I want to buy neon lighting for under the dash (foot well) and I don't want to pay to have someone install them for me. I am a n00b with wiring so can someone explain to me how I could install some of these lights in my foot wells with a switch to turn them on and off? My friend on the other hand bought some crappy neons from his local Target that plug in to the cig. lighter and has wires running all throughout his car... looks REALLY bad... makes the neons look rice. If the wiring were done correctly it would look awesome.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

i can't help you with the installation but go to streetglow's website and take a look at their products. the installation doesnt look too hard to do and i know a few people who have done it themselves with no problems. streetglow i feel is the best in the business and no one compares to them. just my $ .02

 

I wanted to do the same thing, flawless... so far i just bought 1 9 inch tube from Discount Auto Parts (one of the thinner ones, not the big bulging ones)... i dont remember the brand. Ill buy one more when i get the chance. Yea but so far my plan is to get my hands on a switch bar, where i can just clip the wire at the cigarrette lighter point, and match the wires... what ive done so far is used double sided tape to stick the tube on the very front/bottom of the drivers seat, and have the wires running up the side, and then i tucked them under the silver pannel piece, and then one more wire jumping over the panel and into the arm compartment... i then used some regular scotch tape (because im not sure if htis is how im going to keep it), to run it UNDER the groove for the sliding arm rest. and i dont know if the rest of u noticed, but theres a tiny little gap that allows access into the back compartment... so i then took the transformer box and mounted THAT to the side of the compartment, and the lighter straight into the socket... im only planning on doing one more light for now in the passenger's side seat, and if i measured out and did my wiring meticulously it would barely be noticible. my only concern is the switches location. it will require me to open my arm panel to flip them on. other option is to do what mikeb did and tap into the dome light under the seats. a friend is finding out about that for me soon. if its only a 50 dollar or so install, ill probably have them do that and mount a switch in the dummy panels next to the DSC. hope that helps. wow this is a long post.

Edit*** Oh yea and it lights up the entire leg area up till the bottom of my steering wheel in my car. it looks AWESOME in my opinoin. switch position or plugging in/out is my only problem with it.

 

Just to provide an alternate opinion - the wiring doesn't make the neons look rice, neons in the interior ARE rice (whether the wiring is messy or neat). Aw hell, neons anywhere on a car are rice. :p

Regards,
Gordon

 

IMO I think interior lights make the car look nice whether it's rice or not... anyways... Kushballah do you think you could post a pic of the 1 tube you have installed at the moment?

 

my interior footwell lights are not rice
they look nice and didnt cause all the problems the mazda footwell lights caused from install

 

what type of footwell lights do you have and could you post a picture please?

 

the pictuer would be a problem cause i lost the cable for my digital camera-computer... i can take one with my phone camera, but it wont be the BEST quality ever. gimme a few days. exams this week, so time is quite limited. im hoping by the end of next weekend to finish my switch and second light install, as well as putting in my third light decal. cant seem to get a hold of D Menac though. ill take pictures of all as soon as i get em done. Oh... and mine arent rice. it requires someone to be standing outside the door and in front of it while its open in order to see the tube on the seat. it looks like footwell lights. i happen to like it.

 

I just bought two ten inch audiobahn red lights, one for the passenger and one under the driver seat

 

Just in case everybody didn't notice but the 8 is a Japenese car. Therefor its going to be considered rice.
Just my $0.02

 

Professionally installed neon is to Target neon as Costly waste of money is to cheap waste of money.
I would think the neon lights could be powered by any 12V source. You should splice into any current power source.
I've seen neon light wires that illuminate when power is going through them. If I was going to rice my car I would get the neon wires and tap into the power source for the driver's side door lights. They would illuminate when the car door is open like the other interior lights.

