djcaston

Ok, so I decided that I wanted to put blue neon in the footwells of my 2006 Z, and began to look on the forums for a good way to go about doing this. After looking at the articles that exist, I realized that none of them explained what I wanted to do with the neons. If you want your neons to go on when you turn on the car, and go off when your turn off the car, and stay on all the time in between, please read on.

What You Will Need:
- Two neons 10" or 12" (I used the pepboys/autozone type, since everything is already included in the pack, and I was too impatient to wait for something to be shipped )
- Electrical Tape
- Scissors or a knife
- A Coat Hanger
- Zip Ties

Step 1:
If you bought the neons from autozone or pep boys (the ones that actually expect you to install them by plugging them into the cig lighter), just cut of the cigarette adapter and strip about an inch of plastic off of the black and red wire. Do this with both neons, and set them aside for now.

Step 2:
Go into the passenger footwell, and feel around for the wiring for the cigarette adapter that is in the passenger area. When you find the two wires (one red one black), try to pull them down a little just so it'll be easier to work; you can tuck them back up there again once you're done.

Step 3:
Take your scissors or knife, and strip the plastic off of about an inch of both the black and red wire on the cigarette lighter wiring. MAKE SURE YOU DON'T CUT THE WIRES. just strip off the plastic. Do this all the way around the wire, making sure theres a nice good section of clean copper on each wire.

Step 4:
Test. Turn your key just before ignition, and touch the neon wiring to the cig wiring. If you bought the pep boys ones, make sure they're on the "always on" setting, and not the pulse to the music setting. If they light up, keep going with step 5. If they don't, sorry!

Step 5:
Now take your coat hanger, stretch it out, and tape one of the neons wires onto it. Make sure you cover the end of the hanger with a lot of electrical tape so it doesn't scratch your car. This neon is going to be for the driver's side. Now feed the wire through the center console, slightly toward the rear of the shifter. When the wire comes out the other side, disconnect it, and just tuck the wire in the plastic siding until you get up near the cig wiring. Now you're good for the driver's side.

Step 6:
Take both the wiring for the driver's side neon and the passengers side neon, and wrap the wiring around the cig wiring for both neons. Now just wrap this up with some electrical tape.

Step 7:
Grab Some of the zip ties, and mount up the lights in the footwells. I also used the zip ties to hide some of the extra neon wiring.

You're done! The neons will come on whenever the key is turned, and turn off when the car is off. Easy to install, no battery connection neccessary, and they look great too. I'll try to post some pictures later on, but if you did it like my car, there is no visible wiring or light hardware. Only the cool blue glow

PLEASE give me your feedback. This is my first car project.

Thanks

Dan

MDaniel22

In for pics and comments.

djtrickz

iTrader: (5)

i want to see a video of the action

krono

iTrader: (1)

the neons you are talking about that pulse to music arent bright for $hit. I bought a pair the other day and the hardly light up anything, you are better off buying a 1 dollar LED (if even that) and the resistor (also less than a $) you would get better results for 1/20th of the price... just my 2 cents not trying to knock your post, the instructions are great.

surfer05rdr

iTrader: (20)

my car doesnt have the cig adapter in the passenger footwell. Its only on the center console behind the driver

3oozx

iTrader: (1)

I have done this mod in all 3 of my cars. I sold my 300zx but heres a picture of this mod and Ive done it both in my 350 and G35 I will get pictures of the G and Z tonight

Fallenaddict

What year do you have? I'm guessing It's one of the older models..

Fallenaddict

I did mine the right way... I don't like at all how you have to mess with the cig lighter wires.. I bought an adapter for my fuse box so I could hook a second fuse to my radio and just wire it off of that.. I popped every single panel from my car and tucked everything nice and neat and put the central connector box up in my stock bose sub box along with all the extra slack on the wires. Here's a picture

bluelineshooter

This thread is old but maybe I can get a question answered... I removed my rear windshield wiper many years ago. Is the any reason why I couldn't use the wiring from that? I'm assuming the lights would subsequently only be on when the wiper switch is engaged. Thanks

morphiusrt

iTrader: (7)

Yes it would not work correctly.

Depends on the size of strip you want but you could pull the trunk light out and splice to that. If you are using something that can't get enough amperage out of that wire you would need a relay. Well technically to do it right you should use a relay anyways.

bluelineshooter

Thanks and I love that Wayne Gretzky quote. I remember my coach always saying that.
So is the wiring different for the wiper motor? I thought I was really on to a great idea.

morphiusrt

iTrader: (7)

I'm pretty sure there is a module that tells the motor what speed to go. So it wouldn't be solid voltage that you would need to wire the light. I could be wrong. But I would assume there is something similar to a flasher relay telling the motor to go a certain speed.

best thing to do it get a multimeter on it and see what happens when you turn it on.

bluelineshooter

Thanks a bunch! I appreciate it.

SLCPunk267

For anyone still wanting to do this, this thread is sort of out-dated. Autozone and Advance carry thin, flexible LED strips now, that come with 3M tape backing. They cost about $24 for a pair of strips with (I think) 12 LEDs per strip, and they're easy to hide up under the dash.

I used those on my old Trans Am, and simply spliced into the wires that ran to the backlights for my dashboard. That way, any time the dash lights were on, the LEDs were on.

acerpcguy

Some pictures of the actual install being done would help out a lot. I'm interested

morphiusrt

iTrader: (7)

If you look on ebay you can find them for much cheaper then that. If your impatient like me buy them from a US seller.

LED strip