So I did a lot of searching on these boards for the info I needed so I figured I would do a short write up.

So first I bought a shift light from ebay. It was a three wire affair (red, black, green) and had a **** for adjusting the shift points instead of using Pills. The shift light I purchased was a ProSport Variable Shift Light, and looked exactly like this.


I quickly took it apart and discarded the cylinder, inside was a 2x3 inch circuit board and some wiring. I had to extend the wiring for my purposes so I simply cut them and re-soldered new, longer wires in their place.

Second I took out my gauge cluster (check the FAQs here on H-T for how to do that) and spliced the three wires into the gauge cluster wiring.

Red - 12V power
Black - ground
Green - Tachometer.

These can be identified using the following Pin-outs as provided by another H-T member, see image below.


Here is a cheap ms-paint wiring diagram. These are just pics grabbed from google.images, so this is not the correct PCB, Potentiometer, LED etc.
So three wires go from the gauge cluster wiring harness, red for 12V power, black for ground and green for the tachometer signal, these go to the PCB of the shift light.
From the shift light's PCB three wires go to the potentiometer. These wires were extended as needed so I could put the PCB and the **** away from each other and hide them better behind the dash.
Again from the shift light's PCB two wires go to the LED. These too were extended so that the PCB did not have to be near the gauge cluster.




Then I wanted to make my install a little stealthy because shift lights are actually rice and I didn't want everyone to know I'm a rice-boy at heart. So I integrated my shift light into my gauge cluster.

I found a blank spot in the gauge cluster to put the LED bulb. I had to take apart the cluster to make this blank spot clear. Each of the blank spots are blacked out, so I simply sanded away the black so I have just clear plastic. (again check the FAQs here on H-T to know how to pull apart the cluster). I simply hot glued the LED bulb from the shift light into this blank space.

This is not the back of my cluster, but looks the same. You just find an empty bulb hole and jam your LED in there. My LED was a near perfect fit, and some hot-glue (make sure it non-conductive) to hold it in place. IF your LED is smaller, you could just put it in the hole and seal it up, if its bigger well you may be outta luck.


I then ran some extension so I could place the PCB, printed circuit board, out of the way, and an extension to place the adjustment ****, essentially just a potentiometer, down by my mirror controls. The PCB was mounted in a "project box" I got from Radio Shack, essentially just a small plastic box large enough to contain the PCB, I mounted this in a convenient location behind the dash about half way between the gauge cluster and the mirror controls.

Here is the location of the adjustment **** down by the mirror controls.


Here is the cluster off.


The cluster with the shift light on.
It comes on at start up like the other gauge lights because I am using power from the cluster.
It is the brightest red light on the left side.


I hope that helps some others out there. Feel free to ask me Qs but keep it in the thread so that the Q and A could help others.

I have found the shift light helpful especially as its adjustable. I set it nice and low to remind me not to speed. Or set it at VTEC kickin' to save gas. I can also set it just before redline as is intended for a shift light. I've found about the lowest I can set it is 3k RPM and it is only about half way when its at 8200 RPM so there would be plenty of adjustment left for you folks with nicer engines that rev higher.

And best of all, you can set it nice and low and if you lend your car to others they freak out and don't race your car like crazy.

Modified by MonkeyPuzzle at 4:10 PM 8/28/2008


Modified by MonkeyPuzzle at 4:11 PM 8/28/2008

 

very cool

 

tachometer says blue wire, not green

 

thats a nice lil mod

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SPNFEDEH &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">tachometer says blue wire, not green</TD></TR></TABLE>


Green on the unit he bought, not the pin.

 

OOOH, my bad, good write up, very food way to keep cops off your back,

 

Thanks guys

I've been driving around for a about a week now its been alot of fun.

On a side note, it is very bright (as it should be) but this means that when it is on at night I can not read the tach.
I might have been better off putting it on the other side of the cluster so that I could still read the important gauges when the light was on.

 

nice write up. You probably could've put it behind the si lettering so that everytime your shiftlite kicks on the Si would glow

 

Damn Nice!

 

Bookmarked!

 

That was a pretty good idea!

 

very nice. just gave me a useful little project.

i was thinking of just getting a shift light and pill to put in my vent, but i'm liking this idea. great write up.

 

Nice lil mod i might have to try this

 

what do you mean too bright to read the tach. does th light stay on and get brighter at desired (shift )rpm?

 

Really great idea!

 

Since I have had a few Q's about what shift light I used here you go

I bought a ProSport shift light from ebay.

I was fairly concerned that it sounded like a piece of crap but turned out to work perfectly. (So far)

 

good job on the right it's very clear and to the point

Dave

 

That is nice. Making the Si light/glow is a good idea too. Someone needs to put this in the FAQ thread.

 

so basically is the same thing in the cx/vx with its shift light right or whats the diff?

 

the CX/VX light is for MPG not really the same thing.

I did this a while back. But I put a dimming circuit in mine. A simple RPM switch to turn on the light and a relay to make it dim with the cluster lights. ~$40. (it's not **** adjustable though)

 

how does the adjustment **** work. how do you know what rpm ur adjusting to?

 

sweet....

can i do it on a 97?

 

nice. good job!

 

thats pretty badass....

 

Pretty clean but I don't understand at night how you can't see your tach, is that LED that bright?