 

i would consider cold cathode over neon....IMO

 

so true

 

yes it is true... as far as cold cathode, ur probably right as well. i just went with the last tube they had over at discount auto parts. discount my *** though. i piad 23 for it. i might as well have got a pair for 17 at target. lifetime warranty my friend tells me. n i dont remember the maker of my bulb. and Bubble, in that case one could simply get the footwell lights from mazda... thoguh theyve had problems and are more expensive. still nice i hear.... but the reason i wanted to do the wiring myself or tap into a continued source is because i like them on when i want. not just when the doors open.

 

A light is a light, be it neon, incadescent or LED, it's the placement of and appearance that makes a difference whether it's rice or not.

Jeez Gord, you are so narrow minded sometimes. (eyes rolling)

I am considering doing the footwell lighting myself and would probably do either in neon (cold cathode) or hyper LEDs.

 

OK guys. One of my past hobbies is a computer case modder. These use a 12 volt power just like a car. When you buy for a car, they tend to jack the price up on the exact same cold cathode tubes that go into one of these cases. My favorite most trustable and cheapest place to buy stuff like this online is this place: SVC.com They have all sorts of cold cathode kits and all you would have to do is cut off the power supply connectors and wire them up to the 12V supply on your car. If they say out of stock, just wait a short while, they will have them back in shortly.

 

I'll see if i can do something with those cold cathode tubes... If it comes out good i'll post pics and/or instructions.

 

ok...how in THE HELL is lighting RICE?..WTF??!! some people have the wrong interpretation of rice...I'm a strict form=function type person but interior lighting COME ON!...or lights for that matter are serving a function...aren't they?...maybe i'm just old school and the definition of rice has expanded beyond what it was when we used it 10 years ago...

we used undercarriage lights on our show cars and I do find it funny on cars driven on the street (which is illegal anyway) but not rice...

 

If done tastefully, lighting is not rice in my opinion. It is rice when on a car with underbodies, the tubes show. It is rice when with interior lighting, the car looks like it belongs in a midway. My opinion of rice is overdone, gaudy, or poorly done additions to the car.

-JiM

 

Nah, not narrow-minded, just opinionated. Didn't ya notice the smileys in my post? I wasn't the one who originally used the word rice in reference to interior neon, I was just pointing out that the quality of wiring doesn't make the difference between "rice" or "not-rice".

Opinions vary on the desirablity or appreciation of "lighting mods", that's all!

Regards,
Gordon

 

I'm Asian, so it can't be any ricier than it is now.

I think it's rice to have someone put a bunch of stickers all over their car, with little/no modifications to their car. Pretty ricey there.

 

Yep i think im with Outlaws... Rice to me is going for the racer look without any performance modifications, having a virtually non racer car. the reason i think stickers and lights have become dubbed rice is because they were the mark of a racer, yet since they are cheap modifications, they are being used left and right on cars with no mods... or ricers. there was a webpage from the old tl forum... all bout ricers. if i find it, ill post.

 

OK Gordon, sorry about the narrow minded comment...

I think it matters now what type lighting is used but more so how it is used. If it's tasteful and hidden, it's definately decent, not rice. If it's neon green, blatant or sticks out like a sore thumb, it's distasteful but that is, as you pointed out, an opinion.

Perhaps we should not offend others by using the "rice" reference and call it for what it is, gaudy.

Does anyone have any offense to the word "gaudy"? :D

 

..Isn't footwell lighting a factory/dealer option?

It's probably much more expensive to have it installed at the dealership, but at least you can be sure that it will be a clean installation and the shade of glow will match the rest of the car's interior.
I've been considering jimmying something up to turn on some glow sticks in the footwell whenever the running lights are on, but then I thought about how upset I would be if the glow wasn't the same shade as, for example, those lights that illuminate the window switches at night.
Alas, I am leaning towards getting the Mazda accessory lighting installed.

Speaking of rice: I think it would be ricey only if the light was so intense your face glows red through the windows whenever they're on. That, or if people can see the tubes from outside.

 

Can anyone post pictures of what this type of lighting would look like?

As for form/function.....explain to me how the RX-8 is served by installing tube interior lighting....