Disclaimers: What you do to your car is your responsibility. I take no responsibilities for any damage done to your car by you. I tried to make sure that there are no errors in these instructions, but I make no guarantees. If something is unclear or if you have further questions, please contact me at: travis@ucsd.edu

  This is what I did, it is by no means the easiest, quickest, or best way of installing louder horns in your car, but it’s worked well for me. Also, after getting into this, and realizing how much available space there was underneath the headlights, I would seriously consider installing air horns.

Parts

• FIAMM "Freeway Blaster Horns" (~$13 ea. at Pep-Boys)
• High Horn (pn# 72102) E
• Low Horn F
• 14ga wire
• Butt Connectors OR solder
• Shrink wrap (or electrical tape)
• (2) terminal connectors
• Zipties or similar securing devices

Tools

• 8, 10, 12mm Sockets
• Phillips head screwdriver
• Wire stripper/cutter
• Heat gun (or lighter) for shrink wrap
• Soldering gun (if using solder)

Time: approx. 2 hrs

 Instructions

After trying repeatedly to get the horns to fit behind the grill (in front of the radiator) and having no such luck, I decided to install the horns in the wells beneath the headlights. It turns out there is a substantial amount of space in this area, and it is easily accessible with the headlights removed.

 Begin by opening up the front trunk. Turn the headlights on, and move the switch back two clicks (so the lights stay up). Then pull the RTR fuse in the front fuse box. I decided to start with the passenger side first. Remove the black liner that surrounds the headlight assembly. It is held on by four Phillips head screws. Next, using an 8mm socket (you can use a screwdriver as well, but be forewarned that the bolts may be brittle as they were in my case, and it's easy to strip out the head) remove the painted headlight cover (make a note of where each of the bolts are on this piece, as it will make reinstalling and realigning it a lot easier). Now remove the metal liner that holds the sealed headlight in place (it is held on by four small screws). Do not touch the screws in the middle of the bottom or side, as these are for adjusting the headlight aim. Remove the sealed light, and unplug it from the connector. Set aside. The next step is to disconnect the arm that moves the light assembly up and down. There are two ways to go about doing this. The first involves carefully pulling the black socket off of the silver ball. The other option is to remove the ball and socket assembly using a screwdriver and a 12?mm socket. The first method is definitely easier, just be careful. Using a 10mm socket, remove the two "hinge" bolts from the back side of the headlight assembly. Now, carefully pull the black shell forward and out of the car. As you can see, there is a very large amount of available space to mount the horns.

 Assembling the horns: Remove one of the horns from its package, along with all of the misc. small parts. Take the black connector and install it on the terminals on the horn. Then install the long flat metal piece on the back of the horn using the supplied nut. Leave it relatively loose until you decide how you want it oriented, etc. Now is the time to decide approx. where you want to mount the horn. I chose to use the nut and stud in the far back left corner (facing car). It seemed like a relatively sturdy mounting point and the horns aren’t that heavy. There are plenty of other possibilities, especially if you feel like drilling, etc. Next, create the wire that will go to the horn plug: decide approx. how much wire you will need to run from the horn to the stock plug (if you look up into the radiator opening, you can see the stock horns in the top corner of either side). Be sure to account for extra wire so that the headlight has room to travel up and down without hitting the wire. Go ahead and unplug the stock connector on the horn. Then, pick a grounding point (I used the bolt holding the washer fluid reservoir (big black plastic tank)) and measure out a second wire for that. Take the measured wire for the switched side of the horn, and strip both ends. On one end, take one of the male spade connectors that came with the horn and crimp it on (you may solder it as well). Then put a piece of shrink wrap over the end. If you are using butt connectors, go ahead and install one on the other end of the wire, and shrink wrap it as well. Now take the ground wire and install a terminal connector on one end and (if not soldering) a butt connector on the other; use shrink wrap on both. Now, take the horn assembly and using the diagram that came with the horns figure out which side is switched and which side is grounded. Then connect the appropriate wires to each other (using butt connectors or solder, whatever your pleasure).

 Install the horn in the desired mounting location, connect the ground wire. Then run the switched wire through the hole in the top right corner of the well (closest to you) and in front of the radiator. Make sure that the headlight assembly will clear the wire when it opens and closes. You can use zipties to secure the wires so they don’t move around. Plug the spade connector into the stock plug. Now disconnect the other stock horn, and test the new horn. Once you have confirmed that the new horn works, it’s time to put things back together.

 Reassemble everything in reverse order. However, before reinstalling the black trim piece on the headlight assembly make sure the painted cover lines up with the cutouts in the hood. This may require raising and lowering the headlights a number of times (remember to replace the fuse to do this and remove it before doing the other side).

 Now do the driver’s side in the same manner. On this side, I chose to use one of two bolts securing part of the A/C system for the ground bolt. Reassemble everything, and enjoy your significantly louder horns.

______________
Travis Emmel
travis@ucsd.edu