the useful threads with a synopsis of the titles, but I'm not volunteering for that job.

I know the section exists and rather than derail the thread I will contact you and discuss the matter further.

ThatGuy
07-24-2005, 07:58 AM
D'oh! :doh: I PWN3D myself by not reading. Silly n00b mistake. Sorry. I'll see what I can do about the installs section. :wavey:

radhaz
12-03-2005, 07:16 AM
To the folks who have taken the time to PM or email me about the missing Diagram I apologize. As you can plainly see the image hosting that I used for said diagram is no longer around and unfortunately I am 3600 miles from the PC that I used to create the image. I had hoped this was going to make it into the installs section so this wouldn't happen but that didn't work out the way I hoped. Maybe in a few months I can get back to the old PC and rehost it somewhere for you folks but for the meantime, I apologize for the inconvenience.

Sincerely
RadHaz

projectRDM
12-03-2005, 01:42 PM
I'll do one even better. All S13s are prewired for fogs. Look in the smaller driver side fusebox, there's a relay marked 'FOG'. The plug for the switch is found taped up under the dash, and the plug for the lights is outside, beside the battery. It's a 2pin plug with a cap on it. You have to build a harness to come off of that since the dealer install kit is out of production, but it's simple, just like doing an S14.

g6civcx
01-17-2006, 12:22 PM
To summarize for everybody who is looking for info on how to wire S13 Silvia fogs, the bulb has 2 prongs. It needs to see (+) and ground. It doesn't really matter which is which, as long as current is flowing through the bulb and to the ground.

If you tap into the headlight retractor motor harness, go for the brown wire. This will give you (+) whenever the retractor switch on the dash is activated, or whenever the headlamps are on.

For ground, you can use the black wire on the retractor harness, or ground it directly to the radiator support somehow. I chose to use the headlight support. Whichever you choose is fine as long as you get a good clean ground connection.

If you wire these 2 wires up, your fog will come on with headlamps and with the retractor switch. If you want, you can clip the rest of the retractor harness or plug them up for simplicity.

What radhaz has done (and I have confirmed), is to go into the underhood relay box A next to the battery and pull the #4 retractor relay. It's the gray relay 2nd from the front. This will knock the retractor circuit off of the headlamp circuit. Now you can control the foglamps directly with the retractor switch. Turning on the headlamps with the retractor switch off will not turn on the foglamps.

If you want, you can also pull relay #3. It's located in the relay box B next to the intake. The relay is black. 2nd one on the back row next to the horn relay. This will reduce some of the clicking noise you hear when you turn your headlamps on and off. You can leave relay #3 and it will work just fine as well.

http://g6civcx.angryhosting.com/S13/Tech/Silvia1.JPG
http://g6civcx.angryhosting.com/S13/Tech/Silvia2.JPG

g6civcx
04-05-2006, 11:36 PM
Pix should be self-explanatory.

http://g6civcx.angryhosting.com/S13/Tech/SilviaFog/SilviaFog.jpg
http://g6civcx.angryhosting.com/S13/Tech/SilviaFog/SilviaFog2.jpg

trigger94587
06-07-2006, 01:27 AM
What about for corner lights and bumper lights? how do u wire them? and which one should blink the corner or the bumper like in USDM?

palmdale_mob
12-23-2008, 12:41 PM
Sorry for bringing up an old thread, but wheres the pictures at?
They were working like a week ago and now that I have free time they are gone
Anyone know of a good write up besides this and the nico one?

radhaz
02-23-2009, 02:16 PM
I was digging up photos for my facebook & found the diagram I made

http://members.cox.net/radhazzone/240sx/combined_sm01.gif

Hope this helps folks