This d-i-y is for GT-R owners who want to install the 2015 GT-R headlights that use LEDs for both low and high beams! and have the nice unique lightning bolt pattern for parking lights, or for what could be used as DRLs (abet weak ones!)
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| Lightning Bolt LED turned into a DRL without Parking Lights ON. |
I have been running the new 2015 LED headlight for over a week now and have driven my GT-R through unlit country roads and the illumination is much better than older lights in many aspects. I had also previously upgraded the HID bulbs so I can safely say my comparison is not due to older HID bulbs. This upgrade is well worth the money first for the better illumination intensity, then the illumination pattern is more more comprehensive and wider, better color temperature, and finally the time to full power-up is much quicker then HID. The lightning bolt is just the icing on the cake :)
Thus the instructions in this post also go into modifying the lightning bolt LED power source to have it on whenever desired with no relation to headlights.
I bought my headlights from courtesyparts.com Not only did they have the lowest price on the market, but they were also in stock and they were having a "10% of entire order" special on the website. They shipped quickly and I got them very well packaged and protected with padding on both sides, all within 3 days.
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| Big Package |
The replacement procedure requires removal of the front lip or skirt, and the bumper. So let's get started. The tools needed would be:
- tire chucks, jack stand, and floor jack (or some way to lift car)
- masking tape
- 10mm socket, 12mm socket, various socket extensions (3" and 6")
- flat head screw driver, philips #1 screwdriver
- plastic fastener/tab remover tool (if available)
For modification of LED power:
-soldering iron, solder, heat shrink tubing, split lume tubing, electrical tape, wire stripper, ON/OFF switch, wire taps, flat watch screw driver.
Turn on the headlights and make a mark on the wall os the hot spots for the original headlights. A simple X on a wall or garage with tape will be fine.
Safety First. Place chucks in the rear wheel. Jack up the car from front or at least one side to gain easier access to the bolts securing the bottom chin spoiler.
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| Jacking up one side. |
Use the d-i-y blog entry on how to do an oil change to remove the front spoiler. Basically all the rubber grommets under the spoiler need to be pried off using a flat head and then all 10 mm bolt underneath each one needs to be removed using an socket extension. Leave the two 12mm bolts in the middle of the chin spoiler for last.
The car can be jacked down now.
Next the plastic retainer clips need to be removed from each side behind the wheel that are connecting the wheel well splash shield to the spoiler. This allows for the splash shield to be pulled back from the bumper exposing a few bolts. Remove these bolts from each side. Finally remove the 12mm bolts holding the spoiler and pull the spoiler outwards and down.
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| Expose corner bolts for chin spoiler |
Next remove the top cover. For this remove the plastic clips as shown. Use either flat head or removing tool.
Next remove the side markers. These can be a little tricky. Simply pulling then out very hard will bend or break the metal clip. Instead use a flat head screwdriver to slightly press on metal clip by pushing it towards the front of the car and pull the side marker out easily. Disconnect the harness. Repeat for other side.
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| Tab to release side markers |
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| Anatomy of the side marker |
Very important. Apply making tape to the front fenders on both sides. Apply a generous amount and make it double layered and multiple tape widths high, at least 2 or 3. You will thank yourself later.
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| Liberal Masking Tape Applied |
Behind the side maker on each side are two screws holding the bumper. Remove these screws using a 10 mm socket and appropriate extension. Repeat for other side.
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| Remove 1st of 2 100mm bolts holding bumper |
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| 2nd bolt is at an angle |
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| Easily accessible with a socket extension |
Remove the plastic fasteners from the top of the bumper.
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| Bumper Fastners |
Now each side of the side of the bumper is held by 3 tabs that need to be disconnected. It does require a considerable amount of outward force. Try not to apply any force vertically, as that will break the tabs. Repeat on other side.
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| Tabs under fender |
One side had to rest on the fender while working on the other side hence the masking tape prevents paint scratching.
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| Yeah! Masking Tape did its job. |
Finally lift the bumper from the top and pull out out. If you have DRL i.e. 2012+ model those would need to be disconnected at this point. I did not have those.
Headlight removal is straight forward with the exception of the harness brackets.
Remove the bottom bracket held by bolts.
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| RH headlight removal |
Next remove the bolts holding the headlight. 3 from the side (2 of them shown above)and 2 on top.
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| Top headlight bolts |
Slide the headlight forward to access the harness connected to the bracket.
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| Darn harness tab attached to headlight. |
Using a needle nose pliers remove the harness connector. Finally turn the headlight upside down and disconnect the headlight harness.
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| Harness tab removed and removing headlight harness |
The headlight on the drivers side was a little more tricky due to the 2 harness connectors on the bracket.
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| LH Headlight has a harness and hose attached |
After messing around with needle noise pliers and not getting anywhere, I opted to simply unscrew the bracket from the bottom of the headlight.
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| Easier way to remove LH headlight. |
At this point the 2015 headlight s are simply a plug and play. Here is a comparison of the headlights
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| Sorry for blurry picture - fronts |
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| Comparison of rears |
This is what powers up the lightning bolt. They seems to be 3.4w LED on each side.
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| Plug for lightning bolt LED harness |
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| Lightning bolt LED harness |
Quick Comparison of the stock 2009 vs 2015 lighting. The 2015 is not fitted in properly, it was a functional test to make sure the lights made it through shipping with no issues.
