The first time I ever looked at my horns was this Fall. And Yikes! That's nasty.

 

You know, I'm not sure. Certainly the cowl over the horn is plastic.

The more I look at it, the answer is both plastic and metal.

Now that I hear the PIAA 400/500 from my own car, in person... I am seriously happy with this little mod. In fact, I feel a little awkward never doing anything about it until now.

 

Yeah, will don't get carried away with tooting your own horn...

Guess it's good I brought this topic up to start with

 

my horns arent that loud.....or maybe i never stood outside the car to find out......

 

I bought a pair of hella horns from ebay for $37 bucks. I put them on today and they sound hella better than stock. I did a search and found out how to remove the center piece of the grill, (3 screws and 4 push tabs). It made the job much quicker since I have big hands. I didn't use the hella relay and I had to make a ground wire for the left side other than that they work fine.

 

I can get the grill on and off again now with my eyes closed. And actually, when I put it all back together this evening, I left the center bolt alone. The two end-bolts and all the clips are plenty to keep the grill in securely. Which is good, because the center bolt is a pain.

The driver-side horn unbolted right away (after some penetrating oil on those rusty M8x20mm bolts.) The passenger side, however, it took a bit before I realized I could just bend this black bracket out of the way. (It's the bracket for the wiring harness on the front airbag impact sensor.)

I intended to use the same holes, and that's not a problem for the passenger side. But on the driver side, the bracket lip gets in the way. No need to dremel that out, just grab some pliers and bend it flat.

Also on the driver side, the power cord doesn't quite reach. So get out the scissors and free up the cable from the main wiring harness. There's a good extra 2 inches of play, and it's just enough.

The power connectors clip right on to the horns nice and secure. Then use the two grounding cables that come with the kit to ground each, using a grounding point that's already being tapped by something else. I don't know what that is, but there's a wire grounded to the hood latch bracket. So that's what I used.

And you're done.

Perfect job? Um, no way. There's all kind of rusty hardware involved, but less than I started with. I replaced all the affected hardware with stainless steel parts from Lowes.

Does it look good? Meh. I'm not overly proud of it. But then again, it looks better than what was there, and as long as I have that OEM grill, you can't see much of anything, even if you try. So I'm actually OK with this as-is. It's a horn, you hear it, you don't look at it.

The best tip I can share about installing these PIAA horns is not to be shy about bending things. Go right ahead and bend the wings on the hood latch bracket, and the wire harness bracket on the airbag impact sensor, and the extension brackets on the new horns themselves. Push things around so you can get access, and position the horns the way you want.

Here's a picture after the install. Nothing to look at, but here it is none-the-less.



And one close-up:

 

Glad installing the PIAA was not a PITA

Looks good, and like you said, sounds way better!

My condensor has WAY more bugs smashed into it than yours does. Did you detail that as well?

 

Thanks, Troop. It was more of a PITA than I thought it would be, but less than it could have been once you realize it's OK to start bending things to fit.

I think I might turn the horn back on with the key-fob lock, just for a while until it becomes normal and annoying again.

About my AC condenser... beats me, man. I haven't touched it. Ever.

 

Hmmm... Is there any way to just double the horns, double the fun? I think the Maxima horn would sound better if it were louder. Maybe. But I'm guessing their just isn't enough room to fit in another pair?

The only downside to that "Superior Bass" horn is that the lower the frequency, the harder it is to pinpoint the source of the sound. Higher pitches and, thus, shorter wavelengths would be more immediately identified as "Woah... I think there's a dude right next to me that I'm currently running off the road." Now, whether "more immediately" is defined as 500ms faster or just 5ms faster, I don't know.

 

All this horn talk made me just order my set of PIAA 500/600mhz horns. Can't wait! HA!

 

You could, but you should probably wire a new relay into the circuit because of the added hardware. Either way, this is what you get when you double-up the OEM horn:

 

HO.....ly Cow! When I took my crappy stock horns off last year they were still coated in the factory green paint, complete with stock numbers in case any of you want to re-order these wonderful things. Have I ever mentioned I HATE salt?

 

I've come to the (unmeasured) conclusion that these PIAA horns aren't really any more or less loud than the OEM horns. They just sound more appealing... which isn't necessarily a good thing in a horn, from a purposeful point of view.

Of course, I'm still keeping them, but I thought that opinion was worth mentioning.

 

Rochester, that's pretty interesting. Everyone seems to think that they are much louder than the stock "beep beep" horns, maybe it is just the different tone they are hearing.

I've got a set of 400/500 PIAA's ordered from Amazon, should be here in a couple of days.

 

I know, it doesn't seem to fly with the consensus opinion. Troop, I'm entirely deaf in one ear, so I hear the world in mono. I understand what stereo is, but only in the academic sense. That might have something to do with it. IDK.

By all means, post your opinions when you get the PIAA's installed. Remember for the installation, it's OK to bend things.

