Dr. Cheap's House of Hacks

VTEC & IAB LED

Circa 2001

For those of you who know what VTEC & IAB are this will make a little more sense. For everyone else all that you really need to know here is that they are 2 mechanisms designed by Honda to enhance the power output of some of their engines.

These systems are controlled by the car's computer (aka Engine Control Unit or ECU), and engage under certain situations that take into account factors such as RPMs, speed, coolant temperature, etc. To know exactly when this happens, I have wired two 12V LEDs into the car, one for each system.

For ease of installation I chose to put them on the center console, just under the A/C vents, between the flasher & defrost switches. I also wanted a way to disable the LEDs, so I also wired in a switch near the handbrake. I've since seen someone else do this and put them right on the tachometer, which is a much nicer (but highly difficult) place for installation.

To accomplish this, I had to remove the entire center console, glove box, kick panel, passenger side carpeting, and more. After doing all this, I probed ECU wires to determine which ones carry the signals for the 2 systems. Then I did some back of the envelope style engineering for the wiring.

Then it's off to the fabrication lab, er...breakfast table, to install the LEDs and prepare the wiring.

After a few hours of careful disassembly, drilling, soldering, contortion, and re-assembly, the finished product looks great and works too! I even made a short movie you can watch.

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