LIGHTING

When I realized the '06 Si's had an "Ambience light" I was instantly jealous. Having had a little LED wiring experience before - I decided to undertake adding my own custom jobby to my own 4dr EX. A couple tools and supplies are necessary first:

• LEDs and LED holders

I get mine from an Ebay store... ^ click above ^ ... I get the 3mm variety w/according chromed holders.

• Wire wrap tool and wire-wrap

This tool wraps the wire around the LED leads and battery leads/wire (beats the hell outta potentially messy soldering!) I believe I found mine at a local Radioshack. You should be able to find these at an electrical parts store if you don't have radioshacks nearby.

• Dremel or rotary-tool

For grinding away some of the plastic material. Not sure of the bit I used but there are many that will do.

• Knowledge... (to learn something, click here)

Once you've procured some LEDS, you'll need a little knowedge... ^ click above ^

POWER
I decided to NOT jack into the car's power system. No way I was messing around w/the eleectrical after my experience with my last car. Besides, not using the car's power meant I could easily set-up control as to when my iights were on or off, not to mention voiding my warranty. I happen find a crazy dealon batteries as well. A whole cardboard sheet of watch/medical batteries - for only $3!! I decided to roll up (4)357 style batteries, for a total of a very tiny 6v power source.

INSTALL

• First things first, the overhead lighting assembply had to come apart. I followed a few instructions, linked to me by a fellow 8thcivic member. The following are a few shots of the pieces within the lighting subassembly.

 
• You can even see a marking where the Si's LED would go. I am putitng mine in the same place, so I started to drill it out. Start small, then work larger in increments. This keeps the holes clean and gives you more chance to make it centered.
• Next step, wiring up the LED. I've got a couple different colors on order - but I'm trying out a spare UV Blacklight LED I've got. It'd be pretty cool for goofball dance-club style, trippy light effects - and to show off friends' detergent stains. Chaces are, I'll go more permenently with a blue, or white one. In any case what you're seeing below is the wiring of the LED and appropriate resistor. (use a resistor calculator like i've linked to from the LED tutorial above) I used the wire-wrap tool, wire-wrap, and heat-shrink tubing. The third pic shows the led mounted, fromt he backside of the piece. The LED mount is threaded (3/16"), with a small bolt holding it in place... tight.
• Now you see the same piece, with the switch mounted in place. Sorry i didn't take more pics, but the switch is a simple pushbutton job, again from radioshack. i tried to find the tiniest most unobstrusive one I could. This one should work out well. Mounting it was a bit of a trick. The switch mounts like the LED mount, requiring a 3/16" hole to thread into. But just the width, or lack thereof, of the beige piece there was too thin to hold the switch well. I glued a spared piece or two of spare styrene (model plastic - blank sheets can be found at hobby stores) cut to an appropriate size. The glue I used was a mix of talcum powder and superglue - known as "SGT" in the robot-modeling world. Yes I am a robot geek. Here is the switch and LED mounted, next to that is the black, "inner piece" that houses the roof and maplight controls. I've indicated, in red, the bits I ground away with my dremel. These bits had to be removed to fit the LED hardware.
• And here we have the almost finished subassembly. Pics are self-explanatory. 3rd pic there shows the UV LED on.

• Now I tried to take some pics of it in action - but it's kind of a bitch with the camera and virtually no light (except for the light-bath from my untinted windows) Here's a few for the hell of it, but take my word for it - It looks quite dope.

:P