Today I’m going to show you the basics of installing a light bar on your Impreza WRX.
I will link this particular light bar and all the tools you’ll need in the video description
below so check that out.
Let’s get started.
So installing the light is pretty straightforward.
It comes with some mounting hardware that just bolts into the side of the lamp.
And then we have a screw going through the plastic of the bumper.
And then I also put a metal plate on the other side of the bumper that the bolt goes through.
So that’s not ever going to pull through the bumper on the back side.
And the light is light enough that it’s not going to cause the bumper to sag or anything
which is nice.
On the other side of this nut is another washer and a locking washer and then a wing nut on
the top and that’s what keeps the light on both sides attached to this bumper.
It’s pretty secure.
So the wiring harness is actually pretty simple.
We’re going to start with this end right here that connects to the battery.
We have the red cable that goes to the positive terminal of the battery, the black cable that
goes to the negative terminal.
Then this is the relay.
This will just bolt next to the battery on any bolt that you can find.
And this is where the fuse is.
You want to take out the fuse while you are working and installing all the lights and
stuff so that the fuse doesn’t trip itself on accident.
You can just flip up that little latch and the fuse comes out.
Now the rest of the wiring harness, it kind of splits off into a “Y” and goes two
directions.
We’re going to start with the black side first.
This particular wiring harness can be used for two LED lights.
So you have a black and a red here which connects to one LED light, and a black and a red there
that connect to another LED light.
But since we’re only installing one light we’re only going to use one connection and
then we’ll just electrical tape the other one to keep water off of it.
Now the other side of the wiring harness, which is this white cable, goes towards the
switch.
So it can disconnect here which makes it easier when we go through the firewall, and I’ll
show you that in just a second.
And then we have the switch itself.
The switch is what goes through the firewall inside of the car and that will turn the LED
light on and off.
These other cables that connect to the switch as well; this one is just going to screw onto
any old bolt underneath the hood.
This is a ground.
And then the red cable does need to go to the positive terminal of the battery.
So I just did a test wire really quick; I took the red from the switch and plugged it
in to the red terminal of the battery, and the red from the, you know, right next to
the relay…put the black from the relay onto the negative right there.
And then from the switch side, just because we’re testing it out and I haven’t put
it into the firewall yet, I took the negative and just grounded it onto any old bolt.
And then the switch right here you can see that the LEDs light up which is showing that
the switch is getting power.
And then I can press it and we got the LED light.
It turns on and off.
So the light is connected.
I’m shining it over at our neighbor’s house and it lights up the entire building
all the way to the top of the roof.
It’s pretty intense.
So I’m going to talk about the wiring for just a second.
So remember the center part of the harness with the relay and the two connections for
the battery?
So this is here, and it “Y’s” off and we have the switch wires that are just wrapped
around the edge of the car.
And then there’s a hole right back here.
So the metal panel between your engine compartment and the cab of your car is called a firewall,
and there’s always a hole somewhere in your firewall where wires can go through.
So there’s a little rubber piece right here that we’ve just kind of pushed down and
then fed the wires through it.
And sometimes they’re on the other side by the driver’s side or the steering wheel.
In this case it was on the passenger side.
So we put the switch wires through there and then we’re just going to ground it off of
one of these same silver bolts that I did before.
Going back to the battery, the second part of the “Y” is over here.
And so we have one connection for an LED light bar here because this is a dual harness.
Fed the wires here next to the radiator, and then we’re going to take these wires and
drop them down and connect them to the LED light bar itself.
And it’s wires are going up there as well, through the grill.
These are the connections on the wiring harness that are supposed to clip into the light bar
wires.
And so I bought these right here and they attach them to the light bar wires.
So if you can see them down there coming up through the front bumper of the car.
They’ll just plug into these and the light bar will be connected to the wiring harness.
Now the switch right here, since it is coming from the passenger side of the firewall, we
just routed it underneath the dashboard, behind it, and underneath this plastic part right
here.
And now every time we can just press the button while sitting in the driver’s seat.
So it’s easily accessible.
So we’re going to test the bar right now.
So this is just the regular headlights that are on on the car.
And then this is with the LED light bar on.
You can see how it lights up the trees in the background.
And then turn on your brights really quick.
And that is with the brights on.
And turn the LED off.
And those are the different lights.