So I went to perform my first upgrade on my 2012. Figured I start with the easiest, the horn upgrade, right?

After removing the plastic piece over the upper grill, noticed they moved the horn to the passenger side due to an airvent installed on the driver side right behind the grill.

What makes matters a bit more complicated is that the Accord horn has the electrical connection on the opposite side of the stock horn.



While there's not too much slack on the cable, don't really want to mess with the connection on the Fit.

I may just loosen the screw on the back of the Accord horn to rotate the connector to the other side. Then somehow rotate the plastic shell on the front to point downward. Not so sure if it will affect the function of the Accord horn. Suggestions?

 

I would be curious to see a photo looking down at that air vent. What's it for?

Couldn't you simply mount the horn flipped so the connector points in the right direction or drill a hole closer to the drivers side and bolt it there?

 

Tried that but it bumps up against the radiator.

 

Did the Fiamme mod on the 2012. Theres no slack on the connecting wire, and splicing into that skinny wire was sketchy, but's it's still working. That air vent leads to an intake horn connected to the air box area. It has a removable top.

 

Had the same problem with my '12. Thought I could just loosen the screw on back and move the bracket around. That didn't really work though because the best position I found stretched the lead and had the horn pointing up. I ended up making a bracket out of aluminum that dropped the accord horn down and to the right (from the front of the car). Took the tension off the lead and got the horn pointed down. Took about an hour.

The bad news is that while the Accord horn (low) is much better than stock, it's still not all that great. I will be putting in PIAA horns (500hz and 600hz) once they get here. Also, since I'm not a fan of modifying the wiring harness, I cut the connector off the stock horn an soldered a lead to it. Now I can connect into the stock harness without cutting it. The end of the lead will go into the relay which will be wired as normal

 

That sucks, Thank you for posting this.

 

can someone post pics of this air vent that is in the way

 

here go the pics of a 2012 air vent



Can be removed with 4 screws


I only took out 3 and pulled it out of the way to add a screen to the lower grill


Connects to this on the hood so your Fit can have cool air


putting this back together... anyone know where the 2 long clips go???
I made the mistake of not keeping track.... please help

 

Very interesting scoop. From what I can tell, looks like it's meant to provide airflow over the tranny to keep it cooler. Is you car an auto?

 

yep its an auto, i think you could probably cut into it and relocate the horn on the drivers side, but i'd rather hold off and instal some after market horns.

and found my answer

 

No the transmission is way down there, these ducts just route air to the OEM air intake.

But weren't these ducts already present on 2009 and up Fits, just a little different though?

 

Answering my own question - yes these ducts are already present on the 2009 and up (in the US, GE8) Fits. The design of the duct in the grill is different though.

And I've never heard of ducts to air-cool the transmission, is there such a thing?

 

Not that I've seen, but anything is possible. I guess the airbox on '09+ isn't sealed? Does it draw air from the engine compartment? Our '08 draws air from the front grille area.

Seems like a CAI would do wonders for '09+ if it's drawing hot air from the engine compartment when not moving.

 

Nevermind, my mistake.

You're right the 09+ GE8 doesn't have that duct behind the grill. It has some vents but not an actual duct, which was, sadly, enough to confuse me.

Here, trying to redeem myself with a photo of a 2010 Fit's

 

The purpose of the cooling duct is to cool the ECU [your cars computer], located just where the duct dumps into the engine bay. Looks like they've redesigned the intake to capture air flow better.

 

That I can believe. Using it to blow air toward a sealed airbox made no sense.

 

it's not to cool the ecu at least for the 09. the 09 air box actually
has an intake behind the ecu. this is why we also have the hood mounted
scoop. the cars directs air into the grill through the hood mounted scoop
all the way to the back of the ecu where the air box gets its air to feed
the engine.

 

I'll be honest, I have no idea what to think here... maybe you're both right.

Sealed? Then, how does the engine get air?

I'm pretty certain that the opening for the airbox to pull air is on the bottom facing down. And while it is facing away from the ducting, the duct limits the amount of hot air that can build up in that area... which in turn, helps limit the amount of hot air the box can suck in.

Incidentally, that behind the grille duct answers an old question I had about whether such a thing added to our cars would've been beneficial... someone at Honda thought so. Prior year models annoyed me, because while the grille cover had the vent opening, there was no duct to direct air through it... it relied entirely on what little air got turned up. That's hard enough at a 90 degree flat surface as it is, the surface in question isn't even a solid surface. It's the A/C condenser and radiator... both designed to allow air to pass through.

As to the amount of benefit... I won't speculate.

edit: for sake of my sanity .. I found the posts I mentioned it. https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/2nd-...tml#post878420 and https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/2nd-...tml#post967735

 

What a poor design...drawing air from the bottom of the engine bay and helping the heat problem by directing airflow to the general area isn't efficient. Like most cars I've owned, the GD's airbox is in front of the battery and pulls air from the front of the car.

I'd have a CAI if I has a GE.

 

Well, I found a picture in Jim2bFit's posts of the stock airbox (I wasn't looking for it per se).

https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/2nd-...tion-mods.html

The GE has three boxes for air intake... one of which is most likely just the resonator and the other is only to join the other two (this box and the resonator could be one larger box that just looks like two). But the box in question (that actually pulls air in) is't behind the battery, but next to it.

So it probably gets most, if not all of its air from any that is passing through the A/C condenser and radiator. The underhood duct seems to have little direct effect on it.

On the flipside, putting in an SRI like he did does make use of the duct.