 

this is interesting imma go check out NCSU_MAX horns on his 4th gen to see if they are the same compared to mine.

 

I ordered my 500/600 set last night on Amazon. Hope to install them this weekend sometime. I may try to reuse the bracket that Rochester has attached this his rusty OEM horns so they are pointing downward.

 

My driver side PIAA horn is in the 5:00 position. The passenger side is in the 8:00 position. Both are bent a little towards the AC condenser so the horns don't touch the front piece.

It's not perfect. Not sure if it has to be.

Let's see what you guys come up with.

 

It doesn't have to be perfect. I'm not even sure what I will do with the install until I get that grill off.

 

Even though I scoped it out with the grill off about a week before installing the horns, it still didn't quite work out as easy as I thought it would. Bend, stretch, uneven orientation, etc.

I'm really curious to hear what you do. I've been rattling around the idea of creating an extension piece to better position the horns... but I'd have to find something to work, drill some holes, buy extra SS hardware, paint the bracket, and basically invest a whole extra day into this thing when it probably doesn't matter. IDK.

 

Ugh, you and I have something crappy in common it seems. I'm deaf in the left ear. Of course I DO have a really annoying ringing that emanates from that ear 100% of the time so I've got that going for me. One good thing is I don't worry about spending any money on an expensive sound system for my home theater. It's all display for me.

I'm thinking of ordering these same horns tomorrow Rochester. I can't decide between the 400/500's or the 500/600's though. I like the lower tone though so I'll probably go with the formers.

 

LOL, you guys remind me of the cop in Wild Hogs who was deaf in one ear, people kept talking bad about him as long as they were on the deaf side...

 

Wow John, you're the master of macro photos. That picture of the rusty horns is almost artistic. You should get a really big print, frame it, and hang it in your garage. Not sure why... it's just a really nice picture is all

 

Can't you just reuse the plates that are still attached to the old horns? That's what I was going to look into.

 

My stepmpm has the same thing but buzzing instead of ringing and she has the strongest hearing aid you can get in the other ear.

My sister got her into a special program at University of Penn for cochlear implant for the deaf side and it went really well. Maybe you and John could look into that.

 

Re-use what, exactly? Remember this photo?



I'm just going to wait and see what you guys do before or if I do anything further.

As to all the deaf-in-one-ear talk... yeah, I've probably saved a bundle on stereo equipment, LOL! And it's really easy to go to sleep at night. But I still think I'd rather hear in both ears. Had some re-constructive surgery 15 years ago, and for about one month I could hear normal. It really freaked me out, then slowly faded away. Maybe someday I'll try again.

 

Tell you what, I get decent respect when they hear my horns now.

 

No longer the beep beep. Now it is hump hump, or is it?

 

Which horns did you install?

 

Here's the cross-reference:

http://forums.maxima.org/5th-generat...grade-diy.html

 

All this horn talk can make a man kind of...... horny
Thinking about upgrading mine

 

agree with clashez1983 i had never thought bout replacing my horns but just looking at this thread new louder horns really sound like a nice upgrade

 

i cant decide which ones i want, youtube doesnt help at all either. they say most vehicles come stock 400/500 hz these days. but i see that 500/600 is the loudest but also sounds sissy-ish loud. which ones should i get. i want something loud (besides annoying train horns) thats says GTF outta my way. 400/500 or 500/600hz

 

crazy

 

OK, I got tired of staring at them when I get home from work so I took a crack at installing them in the driveway as the sun was setting. I didn't take the grill off but probably should.

I mounted them with the brackets that the OEM horns attach to. When pointing down, they rub against the front side which I wasn't happy with, so I have them mounted with the horns pointing to the sides. My new position is better but I'm still not thrilled with it. I think Rochester has the best idea. Mount them where he did (and not use the plates like I did), but point the horns outto the sides. This way, the sound pierces through the grill.

And I agree with Rochester in another post of his, I don't think they sound louder. Just a different pitch.

 

Way to go, Tom. It seems like such a simple thing to do, really. But the reality is that you have to be creative and patient.

So in the final analysis, are you glad you bought them?

 

Yeah, I'm happy with them, but will redo them this weekend. I will need to pop the grill off to get to do what I want. I cannot get a socket to the bolt on the left side that you have your horn connected to. I can easily do the right side with the grill on.

 

and heres one for a good laugh its http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnPE6nGXVqE

 

You can if you remove the grill and gently bend the wire harness bracket out of the way. And once you remove the grill, you'll realize how easy it is to take on & off, and then you'll wonder why you didn't do that in the first place.

BTW, that wire harness is for your front airbag impact sensor. With that in mind, you might want to disconnect the battery before banging around there with a socket wrench. It probably doesn't matter, but still...

 

Crap yes, that would be an expensive mistake. About $2000 total if I remember.

Think the airbags would deploy without the key being in the ignition and the ignition in the "on" position?