joeyfan
Member
- First Name
- Adam
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2018
- Threads
- 5
- Messages
- 30
- Reaction score
- 12
- Location
- Michigan
- Vehicle(s)
- 2017 Civic Sport HB 6M, 2017 Subaru Outback
- Vehicle Showcase
- 1
- Thread starter
- #1
Earlier this summer my son installed a set of PIAA dual-tone horns on our Mazda 3 and they sounded great - like a typical '80s American car with slightly dissonant bass and midrange tones and plenty of sound. I was so impressed I bought a set for my 17 Sport HB. I had read previously that space behind the bumper was at a premium but figured I could work something out. Join me in my journey to get these installed...
First, here is the stock horn and the area around it with the bumper removed.
Seems like enough room to shove a couple horns in, right? (Spoiler alert: wrong, but let's get back to the story.)
After trying different orientations and placements of the horns in the space I built this nice fancy bracket out of spare parts I had laying around the work room.
They looked great in the cavity. I drilled a small hole through the bottom plate of the aluminum crash bar so I could mount the bracket.
Then... I started putting the bumper back on. I saw contact between the left horn and the giant fog light enclosure on the bumper, and could not rotate the horn far enough back to get the clearance needed. Back to the drawing board. I decided that if I could move the horns closer the center of the car and cant them away from the fog light, it just might work. Here is the final layout and modified bracket, which provided JUST enough space to clear the fog light enclosure.
View from the side
In summary, it took three beers and six hours of installation, tinkering and bumper trial fitting from start to finish. I'm not sure my placement was the absolute best a Civic owner could do but it worked for me. It was worth the effort because now the horn gets attention on the road. It's not that it is louder than the stock horn (though the new setup seems a bit louder), it's more that the tone it generates. It grabs attention like a horn should. It's the noise a car makes, versus the stock horn's moped sound.
If you're interested in the wiring side of this, I cut the original horn's positive wire and spliced it into two wires with spade connectors for the horns (the red wires). The grounds were run to chassis-grounded bolts next to the washer fluid reservoir. Wiring, it turns out, was the easy part!
First, here is the stock horn and the area around it with the bumper removed.
Seems like enough room to shove a couple horns in, right? (Spoiler alert: wrong, but let's get back to the story.)
After trying different orientations and placements of the horns in the space I built this nice fancy bracket out of spare parts I had laying around the work room.
They looked great in the cavity. I drilled a small hole through the bottom plate of the aluminum crash bar so I could mount the bracket.
Then... I started putting the bumper back on. I saw contact between the left horn and the giant fog light enclosure on the bumper, and could not rotate the horn far enough back to get the clearance needed. Back to the drawing board. I decided that if I could move the horns closer the center of the car and cant them away from the fog light, it just might work. Here is the final layout and modified bracket, which provided JUST enough space to clear the fog light enclosure.
View from the side
In summary, it took three beers and six hours of installation, tinkering and bumper trial fitting from start to finish. I'm not sure my placement was the absolute best a Civic owner could do but it worked for me. It was worth the effort because now the horn gets attention on the road. It's not that it is louder than the stock horn (though the new setup seems a bit louder), it's more that the tone it generates. It grabs attention like a horn should. It's the noise a car makes, versus the stock horn's moped sound.
If you're interested in the wiring side of this, I cut the original horn's positive wire and spliced it into two wires with spade connectors for the horns (the red wires). The grounds were run to chassis-grounded bolts next to the washer fluid reservoir. Wiring, it turns out, was the easy part!
