bigmike

Picked up an '11 tech and I'd like to put in some white led footwell lighting. I've seen a few posts where guys have soldered into the dome light or tapped into the DRL lights but I'm sure there's an easy way to tap into the existing map lights, courtesy lights or rear dome light so that they come on with doors open and fade out light the roof lights when closed. I posted a few screenshots of the wiring diagram for the 2nd gen tsx but still unsure of where and which wires to tap into. Seems like I'm looking for a green wire from the engine fuse box and the pink going to the drivers micu. Maybe someone with more electrical knowledge can shed some light on the issue.

opboarding

I put some leds into the map pocket area in the front of the center console by tapping into the map lights. its pretty easy to tap those, just take out the whole map light holder and youll see a lot of metal on top above where the bulbs clip into. Solder/wrap wire around the right area up there and that will save you from finding wires to tap into. So now the map cubby area comes on when I turn on my map light!

Kind of hard to explain without pictures, but just take out the whole sunglesses/map light thing and start touching wires from your leds to metal and youll find the right areas.

bigmike

thanks for the feedback. did you just run them down the passenger or driver pillar? I was hoping there was an easier route on the bottom near the driver or passenger fuse box.

opboarding

Yeah, I just ran the wires down the drives side pillar. It was pretty easy to stuff the wires behind the weather stripping and stuff to completely hide it.

ceb

Be careful with "stuffing" wires behind the "A" pillar. There is wiring and other "stuff" under there for the side curtain airbag. Impeding the proper activation of the side curtain my cost you your life.

bigmike

well I picked up these on amazon the other day (and they are xenon white unlike the pic) and with a few days off I decided to check out the wire layout. searching for the green & pink wire I decided to check out the dim blue leds in the front two footwells and turns out they're green and pink and work just like the dome lights (dim, on/off). so I split each side to run an led to the rear footwells and works like a charm. Hardest part was finding a place in the rear footwell to mount the lights.

opboarding

Where did you mount the rear lights? I looked back there and didnt see a good spot to put any leds so I just ended up not doing it.

bigmike

if you push the front seats all the forward, there's a bar that goes across. on the driver seat to the left of the bar there's a tiny hole. I basically drilled a hole in the led housing and zip tied one side through the hole and just used industrial velcro to set the other side of the led.

on the front passenger side, I mounted it the same way but put the led on the right side of the bar. the reason why is because there are wire cables that run in the center on the bottom of the two front seats. once you reposition the seats back, they'll block the lights if you mount them towards the center of the car. if you mount them closer to the doors, they won't get blocked. hope that helps.

bigmike

btw, green is power, pink is ground. if you blow a fuse like I did, it's a 7.5 in the engine compartment. #16 I believe. and if you pick up the lights from amazon and want to drill a hole to mount them with screws, just pry them open a with a flathead and drill from the inside to avoid hitting the circuits,etc...

opboarding

Ill have to check it out again this weekend. I'll probably just tap into the map lights again like I did for the console lights. If I do it I'll be using some of my 100+ single leds I used for my rear reflectors. That way I'll have some flexibility on how I mount them.

blutsx

You have to read a little in to the thread, but this is how I did mine.
https://acurazine.com/forums/2g-tsx-2009-2014-143/white-led-footwells-front-rear-824644/