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| Only Parking Lights on. LH has aftermarket LED. |
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| Low Beams Only |
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| High Beams |
As much as I would have liked to be done at this point and assemble the car back together, I decided that I wanted to use the lightning bolts as DRLS, abet weak ones for a sunny day.
The problem is that the lightning comes on with the parking lights, which is not a big deal except turning on the parking lights turns on side markers and tail lights (again to a big issue), but this action dims the interior console lights and dashboard lights.
Therefore running parking lights during the day requires me to turn up the console brightness to max, and flip the day/night button on the NAV screen. Then I have to turn it back at night so that outside visibility is not diminished by bright lights in the cabin. What a pain! I hate doing that.
I do not have DRLs on the bumper of my 2009 and I opted not to install the expensive DRLs that block 1/3rd of the engine oil cooler vent.
Another post mentioned simply powering it up by a cable near the headlights that was hot with accessory or ignition turned on, but I did not want to overload any specific circuit without knowing exactly what it is. The headlight harness shared leads for horn, temp sensor, etc. Risky! Also, given the fact that I have a harness for the front camera already running into the cabin, I decided to power up the lightning bolt from the accessories power outlet and put a manual switch for stealth mode. i.e. having the accessories on inside but no visible light outside, say when parked in a lot.
This is the path for power for led lights that I took.
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| Path for new Power for LEDs |
For the right side this is the cable that powers the led when the parking light is turned on. Used a multimeter to test.
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| RH Parking light wire |
I disconnected the wire from the harness and ran a new wire inside the stock car harness. It was a slow process to open each zip tie with a watch screwdriver, spilt open the split lume tubing and then run the new wire, but I was in no hurry.
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| Opening stock harness |
After soldering the new wire to the stock connector to the I ran the new wire was run as shown
inside the stock harness.
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| Path out from RH side |
When it reached the other side, i.e. the drivers side, I connected it to the wire shown of the headlight. This is the wire that powers up the LH LED. This allows the two lights to be in parallel.
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| LH LED cable in harness. |
Using some new split lume, I created a new harness that runs parallel to the stock harness and into the driver's footwell through the firewall grommet. In the case of my GT-R this harness also has power for front camera as well as the AV signal for front camera.
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| Front Camera is mounted behind Bumper. |
LH headlight connector connected to new power source and harness runs parallel to stock harness.
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| Path from RH to LH Headlight and cables soldered up, and taped. |
To get access to the firewall grommet and also run the new harness, the brake cylinder and booster shield needs to be removed. Remove the first few tabs of the weather stripping on the back of the shield. Then the plastic tabs taht hold the sheild. Note one fastener is below the shield and need to be pulled straight up with some force.
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| Remove Covers |
Next run the harness under the plastic member and put inside the rubber grommet that separates the engine compartment from the brake components compartment.
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| Run Harness as such and through first grommet. |
I ran the harness along the edge of the body and through a newly made slit in the rubber grommet. It takes a little ingenuity to fish the harness through.
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| Harness in brake compartment |
Then finally through the rubber grommet into the drivers foot well.
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| Through Grommet to footwell |
Once everything is assembled, and tested, then a few tabs of high temperature black silicone can go on the grommet to re-seal it.
I will not go into specifics of wiring a circuit, but the power comes from the back of the accessory outlet. There are number of options here:
1. Can use a fuse tap and power the LEDs from a circuit (either ACC or IGN) directly on the fuse box in the footwell.
2. I have a power tap connected behind the Acc/cigarette lighter outlet next the steering wheel. Maybe I am overly cautious but I like having a fused source cable of supplying a good number of AMPs.
Wiring is simple. +12 Power from ACC to a switch and switch to the newly run LED wire. I had a lighted rocker switch (from radio shack) laying around so I used that. Need to use your soldering skills, use heat shrink tubing and lots of electrical tape, split lume and appropriately tie down the new harness using zip ties. Must avoid rubbing of any cable against any metal part as that can cause exposure of wire and short or fire. Basically if you do not know what you are doing...get help!
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| Manual Control for LED, Left in ON position allow lightning Bolt to come on when ACC is turned ON. |
Once all the electrical is done, re-assemble is reverse.
However, before fitting back the bumper. It makes sense to position the new headlights, lightly hand tighten them and check for alignment against the fenders, check alignment with the hood closed and also check for vertical alignment of the headlight beam patterns so they are not too far off or apart from the original. There is only so much adjustment that the screw on the headlights allows for. And it would be a pain to remove everything to move a headlight a few mm. Lastly do not forget to fine adjust the beam patterns using the adjustment screw.
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| Check all alignments and functionality before re-assembly. |
As a side note I decided to do other things while the bumper was off such as clean out the intercoolers of unwanted guests and debris.
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| freeloaders |
And also decided to check on the oil cooler, which I am glad I did. Removal of air diverter is easy.
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| Remove oil cooler air diverter |
What I found was sad...Nissan should have put some sort of mesh on the front of the air duct.
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| Lots of debris, dead bugs, small rocks and bend fins. |
Cleaned and an attempt to straighten the fins...boy would it have been nice to have an AMS oil cooler on hand at this moment.
Finally everything was assembled and mission accomplished. As mentioned earlier, I have been running the new lights for over a week now and driven at night on dark country roads and I am more impressed with the light pattern and illumination on the LED headlights than I am of the aesthetic upgrade.
