Technology

I bought my 2006 Subaru WRX in the fall of 2017. I’ve traveled over half the country with Nicole (that’s her name). Last year, I started looking at newer Imprezas, but I was concerned with the tracking that’s now being built into all vehicles. General Motors was found selling detailed driver information to third-party data brokers¹, allowing insurance companies to increase rates and deny coverage based on data car owners didn’t know was being reported². I take my data privacy seriously, going as far as removing Google services from my phone and deleting my mainstream social media. There are guides for bypassing or disabling the permanent cell modem on modern Subaru vehicles, but I decided not to go down that route. I know I’m still being tracked in other ways, but I like to lower my footprint whenever possible.

So I decided I wasn’t going to replace Nicole. After all, she is a Subaru WRX. She’s well maintained, and her interior is in excellent condition. Although not the most high-end sports car for her era, she is fun, fast and occupies a special place in the hearts of many car enthusiasts. So I decided to do some repairs and updates to keep her on the road for years to come.

Fog Lights

A few years ago, I cracked one of my fog lights on a brick I didn’t see in some grass I pulled into. The bulb in the other fog light burned out a few months later. The stock fog lights weren’t all that great compared to other vehicles I had driven, so this seemed like a good first upgrade.

I had a friend recommend Baja Designs. I found a company called RalliTEK that sold a conversion kit for installing Baja Designs Squadron lights on my Subaru³. The conversion kit claimed to include the necessary mounting brackets and a “wiring harness.”

The brackets allowed me to mount the Squadron lights to my Subaru, but the “wiring harness” was just a standard aftermarket component harness and not an adapter for the OEM connectors. This wasn’t a big deal, but I did find it surprising RalliTEK went through the trouble of machining brackets to fasten the Baja Designs fog lights to the OEM positions. Yet, they didn’t supply an adapter to the stock wiring harness. When asking customer support about it, they told me everything I needed was included in the kit. They told me the kit came with wiring and a switch.

The Squadron does come with wires and a switch, but my Subaru already has a stock wiring harness, relay and switch. The OEM wiring can easily handle the amperage from these lights. Even Subaru Imprezas that don’t come with the fog light option still have the wires and harness for them, should an owner want to add the switch, lights and relay later⁴. It’s not a big deal to cutoff the existing connectors and solder on new ones, but it’d be nice if I could keep the OEM connectors in case I want to use a different set of OEM compatible lights later.

RalliTEK had several customer complaints, including high restocking fees⁵, and requiring the customer to pay shipping when they received the wrong part⁶. I didn’t get the best response from their customer support myself. On my own, I found adapters for the OEM fog light harness from iWire⁷ and ordered a pair of them.

I made sure to add some heat shrink around all the crimps. I zip-tied all the excess cable. Hopefully, they’ll do well against the elements.

The lights don’t quite fit flush with the Subaru fog light trim. Despite the damage to the passenger fog light cover, I was able to get both lights aligned with a good beam pattern. There’s very little up or down play within the fog light bay, so it’s not difficult to get things lined up correctly

Overall, this lighting kit works much better than the stock fog lights. RalliTEK’s brackets worked alright, even though I needed to make my own wiring adapters.

Although I thought it was cool that I could reuse the stock wiring for after market LED fog lights, this ended up not working out. They worked great with the stock headlights. However, after my next upgrade, I discovered that the way Subaru does ground-switched lighting would force me to use the included harness and put the fog lights on a dedicated circuit.

Headlights

My headlight enclosures don’t have the best light output. The plastic appears frosted over due to age. In my search, I discovered many negative reviews of most aftermarket lighting options by Subaru owners. However, I did come across a company from Idaho that made custom retrofit lights for a variety of vehicles. I ended up ordering a set of custom C-style lights from Foxbeam Lighting, retrofitted from OEMassive headlights⁸.

I ordered a set that had sequential C-lights, built-in LED systems for the low and high beams, switching circular halos and switching 3D grills. These lights certainly were not cheap. They set me back $1,335.

I had to remove the bumper to install these lights. When I tested them, I noticed that if I turned on the high beams, they would get stuck on. I’d have to turn the lights all the way off to reset them. Contacting Foxbeam became another exercise in frustration. There is a contact form on their website and nothing else. I checked through the information in the box, and could not find a phone number. Looking up any contact information for the business, I only found disconnected phone numbers. I sent a message on Friday July, 12th and didn’t get a response until Tuesday, July 16th. During that time, I had done some other research and discovered there could be issues with aftermarket lights on Subaru vehicles due to their ground-switched lighting⁹. This was confirmed with an e-mail response from Nick at Foxbeam Lighting:

The fog lights may be the issue if they are also LED. We had a customer with a 2003 Outback that had a very similar issue last year (he had a bi-xenon retrofit rather than bi-LED, but the high beam mechanism was the same). The Subaru headlights up until around 2008 on many models (Impreza, Forester, Outback, etc.) use ground-switched headlights. That is, 12V is always hot at the headlight plug, and the relays switch the grounds to the bulbs. The circuitry for the high beam and fog light circuits is also interconnected, to let the fogs shut off when the highs are on. This function is normal on pretty much any vehicle, but the older Subarus have it wired in an unconventional way with all the ground-switched systems. Switching to LEDs can cause a small ground leak - keeping the high beam solenoids tripped on once active, and pulling a trickle even when the car is turned off. It would not be an issue with the original halogen headlights, as those bulbs have significantly more resistance to overcome before the current can leak. I would advise that you check over the fog light wiring as well as any relays associated with the headlight or fog light system to ensure everything is connected correctly. You could also try hooking the fog lights up to a separate, dedicated relay circuit and switch so that the fog light relay system can no longer interfere with the high beams.

