Monday, November 14, 2016

Minor Mod: Nissan Sports Horn

Truth be told, this wasn't something essential that had to be replaced. However, for my next Speedhunters post, I am trying to demonstrate to those readers how OCD I am, and so I am going with several engine bay touch-ups which I hope to share with you soon.

One item, though, that I discovered during my engine bay clean-up was the dirty/oxidized condition of the OEM horn, which is actually two horns - one for high pitch and the other for low pitch which together generate the following sound:

So this is what it sounds like, normally.

During my "engine bay refresh" I discovered that the horns, while they still work without issue, looked horrible.
The "lo-tone" one on the right, I sprayed with Rust-o-leum paint as an experiment.
As the above photo shows, I initially wanted to "save" the OEM horns - and while I could have, by for example spraying each with anti-rust Rust-o-leum paint, I decided, why not go with quality aftermarket?

So of course I did some research, and found someone in Japan who was even more OCD than me:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAzOtSblbBAYpk_TAVkeaD09ybypoMzM2

This guy tested over 70 car horns, mainly aftermarket.  As a result, I decided to stick with a Nissan aftermarket part, the "Nissan Sports Horn." The one I found was offered as an accessory for the Z34 Fairlady Z car.

So I ordered and a few days later...
Each one comes wrapped up like this.
As you can see, much larger than OEM. 
And the horn elements are encapsuled in a nautilus shaped black plastic
Installation was NOT plug and play, however.  Not a major issue, but unlike the OEM horn, which is grounded though the bolt connecting to the frame, the Z34 horns require a wire to be run from a lead - here I've shown with the green arrow where I had to run a short wire lead.  In other words, the Z34 has 2 wire clips, one for the positive terminal (which are the same as can be seen below) and then one for ground.  All I did was ground using a wire.  Then, it was a matter of slightly bending the brackets for each horn to ensure they fit in the space behind the grill without rubbing on anything.
Interesting, grounding by way of the bracket and bolt does NOT work with the Z34 horn. At least when I tried.
I should mention that Nissan apparently offers this "Sports Horn" (aka "Euro Horn") for every single car in their line-up, so installing the Sports Horn doesn't give a unique sound to the car. Just a different sound.



So what do people think? Yes, not one of my best posts, but I think when you see the before and after photos of what I've done, you might be impressed.  Patience my friends as I get around to taking Speedhunter quality final photos...

5 comments:

Ken said...

I think original horn sounds more natural. But the new horn sounds more unique. Won't even thought that it is from an ordinary car if I heard it. If it is about more pleasant to the ears, I think the Sports Horn will be the one.

I've been reading back your old posts since the beginnings of this blog recently when I am free. Very interesting read and looks like I have a lot to catch up to. Learned a lot too about RB26DETT from here.

Aki said...

Hi Ken,

Many thanks for the comment and I'm so glad you like the blog!

Unknown said...

Always happy to come back to the blog, and see a new post! I have also considered doing a horn upgrade, though I tend to lean towards the Hella horns. Any particular reason, you decided to stay with the OE/Nissan horns instead of a horn setup such as the Hella?

Anonymous said...

Why is this Nissan sports horn black? The one we got was silver with some nice “Nissan Sports Horn” printed on it. Anyways, how are you Aki? Hope you doing well. Me and my BNR still here doing ok. 😸

Aki said...

I think the Nissan horn shape/size/color depends on what car it was an option for?