Installing Ecodes on your 940 with foglights, step by step

Natural244 said:

Thanks, that is very handy!

-Tim

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+1

Very cool diagram.

WindowsBreakerG4 said:

Oh I am buying a 940, it has ecodes (with fogs) but 1 of the corners is broken so I am trying to figure out what the difference is. Also I found they do offer both corners so I guess it's not an issue but I am still kinda curious

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The foglight type headlight, which the ecode FCP sells replaces, has a different angle than the non-fog, so the turns are different in at least that way. I have some and while I haven't spent any time on it, I don't see an easy way to make the stock turn fit the ecode light bracket.
Also, the e-code turn has two sockets, one clear and one amber. No one has come up with a good way to make them both work correctly AFAIK, only to put the one, two filament bulb in one of the sockets and leave the other blank. I have not put mine in yet because I want to do it that way, and make the bulb out light not come on.

jerryc said:

Also, the e-code turn has two sockets, one clear and one amber. No one has come up with a good way to make them both work correctly AFAIK, only to put the one, two filament bulb in one of the sockets and leave the other blank. I have not put mine in yet because I want to do it that way, and make the bulb out light not come on.

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I'm going to be installing a set soon, converting my 94 non-fog 940 to e-codes with fogs. My understanding about the corner lights is that a single filament bulb goes into the top and bottom holes. The clear takes a 5w bulb that comes on with the signal from the parking lights (city lights in Europe), and the amber section takes a 21w bulb that is only activated as a turn signal.

ryank said:

I'm going to be installing a set soon, converting my 94 non-fog 940 to e-codes with fogs. My understanding about the corner lights is that a single filament bulb goes into the top and bottom holes. The clear takes a 5w bulb that comes on with the signal from the parking lights (city lights in Europe), and the amber section takes a 21w bulb that is only activated as a turn signal.

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Well you have clearly spelled out what I sort of came to, so thanks! But, I have not discovered if there are bulbs in that wattage with the correct offset pins for the sockets. Do you know?

If the lamps are anything like the ones in earlier Ecodes, yes there will be options with the correct offset pins. Up until recently, they actually stamped the info on the base of the lamp. It was very helpful when trying to find the correct lamps for my early ecodes

I trimmed some bits on the socket and spliced 2 sockets into the single feed and am running an 1156 and an 1157 bulb. Obviously the 1157 is the turn signal/marker light. The 1156 is simply a marker light...

Having just wired in a pair of recycled DJAuto "almost E-codes" into my cheap thrills 944, I'm going to chime in with a couple pointers, based on my experience.

First off, TheJeffers did a nice job; his info. is spot on.

Now a couple additional dinky details, to hopefully help those that follow.

There are in fact a couple of the "square plug" female gray plastic wiring connectors underhood. I think this thread mentions the E-fan relay....when I checked my 92 and 94 parts cars, none had this style plug in that area. However I did find a pair of the plugs in my donor 94 945.....the first one on the LH (drivers side) wiring harness, near the ABS system and LH2.4 test ports. The second one I found was the windshield wiper motor, under the cowl.

Being an Engineer by training (and anal by nature) I measured the headlight wire gauge when I stripped the leads. Don't know the MM wire gauge system, but my calibrated strippers showed the fine stranded ORIGINAL headlight wires to be ~14 Ga. stranded. When I checked the pair of square plugs, one set of leads was almost 12 Ga. (bigger), but the other pair was quite small, either 16 or 18 Ga. Earlier in this article someone mentioned concerns about smaller wires. The second plug, wiper motor I think, was exactly 14 Ga. so no increase needed. However the little 16/18 leads need replaced IMO. From what I know about DC electricity and resistance, those short pieces of undersized wire will be the highest resistance in the lamps circuit.....they will get hot first, and when they start to fail, the resistance continues to increase as the strands burn up one by one. Not too good!

I popped the gray square plugs apart, and the factory made up female pin sockets ends pull right out. I scrounged thru the rest of the underhood wiring from my 945 donor, and found a couple other wires with the correct female pinned ends which were 14 Ga., installed them into the plug to replace the 16/18's I condemned. Now when complete, all wire Ga. matches the OEM wiring, so no hotspots (i.e. future failure points) will be created. Headlights are pretty damn important if you drive at night and and ounce of prevention is.........you get it.

Solder well, heatshrink protect all the splices, route carefullly so they don't rub. Just as TheJeffers has mentioned the fog lamps (upper in the inner side of the DJ's) will drop out when the HIGH beam circuit is fired, and the lower H3's (lower, inner side) will fire.

Looking forward to see how these babies light the road, with a pair each of H3's and H4's on high beams.

245gti said:

I trimmed some bits on the socket and spliced 2 sockets into the single feed and am running an 1156 and an 1157 bulb. Obviously the 1157 is the turn signal/marker light. The 1156 is simply a marker light...

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Which side of the socket the part the bulb goes in or the other part?

I used this wiring setup just yesterday, each light works like it should the first time. I did take some pictures of my modded US spec corners that I fitted into the ecode.....Mind if I post them here?

Nathaninwa said:

I used this wiring setup just yesterday, each light works like it should the first time. I did take some pictures of my modded US spec corners that I fitted into the ecode.....Mind if I post them here?

