I have a 97 ex and it has absolutely no lights that come on at night when the door opens. I dont have a dome light either, it really bothers me as I do a lot of night driving and all my other cars have had something.

What would be the easiest thing for me to wire into so I could run a strip of white leds on each footwell that will light when the door is opened.

 

is the dome light there?

if the stock stereo is removed, the dome light is disabled. if the light is still there, two wires can be connected in the stock stereo harness to make the dome light work.

one wire is the door switches, and the other is the dome-light wire. i believe it's green/black and green/red. should be quite a few threads on it.

the door switch wire can also be used as the ground for additional led's

 

you can wire them to your door jam switch, or figure out what is wrong with your dome light

 

The car is just not equipped with a dome light, its not that it doesnt work...just doesnt have one

 

97 civic ex? usdm?

whatever the model, if it has switches in the door jamb, the single wire behind the interior panels of the b-pillar and c-pillar in sedans, can be used for the ground of an led.

 

i bet if you removed the headliner, the wire harness for it and dome light mount holes are there. sounds like the previous owner removed it cuz all civics had dome lights in 97

 

Idk why they would of, idk how the dome lights attach in these cars but theres no hole or anything modified to the headliner. Car is 100% stock, not one thing modified.

So just run the power of the led to a constant source and ground it with the door jam switch?

 

yes

 

there's supposed to a dome light oem. all civics came with them.

 

Don't all 6th Gen EXs have map lights too?

 

Yeah EX should have both.

 

So then you could wire those up to the door switch.

 

Surely. But someone has reupholstered the OP's headliner or something. He's probably nothing more than a razor blade away from popping some junkyard lights back in there.

I can't think of any non-convertible car made in the last 50 years not coming with a dome light!

 

97 2 door EX...
Attachment 330228
Pretty much the same as below.

97 4door EX...


If they are not there someone removed them and redid the headliner. 94

 

it can be done, but the map lights use a positive switch - chassis ground would need to be removed and switched, or the constant 12v wire has to be switched with a relay.

you would lose functionality of the map light switch unless you wired the relay to bypass the switch.

my civic is wired the first way, it's nice to get some light up front.