Hey guys, just seeing if anyone on here has done the EX dome light and trunk light swap into their non-EX trim car. I just completed them both this weekend.

The trunk light swap wasn't too bad. After figuring out that the fuse boxes for the EX and DX were different I needed to find another way to get the proper power back to the trunk light. I read that the white/red wire that runs along the driver side of the interior to the gray plug in back would be my power feed for the light, but then realized that it wouldn't work. The EX feeds that wire with fuse 40 for the interior lights, but on the DX that wire isn't fed any power since the interior lights fuse is under the hood instead of behind the knee blocker. I then decided that I needed another way to get into the interior fuse. I decided that I would remove the A-pillar trim and splice into the dome light power wire. After doing that and running the wire all the way along the factory harness back to the trunk I needed my ground. I already knew I needed to get into the trunk latch ground so that the light work operate correctly. After splicing into that I just needed to solder on the connector for the light. I soldered in my connector and hooked up the light and viola, trunk light swap complete. I decided to ditch the stock 4 watt bulb for a 10 watt bulb of the same style and am very impressed. It lights up the trunk amazingly well and am happy with the results.

I then decided to tackle the EX dome light. I realized that the EX dome light assembly was much larger than the DX dome light assembly and seen this as a problem. I did not want to have to trim the headliner or headliner support to fit the EX dome light so I decided to modify the DX dome light assembly to fit the EX style bulb. I decided to simply remove the bulb terminals and wire from the EX assembly and put them on the DX dome light. It really wasn't too hard, just took some time. After using some JB stick weld to affix the bulb terminals and using my Dremel to cut the plastic to fit I tested to make sure the light would fit. It fit perfectly with no problems, so I soldered up my connections a little better and used a bit of Gorilla glue to cover things up to prevent any problems with the terminals shorting out. I replaced the 8 watt bulb with a 10 watt bulb and fit it all back together. The interior is so much brighter now, especially considering the DX bulb was 3.4 watts and a measly 194 bulb. lol

I also did the EX cluster swap, but that was simply plug and play, so no big deal there. I'm trying to decide if there's anything else from the EX that I want to swap in but can't really think of anything. Are there any other bulbs that I could use to make the interior even brighter?

 

Man, seems like nobody wants to reply to my threads. lol

Is there seriously any other mods to perform to really light up the interior? Are there any other different bulbs you can use?

 

Nice job. Just be careful with the fuses, you want to use appropriate fuses for the new bulbs you have installed. Best way would be to look at an electrical schematic of the components you're changing, add up the currents and use appropriate fuse for that.

I haven't looked at the schematic for the interior lighting so I don't know exactly which parts are interconnected but if you overload the fuse, it will simply pop. If it pops, you know why it's doing it, and you will have to place a larger current fuse in there.

 

Heh - here's one for you that I strongly recommend - wow, it's bright.

https://honda-tech.com/forums/showpo...5&postcount=33

 

Yea, I'm going to run the stock 7.5 amp fuse and see how it goes. So far so good there. I'm just wondering if the higher watt bulbs would cause any problems. I think they would be ok since they're not on maybe even like 5% of the time you're driving the car. We'll see how they hold up. lol

Yea, I was looking at that map light swap and thought it would be a cool idea. I may look into that after I finish up a couple more things.

 

Yeah I would upgrade to the EX/Si front brakes w/10.2" rotors. You will need the EX knuckle, EX calipers and caliper brackets, pads, and rotors.

 

As long as they are rated for the correct voltage (12-14.5 volts) you should be fine as long as your fuses can support the current demand, otherwise they would burn.

 

Yea, they're the same voltages as what the old bulbs were, just that they are higher wattages. I believe the old ones were 12v and the new ones are also 12v, just that they're 10 watts instead of 3.4 and 8.

I do plan on doing the brake upgrade also, just that I'll most likely use Integra brakes instead of EX/Si brakes.

 

I think I'm going to start calling around about that Integra maplight swap here soon too and see if any of the junkyards have it. Would be a nice thing to light up the interior a little more. I've been looking around to see if there's any bulbs I could use to replace the current ones in the interior to make it brighter but about all I can see are LED's. I figured I could probably try to solder some of those together and see how that works but I'm not sure about it. Has anyone here tried LED setups for the dome or trunk light before?