After installing these headlights, the battery was completely dead the next day. I had to jump-start my car and recharge the battery. I discovered that if I disconnected the fog lights, the high beam issue was solved. Although I had done all that work previously to connect my fog lights into the stock wiring harness, it seemed like the best course forward was using the included Baja Designs wiring harness and keeping the fog light circuit entirely separate, as suggested by Nick at Foxbeam.

Rewiring the Fog Lights

With the bumper already off, it wasn’t that difficult to run the aftermarket harness and set up the relay. A few months ago, I noticed this random fuse sitting in the engine bay. I was surprised I had owned the car for so many years without seeing this. The cable looks like it was for an amplifier or other accessory the previous owner had installed. It had a 50 amp fuse in it! The cable for it runs under my clutch and disappears under the carpet. I didn’t see the other end in the hatch or under a seat, so I have no idea where the original device had been connected. I ended up cutting off the inline fuse and using the wire to fish the cable for the fog light switch through the firewall.

It was difficult to find a fuse to bridge off of in my engine bay’s fuse box. Several of the ones for interior lights and accessories draw power even when the car is off. I ended up adding a fuse to one of the headlights. I properly tested it with a multimeter and a load to ensure I had the fuse tap oriented correctly¹⁰. The headlight fuses are for 15 amps, and I used a 10 amp fuse for the adapter. The fog lights are only rated to pull 2.1 amps each¹¹. With the LED headlight replacements, I should be well within acceptable power limits for the existing wiring and fuses. I could probably go down to a 5 amp fuse on the fog light tap.

The fog lights worked and were on a dedicated circuit, but I wanted to see if I could wire them into the stock fog light switch instead of installing this circular one into the dash. Although iWire does sell plugs¹² and harnesses¹³ for the fog light switch, I decided to buy a used junkyard pull from eBay instead. This ended up being a great solution, allowing me to test all the connections using a multimeter, to figure out exactly how the switch worked.

I had found a diagram online for how the harness circuit works¹⁴, although I found it a little confusing and am glad I confirmed all the pins with a multimeter. I took the used switch and soldered on the purple/orange leads to the plug. These wires are used for dash illumination, so this allows the switch to dim and brighten with the rest of my gauge cluster. Those are the only two wires passed through from the stock wiring harness. The live (white), ground (black) and switch cable (yellow/green) I crimped onto the wires I removed from the Baja Design’s switch. The white and black matched, and the yellow/green I crimped to the blue lead¹⁵.

I basically made an adapter, allowing me to pass through the only two signals I cared about from the car. The dash illumination and dimming worked, the switch would light up when pressed in, but the fog lights refused to turn on. 😡 I checked all the fuses, realized it was getting too late, and went to bed trying to figure out what I did wrong. The next morning it seemed so obvious, and I had even written it down on my wire testing scribbles: the OEM fog light button is a ground-switch.

The relay won’t turn on, because the switch is literally connecting ground to ground. I did some research and discovered I could rewire a standard automotive relay to be ground-switched¹⁶. The harness provided did have all the ground wires going to a common part of the relay. I would need to depin two of the connectors from the harness¹⁷.

I soldered a new hot wire and connected it where the ground wires were previously. Now, when I push the OEM switch, it will complete the circuit by connecting the ground, allowing my fog lights to turn on and off.

There is already a ground connection from the harness to the body near the strut tower, so I decided to heat shrink the ground bundle I removed from the harness to prevent any shorting.

The fog lights now work correctly with the stock Subaru dashboard switch. Being on their own dedicated circuit, they now stay on, even when the high beams are engaged. They’re also tapped into a headlight fuse, so they will also turn off when I turn off the car.

Light Alignment

I don’t have a huge garage, and my driveway sits at an angle. I could have measured the angle of my driveway and used some trigonometry to figure out how to align my lights against my garage door, but it was easier just to drive the car into my backyard. It’s not entirely level, but it’s good enough. I used some painter’s tape against my fence to mark the correct location for the light cutoff, and backed up 25 feet.

These lights only have vertical alignment, but I was able to get a clear beam pattern and good cutoff using my fence. The guides I’ve read typically suggest a cutoff of 2~4 inches lower than the center spot on the headlight at 25 feet. After adjustments, it’s best to trade vehicles with a friend and drive past each other around 30 mph to make sure the beam looks good and isn’t blinding oncoming traffic.

Lighting Project Complete

The new headlights and fog lights are the first steps in updating the WRX. There is some damage to the rims that has led to several headaches and tire pressure issues. I’ve ordered replacements, but they’re on back order, so I’ll cover them in a future post. So far, everything I’ve done are “quality of life” updates to make the car safe, reliable and enjoyable to drive.

There is a part of me that wants to go further and fix trim, hail and other cosmetic damage. I’ve already sunk a lot of time and money into just the lights, so this might be where I end it for the current year. The WRX does have a cult following, but it’s still low-to-midrange in terms of sports cars. I would really enjoy taking a restored version of the WRX to car shows to see how she’d do, but I’m not sure if I’m willing to sink the time and money into that just yet.