u/bill_evans_at_VV

I wanted a challenging (for me at least) project for my '23 RF GT and inspired by a post on Miata.net, I added: 1) footwell (driver's and passenger's side) lighting that follow the behavior of the DOOR setting of the dome/map light, and 2) underbody lighting that could either also follow the DOOR setting behavior or be manually turned on and dimmed to your desired level with a remote. Here are the results and me talking through at a pretty high level (i.e. not very detailed) what I did:

Underbody and Footwell Lighting on ND Miata

The footwell lighting was somewhat practical and somewhat aesthetic, and I guess the same is true of the underbody, though the original thought was increased visibility of my small car in the evening when driving among the giants.

I purposely used a warmer color temperature (3000K) IP67 (waterproof) LED strips, though you can buy pretty much any color temperature you want.

If there's interest, I can post more details on materials used and how I connected everything together.

While this is probably pretty transferable to other generations and even other cars, I can only really answer specifics (wire routing, tapping into dome light wires, etc) based on the ND.

Any questions, feel free to ask.

I’m planning on adding DIY footwell lights and underbody lights and need to tap into the dome light controls (12v power and BCM switched ground) and the A-pillar seems the best location to tap into them.

Has anyone done this? If so, if you can please share:
a) the year and trim level of your car and what color these wires were for you
b) how many wires were there to choose from?
c) how easy or hard they were to access (were they all taped up, in a loom, etc)

I know the wires colors may not stay consistent, so part b) above is to determine just how many wires I might have to sample to find the right ones.

I know I can find the colors by accessing the back of the dome light fixture itself, but it’s not trivial to get there and I hate to disassemble or remove more trim than necessary. I did remove the dome light color towels to see if I might get a peek at the wires colors from inside the fixture, but no joy there.

For those that did the delete, did you patch and paint, cover it with a badge, or something else?

I’m thinking a 58mm revlimiter badge, but don’t know how critical it is to patch the hole or whether the badge coverage is enough to prevent any water incursion.

I have a '23 RF GT and Dongar's fitment recommender told me to buy a DCA-10E cable, which I did.

I pulled the power cable out of the back of the mirror, expecting that the Dongar would plug into it and the power cable I pulled out would plug into the harness, but the Homelink mirror needs a Type A connector. So the adapter won't fit.

Has anyone done this install? The one thing I can think of is there's a Type E port under the plastic shroud that's attached to the windshield to the right of the mirror - there's reference to that being the case on the CX-5, but I've seen no verification that there's also one on a ND2 GT.

Hoping to get confirmation before I start prying covers off shrouds, as I'm not mechanically gifted and have been known to break things unintentionally.

In the pic below, the Dongar harness is on the left, the ND2 power cable on the right.

https://preview.redd.it/381jw1ba4d7h1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c8d14897a1145d6e778dafa489eb76746f8e1098

Miata owners are pretty passionate about their cars. Wondering how many of us have custom plates.

If comfortable, feel free to share details or explanation if it’s not obvious what it means. People may of course be concerned with privacy issues, so this is only if you’d like to.

The Used to But No Longer mostly is for people who’ve had multiple Miatas and may have had one on a previous Miata, but chose not to on their current one.

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https://preview.redd.it/r6b8xmy82gyg1.png?width=1716&format=png&auto=webp&s=9dcf4aa2738abe97e2b54b8ddd33440fac0de9ce

Nice item, $860 price on product page (so ETV about $100 lower), but I already have a soundbar and don't need another.

Second nice item within the last couple of weeks. Last one was a $1750 HP AI laptop, but again, no need.