[Chazzy J]

If you’re like me, you love the fabric inserts and aluminum trim in the A-spec trim, and all wonderfully accented by the ebony leather and red accent stitching. I think it’s the perfect balance of “sport luxury”.

I always remained sore that the interior ambient lighting got shafted, because the advance trim ambient lighting is pretty darn cool. So I set out to retro fit it all onto my A-spec trim. I’ll tell you it’s taken me some research, and a particular level of confidence/desire to splice into the factory harness and hope it all works. So here’s all the parts I ordered. The harnesses are so I can get donor male-connectors while I make the new wiring harnesses by hand that will feed into the new lights.

Today I sat down stripped off all the male connectors needed. Took the passanger door off and did a practice test to see if my intended way of doing this was actually going to work before I went to all the trouble of ordering materials and time to make the harnesses.

….and…IT WORKED! The passenger door pocket light works! This is definitely one of the largest electrical endeavors I’ve taken on in recent memory. It’ll take some time to do the rest but should come together pretty quick once I get the harnesses put together. More updates to come.

more pictures/updates on post # 24, 25, 26, 27

THE PARTS:

THE DONOR MALE CONNECTORS

FUNCTIONAL DOOR POCKET LIGHT!!

More updates to come as I get more of the interior taken apart! Woohoo!

 

[eLaRGie]

nice job i was thinking about doing that too but might take lot of time and effort.. but your inspiring me. keep us updated thanks!

 

[louvnj]

Great project! I imagine it be won’t be cheap to do though. How are you doing research/finding part numbers? Do you have access to SIS or service express, or are you trudging through the parts websites? I hate looking under the hood and not having A service manual to look at to figure out what an unfamiliar item is!

 

[Zero2none]

Very nice and subtle.
Night pics !

 

[Chazzy J]

Great project! I imagine it be won’t be cheap to do though. How are you doing research/finding part numbers? Do you have access to SIS or service express, or are you trudging through the parts websites? I hate looking under the hood and not having A service manual to look at to figure out what an unfamiliar item is!

That is the one thing I love about Honda/Acura - Parts are normally reasonable. I think to order all the lights and donatation harnesses, it was $200 or so? Reasonable in my mind.

I use AcuraPartsWarehouse.com because of diagrams. So it made it fairly easy to identify the necessary lighting pieces and harnesses with male-connectors for donators. The lighting system is setup as a “series” electrical connection as opposed to “parallel” connections. So that was a little surprising to me, so it wasn’t as simple as just changing out harnesses because of that - that’s a whole other conversation and comes with it’s own set of complications without electrical diagrams. The fact that some lights could be red while other lights could be white (or any other combination you roll with), meant I had to pick where I wanted to splice into the harness.

I dont have the electrical diagrams, so I’m trying to just splice into the correct lines where possible and ensure the lights light up. I’ll set everything up ”parallel“ for now. The only lights I wonder if I’d be better off running a series will be the dash lighting and the center console lighting. I’ll try it parallel first because that’s just easier, but if the lighting dims for whatever reason (because those are bigger LEDs and may draw more power than what the amp provides for parallel connection), I’ll have to go back and set it up for a series connection to allow for better power flow. My gut tells me parallel connections will be just fine - LEDs don’t draw that much power…

 

[eLaRGie]

theres blank spot to install them? i mean a spec trim night not have blank spot to install/screw them in place.

 

[Chazzy J]

theres blank spot to install them? i mean a spec trim night not have blank spot to install/screw them in place.

Yeah, if you stick your hand under the rim of your center console, you’ll feel the indentation - and then once you look, you‘ll see where the lights go. Same with the door pockets, you’ll see with the lights go and the clips are on the backside of the door panel. I haven’t actually had the trim off on the dash yet to verify fitment, but I can see where it fits in - shouldn’t be a problem.

I’ll try to take a lot of pics once I have the harnesses made and start taking it apart.

 

[eLaRGie]

Yeah, if you stick your hand under the rim of your center console, you’ll feel the indentation - and then once you look, you‘ll see where the lights go. Same with the door pockets, you’ll see with the lights go and the clips are on the backside of the door panel. I haven’t actually had the trim off on the dash yet to verify fitment, but I can see where it fits in - shouldn’t be a problem.

I’ll try to take a lot of pics once I have the harnesses made and start taking it apart.

cool thanks i might just order all the light needed and splice them in parallel

 

[louvnj]

That is the one thing I love about Honda/Acura - Parts are normally reasonable. I think to order all the lights and donatation harnesses, it was $200 or so? Reasonable in my mind.

I use AcuraPartsWarehouse.com because of diagrams. So it made it fairly easy to identify the necessary lighting pieces and harnesses with male-connectors for donators. The lighting system is setup as a “series” electrical connection as opposed to “parallel” connections. So that was a little surprising to me, so it wasn’t as simple as just changing out harnesses because of that - that’s a whole other conversation and comes with it’s own set of complications without electrical diagrams. The fact that some lights could be red while other lights could be white (or any other combination you roll with), meant I had to pick where I wanted to splice into the harness.