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Go for it! More information is always better, especially as the Ecode corners are apparently becoming more difficult to find in good shape.

Here are some pics of what I did....not really good at the descriptions, but I had a spare broken ecode holder, and I just started trimming till the US spec marker fit. I sanded the marker so it was smooth with only the little hook left, and I had to sand a bit around the alighment pin into the fender.....I also had to sand on the ecode opening, more or less smoothing the entire and sanding back the hook that keeps the light in place.

Then I drilled and tapped for a number 8 screw machine screw to hold the light onto the ecode housing, and in light of true TB fashion, I had to use a ziptie around the light socket and the core support to hold it in the opening firmly.







unmodded ecode

TheJeffers said:

Go for it! More information is always better, especially as the Ecode corners are apparently becoming more difficult to find in good shape.

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FCP sells them new.

Install completed

I'm going to toss something in here that is somewhat related...

Since I spent a wad of dough on my ecodes I decided I wanted to protect my lenses with the best possible protectant film so I wasn't buying replacement lenses in 6 months. I got some X-Pel film in what they call 40 mil thickness (it's actually 0.040"). It's thick and would keep anything but the big rocks from harming the lens. To my dismay, about 3 days after I installed it, I found cracks in both lenses. The cracks ran top to bottom pretty much in front of the H4 bulb. I suspect the thick film retained too much heat and the glass couldn't handle it and cracked. Needless to say, my lenses aren't so pretty anymore. I've glued them back together with Crazy Glue which has pretty good optical properties and the cracks have mostly disappeared but we'll see how they work with a little heat. This time around I'm going with some 12 mil film...

I've got a set of the FCP Scan Tech replacement lenses which are actually DJ Auto lenses. Honestly, I'd rather run the cracked OEM lenses than put the FCP lenses in...just an FYI to anyone out there contemplating buying a set from FCP.

245gti said:

I'm going to toss something in here that is somewhat related...

Since I spent a wad of dough on my ecodes I decided I wanted to protect my lenses with the best possible protectant film so I wasn't buying replacement lenses in 6 months. I got some X-Pel film in what they call 40 mil thickness (it's actually 0.040"). It's thick and would keep anything but the big rocks from harming the lens. To my dismay, about 3 days after I installed it, I found cracks in both lenses. The cracks ran top to bottom pretty much in front of the H4 bulb. I suspect the thick film retained too much heat and the glass couldn't handle it and cracked. Needless to say, my lenses aren't so pretty anymore. I've glued them back together with Crazy Glue which has pretty good optical properties and the cracks have mostly disappeared but we'll see how they work with a little heat. This time around I'm going with some 12 mil film...

I've got a set of the FCP Scan Tech replacement lenses which are actually DJ Auto lenses. Honestly, I'd rather run the cracked OEM lenses than put the FCP lenses in...just an FYI to anyone out there contemplating buying a set from FCP.

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Wow, I was about to buy that exact same film... gues I'll go with the 12 mil too

plantationwalrus said:

Wow, I was about to buy that exact same film... gues I'll go with the 12 mil too

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The 20 mil might work fine. I figured since my lenses are defiled already, I'll go with the thin stuff and see how it works. The 12 mil is really quite thin...a lot like the 3M paint protectant film...

Mine are brand-new FCP assemblies, are yours used OEM? If so, maybe they had a super-small/invisible stress crack from before.

Few comments/suggested revisions.

1) Putting the negative terminal in a plastic bag is completely unnecessary, there is no way for the ground terminal to ground out.

2) wiring the e code corners proper is simple.
You will need a second set of bulb sockets and connectors and pigtails (5-6 inches should do) , solder and heat shrink tubing

The best way to do it: (first draft, will add wire colors and maybe pictures later)

1: remove the turn signal wire from the connector by opening the hinge on the side and pulling the wire and jacket out of the plug
2: remove the the turn signal and parking brake wires and jackets from one of your junkyard bulb socket plugs
3: put the turn signal wire you removed from the first connector into the turn signal wire spot on the second connector.
4: open the hinge, and pull the ground (black) wire out of the FIRST bulb connector, slide a 1-2 inch piece of heat shring tubing down this wire
5: the trickiest part, about 5-6 inches back on the ground wire, strip a 1/2" portion or so without cutting the wire. Use your stripper to cut the insulation in two places a half inch apart, then slit that portion with a razorblade, and remove the insulation.
6: strip the end of the ground wire on the second plug and wrap it around the stripped portion of the other ground wire. Solder. Then Slide the heatshrink you placed in step 4 up over the join and shrink it.
7: return the ground wire to the first plug.

You should now have one bulb socket wired for turn signals, and one wired for parking lights.

8: Run the turn signal bulb socket through through the top hole in the e-code bracket, and the parking light through the bottom.
9: Install the bulb sockets in the corner housing
10: Install the Corner Housing in the car.

Repeat for other side.

245gti said:

The 20 mil might work fine. I figured since my lenses are defiled already, I'll go with the thin stuff and see how it works. The 12 mil is really quite thin...a lot like the 3M paint protectant film...

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I have a pair of the formed plexi/lexan headlight covers on mine. Have had some nasty-assed stones hit the headlights over the years with nary a spec of damage. I think swedishiron can still get them.

The headlight covers that I bought stock of a while back are long gone