TBau651

A little backstory:

I rolled the dice and bought a set of the iJDMtoy 18W Halo Fog lights that a forum member had posted in the classifieds. I say rolled the dice because I haven’t had the best luck with iJDMtoy in the past. When they arrived I was actually pretty impressed with the build quality overall. All metal housing, glass lens, and the wiring in the back seemed pretty well sealed up. There aren’t many reviews out there on these but a few people mentioned that the Halo ring, which is to be used as a DRL is pretty dim and not super visible in sunlight. The fog light component seemed pretty well received.

**** SORRY COUPE GUYS, SEDAN ONLY…



Nissan Infiniti OEM Fit 18W LED Fog Lights with Angel Eye Halo Rings

Installation Round 1:

***Full disclosure, I am very, very bad at remembering to take pictures of each step. I will try to make up for it with some diagrams.

I will start off by saying this was a pain... I dropped the bumper for more room to work (there’s a pretty good DIY out there) & so I could ensure clean, water tight wiring. Water tight is important here, (grab a flashlight and go look in behind the bumper after a rainstorm). The fog light assembly is held into the housing by one screw. The fog light trim is held in by clips and I believe has to be removed as well to get the fog lights out (they come out the front). I wrapped some silicone tape around the body of the lights before put them in because there was a little wiggle room.


I initially wired them the way they are designed to be wired; Fog light connector (I believe H8?) is plug and play into the OEM fog connector coming from the car. Halos get tapped into a 12V power source. For the Halos I ran a power wire up the drive side wheel well into the cabin (through the driver side firewall), then through a toggle switch, and fuse tapped to a 12V power source in the driver side fuse box that comes on with the car (I don’t remember which, I just used a multimeter). The toggle switch required some interior trim removal and some drilling. I mounted the switch in that little blank space next to the hood release.


Heres the original wiring diagram I used:


My Problem:

Halos: The Halos are indeed dim, very dim, and so dim that you will not be able to tell they are on during the day. They do however look awesome at night and have a slight bluish tint to them.

Fogs: The Fogs are BRIGHT, very Bright, and probably TOO bright for nighttime use in normal conditions. They do not have a cutoff line like normal fog lights; they just kind of throw the light every which way, they will blind the S*** out of oncoming traffic. I did find however that they looked pretty cool during the day, the way the LEDs are placed in the housing gives almost a honey comb effect in sunlight.

I ran with this setup for a couple weeks until I started thinking, wouldn’t it be nice if the Fogs became the DRL's, and the Halos came on at night as kind of accent lighting? With the way the G37 fog lights work, the only way to run the fogs during the day would be too manually switch on the headlights every time you drive during the day, not gunna happen. I run my lights on AUTO and found that if it is dark enough outside for the headlights to come on, it is dark enough the see the halos.

My Solution:

I decided to reverse the way the 2 components (fog light & halo) work and add a DRL controller to tell the fog lights (which will become the DRL), when to turn on and off.

- The Halos will be wired to the factory fog light connectors coming from the car, controlled by the factory fog switch.

- The Fog lights will be powered by my 12V power source that runs into the cabin and is controlled by a toggle switch. The DRL controller will be between the Toggle Switch and the fog light component. The 3rd wire (DRL ON/OFF wire) on the DRL controller will be tapped into the positive on the Halos.

Here’s the DRL controller I used (Ebay):

LED Daytime Running Light DRL Relay Harness Auto Control on Off Switch Kit C14 | eBay

These things are cheap and most controllers would work as long as it has a wire that kills the DRL when the headlights (or other) get power.

Installation Round 2:

Bumper dropped again, this install is PROBABLY possible without removing the bumper, I but IMO it’s much easier with the bumper off. I mounted the DRL controller to the backside of the driver side fender liner with 3M outdoor two-way tape. I ran the passenger side DRL wire along the plastic piece at the bottom of the radiator secured with zip ties.


I didn’t get a good pic of the entire layout but this will give an idea of where everything sits:


On to modifying the fog lights; I cut the H8 connector to the fog light component off and replaced it with 2 waterproof quick connects. These wires are SHORT so I used butt connectors with some extra wire between the light and the quick-connects. I then re-attached the H8 fog connector to the wires for the halos using quick connects. Butt connectors would have been just fine here but I found it easier to crimp on the quick-connects as there was very little remaining wire to work with on the fog connector.