I dont have the electrical diagrams, so I’m trying to just splice into the correct lines where possible and ensure the lights light up. I’ll set everything up ”parallel“ for now. The only lights I wonder if I’d be better off running a series will be the dash lighting and the center console lighting. I’ll try it parallel first because that’s just easier, but if the lighting dims for whatever reason (because those are bigger LEDs and may draw more power than what the amp provides for parallel connection), I’ll have to go back and set it up for a series connection to allow for better power flow. My gut tells me parallel connections will be just fine - LEDs don’t draw that much power…

Kudos to you for having the patience to figure out what you need and experiment! I’m an electrical engineer and car electrical always has gone against normal practices you’d use elsewhere. Like switching neutral side of circuits etc. Auto manufacturers design to save wiring/money. I’m sure the series circuit for LEDs falls into that category somehow. when you make millions of the same car and have mostly specially trained technicians to fix, they can afford to design things that aren’t easily traceable by the layman (especially when they don’t let you have access to manuals and schematics). But this will be a challenging, fun project for you! And yes, Honda parts are reasonable and every part in the car is well thought out, once you understand what they intended.

 

[Chazzy J]

cool thanks i might just order all the light needed and splice them in parallel

This photo should help you get started - shows the part numbers. Note the quantities order of each part.

 

[Chazzy J]

Kudos to you for having the patience to figure out what you need and experiment! I’m an electrical engineer and car electrical always has gone against normal practices you’d use elsewhere. Like switching neutral side of circuits etc. Auto manufacturers design to save wiring/money. I’m sure the series circuit for LEDs falls into that category somehow. when you make millions of the same car and have mostly specially trained technicians to fix, they can afford to design things that aren’t easily traceable by the layman (especially when they don’t let you have access to manuals and schematics). But this will be a challenging, fun project for you! And yes, Honda parts are reasonable and every part in the car is well thought out, once you understand what they intended.

oh yes my friend. Definitely gotta take your time with something like this and put it together slowly - makes it more fun!!

 

[eLaRGie]

ok i can see u got both on the dash next to the climate control, both on the center console (shifter console) and four for all 4 doors bottle holder, what about the bottom/second light on all four door panel (the one underneat the handle trim)?

 

[Chazzy J]

ok i can see u got both on the dash next to the climate control, both on the center console (shifter console) and four for all 4 doors bottle holder, what about the bottom/second light on all four door panel (the one underneat the handle trim)?

you mean the one I have circled in blue? That one comes stock on US models. Is it not on Canadian models?

 

[eLaRGie]

my bad if i explained wrong but not this one
the blue line there.. lol.. on all four doors

 

[Chazzy J]

@eLaRGie

Oh ok, glad you brought that up. So I haven’t sat in an Advance/Ultra to actually looked at that part, but from what I can tell, it’s part of the actual trim piece. Meaning if I wanted to have that lower light, I’d actually have to get the wood finish which has a designed channel to fit that light in - which the black wood finish is nice (part number doors; 08Z03-TYB-220 and dash; 08Z03-TYB-220A). But I really enjoy aluminum trim, so I’m just going to have to forego that bottom light on trim piece.

But if you wanted to fit those black wood pieces with that bottom light, you could totally do that with just two additional male connector donors.

 

[eLaRGie]

@eLaRGie

Oh ok, glad you brought that up. So I haven’t sat in an Advance/Ultra to actually looked at that part, but from what I can tell, it’s part of the actual trim piece. Meaning if I wanted to have that lower light, I’d actually have to get the wood finish which has a designed channel to fit that light in - which the black wood finish is nice (part number doors; 08Z03-TYB-220 and dash; 08Z03-TYB-220A). But I really enjoy aluminum trim, so I’m just going to have to forego that bottom light on trim piece.

But if you wanted to fit those black wood pieces with that bottom light, you could totally do that with just two additional male connector donors.

true... its part of the wood finish trim.. but i really miss the center dash ambient lightning from my odyssey... should have come stock..

 

[eLaRGie]

did you think about putting usb c in the third row?

 

[Chazzy J]

true... its part of the wood finish trim.. but i really miss the center dash ambient lightning from my odyssey... should have come stock..

Don’t you worry, I’ll get it working with a write up. Only thing about the dash lighting is I’m going to be tapping the floor lights harness. So they won’t take the top color, they’ll take the floor color.

Two reasons, take the Autodromo color for example, red on top, white on bottom. I feel like it’s going to be a weird “cut over” from the dash to the door panel if the dash is red, and then it cuts over to the door garnish and the red jumps up to the top of the door. I just feel like that’s going to have a funny look. So basically the only red on the interior would be the top of the door panels, everything else would be white as the secondary color.

And then second reason is I don’t really feel Like fishing a 10ft wiring harness through both door boots, but if it needs to be done, it needs to be done

 

[Chazzy J]

did you think about putting usb c in the third row?

I’ve got no one that sits back there, but easy enough to run a 10ft cable off the second USB A in the second row if someone is back there and needs it.

Random find though. I’ve seen MDX reviews claim that the 3rd row passengers get no vents in the 3rd row and therefore might be hot/cold. I did find a vent that runs under both 2nd row seats, so the 3rd row does get air flow back there lol.

 

[Conquer Yourself]

Does the dynamic lighting option changes the light color?