I was talking to a friend one night and he mentioned a mod he did to his first Miata. JDM turn signal housings. I didn't want the JDM look, I wanted to do something my own, and something I think looks damn good, snake eyes. The look came from my fist real car, a 1991 Dodge Stealth. I wired the fuse box to make the car think the head lights were popped up to light up the clear housing that Dodge placed there, but were too stupid to actually wire the car up to have the option. The light mod on those cars are called snake eyes, thus the name carries on to my Miata.
Needed list:
12 gauge wire.
2 1158 light sockets
2 amber 1158 lights
2 clear 1158 lights
Turn Signal Housing:
Green: Remote wire
Red: Power wire
Black: Ground wire
Reflector Housing:
Red: Power wire
Black: Ground wire
Ignore my silly drawing, this is the diagram I made and followed.
First I drilled the housing out to be able to install the amber lights on the corner. I used a full sized drill to make the big hole and a drimmel to smooth it out. I bought two sockets from Advance the same size as the original light sockets. Make sure you get double contact sockets so they will blink. Also try to get a socket with three wires. I got one with two and no ground wire. Just made a ground wire.
I cut the original socket out and set it to the side. Spliced into the reflector wiring to have a solid light source. Ran the red and black wire to the original socket and left the green wire blank. Tied the green wire up with electrical tape to make sure there would be no short. I ran the new housing to the original housing's wires (that's a little hard to read). The housing I got did not have a ground wire, but a ground. So I ran wire from that to the black wire. I figured out which wire lit up which filament and tied accordingly (will vary by which socket you get) both my wires were black. lol I tied the smaller filament to the remote wire and the bigger filament to the power. Then I wrapped all the wires up water tight.
Installed the proper bulbs to the proper sockets. At this point you should have peanut bulb in the reflector housing, amber in the new socket, and clear in the original housing.
The 1158 does not fit in the corning housing so I used waterproof (metal like) tape Dooey had sitting in his garage and gorilla tape to hold it in. Will probably be a b**** to get off when I need to change the bulb or housing, but is water tight, blinks, and looks beautiful. Plus you can't see the tape from the outside. Final results
The color is hard to decipher on a picture unless it is completely dark. The amber glows beautifully, and the clear (snake eye) is surprisingly bright.
Let me know if you have any questions. I believe I listed every step. I did this in an hours time.
-JAS
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Miata family: '93 auto "Blacky", '99 turbo "Frankenstein" and '05 Mazdaspeed.
Originally Posted by jstammer
... I miss: My running peeps in Tampa, running barefoot @ Clearwater Beach and First Choice BBQ, in Brandon. In So Cal I miss: The Malibu Canyons, CA 33 and In & Out Burgers ! I'm from Tampa, if I was from Tampa Bay, I'd be a fish!
