I been looking all around to find a way to make my raxiom footwell lighting kit turn on with my headlights instead of only turning on when the doors open. The instructions for the kit only show how to make the lights turn on with the doors opening and unlocking the car. I have a 2008 mustang GT and it already has the ambient lighting feature for the footwell and the cup holders but it isn't bright enough so I decided to get these instead. Does anyone know which wires I am supposed to splice to get this to work?

 

Welcome aboard!

The information you want is here:
http://iihs.net/fsm/?d=40&f=Headlamps.%20Autolamps.pdf

That and the second page detail the headlamp wiring for your car. But... there's a couple of issues. If you grabbed the headlamp 'on' wire from the light switch, then your kit would only work if the headlights are on, and not for parking lamps on only. You can't grab both the park and the headlamp on without doing some funtime wiring... maybe a couple of diodes would work... Just complicates things is all. And you could get the actual low beam wire on one of the headlamps, but then if you put on high beams or flash to pass, the kit would go off because the car turns off the low beams for the high ones. Annoying as that is in my opinion...

The reason for all that is because there's no direct connection from the light switch to the lights. The light switch is a 'suggestion box' for the Smart Junction Box to then tell what the lights to do, so the park and headlamp on positions tell the SJB to do whatever it is you want. Hence, can't just grab it at the switch without extra shenanigans. Gotta love low power switchgear signaling like that.

So what I'd do is grab one of the actual parking lamp wires. Not turn signal ones. The side markers. Here:
http://iihs.net/fsm/?d=40&f=Parking,...se%20Lamps.pdf

They stay on if the park or headlamp is on, high beams or low, and would be the better choice. I'd probably go directly off the front right parking lamp (looks to be the black and pink wire?) and right up into the BEC area where I'd then put the relay for the kit, and then send that relayed power into the cabin for the new light kit. I'm not terribly sure, but I believe the parking lamps aren't monitored much by the system, so a little more draw for that relay on that wire shouldn't do anything to set off any 'light out' or such. You know, the fast blinking turn signal, or the 'headlamp out' on the message board, that sort of thing.

There ya go. Park or headlamp, you got your kit on, and it doesn't care about turn signals or high beam/flash to pass, it'll just work until you turn the lights off. Tada and stuff, I think...

Oh, and for me, I'd want a kill switch for the power going to the kit, so I can endarken the cabin and feel all stealthy when I wanna. For what my thoughts on it are worth on that, but you do you, I believe in ya.

Hope that helps, good luck!

 

Wow thanks! This is my first project car and I wanted to start off with something easier. But it seems this is gonna be harder than I thought. But hey gotta start somewhere. Thanks for the info again! Very clear and detailed

 

I've wired up some internal lights to my headlight switch .When I turn the headlights on the lights come on. It's the same wire that powers the dash, console radio lights. If you want simple just tap into that wire But they will only come on when you turn on the headlights .