Testing connections...


I used a silicone sealer on any connection where water could potentially touch bare wire of metal. Lastly, I used a POSI-TAP to tap the DRL controller ON/OFF wire into the fog connector (controlled the factory fog switch); I can’t recommend POSI-TAP enough, Great product.

Here are some diagrams for the wiring and to explain how the lights behave:

Daytime: AUTO HIDs off, halos off, fogs on as DRL


Nighttime: AUTO HIDs on, Halos on, Fogs off by way of DRL controller.


The result:

Fogs (now the DRL) come on with the car and can be manually shut on or off using the toggle switch if I ever need to. Halos come on with the headlights and kill power to the Fogs/DRL. The halos are controlled by the factory fog switch to the right on the headlight switch (I leave it in the ON position). If there was a case where I wanted to run the fog lights at night, all I have to do is shut off the halos (factory fog switch off), and on come the fogs.

I also dropped in some Morimoto 6500K HID bulbs while I was in there; they look awesome and jive much better with the halos that have a hint of blue.

Now for some pics...

Daytime





Nighttime - Halos





Nighttime - Fogs





***just to note: The fogs appear kind of yellowish in the daylight photos. They are bright white, no yellow whatsoever -- Blame Apple for their camera quality. While the halos do have a definite hint of blue, they look MORE blue in the night pics than they actually are.

Cheers

Djfarhan

i like very much!

the93owner

Just curious, could you elaborate on your bad experience with iJDMToy? I'm using their LEDs for my turn signals now and am satisfied, but not sure if I should be worried some time down the road.


PS. Great writeup! Wish I had foglights but the 07-09's are integrated in the headlights

TBau651

I ordered a set of the "bar" type DRL's from them last summer, when i unboxed them I noticed that there was bare wire showing where the + wire leads into the housing. I went to shine a flashlight in there, barely touched the wire, BAM fully detached (bad solder inside the housing). I should have been patient and sent them back, but of course i had the install planned for the next day.. I had to open the housing up and re-solder the lead, and this is like micro soldering, not easy. They also came with like zero legit mounting hardware, I had to find a solution at the hardware store.

low and behold, after having them installed for about 4 months one of the lights started to flicker (ironically not the one I attempted to repair). I reached out to jJDMtoy and they basically told me that I was SOL and denied me any kind of refund/return. I tried to post a negative review on those lights and it never appeared, funny its tough to find a bad review on their site.

Anyway, out with the old and in with the new. I am happy with these, but also happy that I purchased them from a member rather than putting the money in iJDMtoy's pocket.

G37sPhoton

TBau651-i got these fogs as well and went with a straight set up as that is all of my electrical tech knowledge allowed me to do, but would have loved to do something like this as this is what I had in mind when ordering it. love the lights, just wish i had the set up like you o...I may give it a whirl after reading your post but not likely, odds are i will end up with no fogs...too bad you dont live closer man, either way nice set up you got there

oh by the way, checking out the morimotos as well, damn dude, thats my set up right there!!! anyway, any issue with less visibility with the 6500k? i was planning on the 5500k as their lumens seemed to be the best once over the 4300k or so. thanks

kennyz424

iTrader: (147)

Thank you very much for this detailed writeup!

TBau651

Thanks man. So much potential in those fogs, and so far I'm really loving the fog as drl/halo as night time accent lighting.

The Morimotos are spectacular for the money. Zero issue with visibility, if anything id say they light up the road better than the oem 4300k's. Definitely gave me the bright white with a hint of blue I was looking for. If your on the fence about them, go for it. You won't be disappointed.

SrtUltr

Looks great! Is your grill painted or plastidipped?

TBau651

In the pictures it was plasti dipped. Currently, its a vinyl wrap/plasti dip hybrid of sorts.



I'm thinking about removing the gunmetal dip around the outside in a few weeks once I'm moved into my new house and have a garage again..

SrtUltr

Thanks for the close up, how has the plastidip held up against rock chips? Are bugs easy to scrub off?

TBau651

Its been on for about a year and has held up way better than I ever thought it would, even in our MN winters. Because its kind of a rubbery coating - I would even go as far as to say it holds up better to rock chips than the factory chrome and definitely better than the crappy factory paint. Fairly easy to clean as well, I let it soak in simply green for a few minutes, wash it off, dry it, then hit it with some armor all to restore the shine..

Panerai28