 

Well, I did some more thinking on this. There's one other thing I'd like to add to this car and that's cruise control. Is it possible to add cruise onto the Y7? I know on my 94 EX it looks like the cruise just pulls the accelerator pedal in and out which then opens and closes the throttle which is pretty simple. To control the speed it seems like it just has the cruise computer that connects to the ECU and monitors speed from there. Now, what I'm wondering is if the Y7 ECU would work for this. Any ideas?

 

Cruise Control is a great idea - the write up I did to add it to my 94 CX Civic is in my signature. It has nothing to do with the main ECU. All the parts you need are explained in my write up, and they can all be removed from any Cruise-equipped 92-95 sedan/hatch/coupe with Auto or Manual transmission. It is a long but still satisfying swap.

It's ultimately up to you, but I chose to add the map light from a 98-00 Civic in my hatch because that is the exact light that was installed in JDM 92-95 Civics. I tried to stay as close as possible to the original design.

I tried an LED light in my trunk light add-on, but it refused to survive the cold winter nights in the Yukon. It ultimately died. I think it was just a little too big for the housing, anyway. If I was to do it again, I would order from these guys: http://www.oznium.com/led-dome

 

Yea, I did some looking at the cruise control system today and it doesn't seem that bad to swap. I'm highly debating taking it off my 94 EX beater and just putting it on the 97 since I never use the 94 for long trips or highway driving. I already have the EX cluster with the cruise control on it, so that's a good start. I'm gonna do some more looking into the Integra maplight. I did notice that on my 94 EX it's got a little flip down visor thing where the maplight should be. I'd imagine it shouldn't be much harder to swap it into the EK body.

 

Whoops, all this time I thought you were talking about a 5th Gen Civic, not a 6th Gen. I'm afraid you can't swap the cruise control setup from one to the other. The 5th is cable based and the 6th is vacuum(?) based (or something).

 

Oh yea, I forgot. The 6th Gen has a vacuum one, I remember looking at that today. Honestly, though, what's the difference? I looked at the setups and besides the vacuum setup they look the exact same. Both use the cable coming from the motor to pull the accelerator cable and both use the same wiring setup. Not sure what the big difference is there.

Also, I realized that the bearing in the OEM stock alternator is starting to go bad. I would very much so like to upgrade from the measly 70 Amp alternator to something with more juice. It looks like all the Civic trims used a 70 Amp alternator and the Integra's used a 90 Amp. Are there any places that sell aftermarket alternators that put out more? Is there another car I could get an alternator off of that would put out a higher amperage?

 

You will probably need to swap the intake manifold if you do the cruise control swap since the vacuum for the cruise control comes from a nipple on the intake manifold.

As for the alternator, there are two alternators that come with the 96-00 civics and one is rated at 75amps (MITSUBISHI) and the other one is rated at 80amps (DENSO).

 

Another alternator option for you would be to take yours to an electrical rebuilder, and tell them you want them to make it a 105amp.

 

Well, the problem is that the bearing inside the alternator is shitting out slowly, and I would rather just have a brand new alternator. If they were to completely rebuild the alternator then I would have no problems doing it that way. I know there's a lot of parts that are crapping out on it and wouldn't want to have it rebuilt if I knew something wasn't getting replaced.

I'll look into the Denso alternator if I can't get it rebuilt properly. I would love to have something around 105 amps because I do plan on putting a stereo in this car along with fog lights and a few other things. No sense in overworking the alternator if I can easily upgrade it and not burn stock ones out.

 

You can search for "high output" alternators on Google for a Honda.

 

even, easier... mirror map lights. no cutting!

 

My maplight in my '98 EX gets FAR more use than the dome light, which is there for little more than to look pretty. I only use the dome light as something to give a faint light in the car if I'm in near or total darkness. I replaced the bulb with LEDs even, since the yellow can give me a headache fairly quickly.

 

Use LEDs instead. They make bulbs that fit just like the regular bulbs but have a few LEDs in them... they light up the interior GREAT. Superbrightleds.com has some. You'll need a 3022 bulb (dome light)... I used the 9 LED one, but the 4 LED one works good too.