2013 Honda Fit Stebel Horn Install

• Remove the negative battery terminal. Wait a few minutes.
• Take off the grille upper cover. There are multiple push-in pins.
• Take off the front grille. On a 2013, there are 2 push-pins inserted from the underside on the outer tip of the grille. Take these out, they might be very challenging, but it's do-able. The grille slides backward to come out. There are tabs along the bottom, press the tabs to release. Push grill backward and upward.
• Disconnect the lead from the horn.
• If you want to cut the horn wire, you can remove the wire loom from underneath of the hood latch area. A plastic clip holds the wire up.
• I like to make all modifications easily reversible. I cut the wire with enough room to connect a M/F connector on both sides of the cut wire.
• A relay is required for the new horn. The Stebel pulls 18 amps. Even though the Fit Helm repair manual shows there is a 20A relay in the horn wiring, the wire to the horn is 22 gauge and will likely burn out easily. Better to use new heavy wiring. I used 16 gauge.
• I do not like to drill into metal if I can avoid it (especially since my car is nearly brand new). There is a plastic block that holds part of the headlight up. This is an ideal place for the horn relay.
• On the battery there is a multiple connection block on the positive terminal. Take off the red cover from the terminal.
• Connect the positive power wire for the relay to one of the studs in the terminal block on top of the battery and route the wire to the relay (Relay #30).
• The red cover over the terminals doesn't have any extra space for fat wires, so I had to cut a slit out of it so the power wire would fit and the cover could go back on squarely.
• Connect a ground wire to an appropriate lead onto the car frame. The negative lead to the battery is nearby. Relay #85.
• On the horn side, connect the positive and negative leads to the horn. Connect the negative horn wire to the body, you can use the same place as the other ground you used. The positive side goes to the relay on the appropriate post (#87).
• Connect the horn signal (the one we cut) to the relay input post (#86).
• Connect your negative battery terminal and then test it out.

• For my horn mounting I used 1 inch U channel aluminum. The Stebel horn bolt mount fits almost perfectly in the channel. This means it won't rotate around or have play if the bolt comes loose. I used the original horn bolt location for the top of my U channel extension.
• Since I like stability and overengineering, I also used a small piece of L aluminum to go from the bottom of the horn trumpet to the middle of the front bumper bar. Again this already has a hole here so I don't need to drill to mount it.

At the same time I added a 1/4 inch wire mesh as a stone guard behind the lower bumper opening. See other threads here for that.

There is a SECOND horn hidden somewhere just for the security system beep when you lock the car. So, you don't have to worry about blasting the neighborhood when you lock late at night.

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good job on the install.

i dont think you'd need to unplug the battery to just do a horn install, but good to have extra safety net. the only time i actualy unplug it is when im messing with SRS.

 

Looks like a clean install. Would've been interesting to hear a before and after. Can just do a Youtube for Stebel Nautilus to sate my interests though.

 

Very nice!

 

 

My wife has a Fit also so we will do a side by side soon, I'll post the YT vid link here then.

 

Nice DIY!!

 

Nice work and clean install. I too have the Stebel Nautilus on my Fit. Sure gets a lot more attention than the weak "hockey puck", Volkswagen-sounding disc that came from the factory .

I used a black plastic diamond mesh from McMaster-Carr to protect my AC condenser after finding a chunk of road debris that made it inside . I used black zipties to secure the mesh in place.

 

Post up a Video! Yea... Honda's horn is pretty weak sauce.

 

Finally I got a short video made. Well listen for the audio. I hope it turns out on YT. In the video the Stebel is louder, and I tried to stay well enough back that it wouldn't overpower the microphone. But the vid still doesn't really give you the sense of how loud and sharp the Stebel really is. I was expecting it and it still sort of shocks me when I am in front of the car.

 

Reminds me of a train whistle...

 

Chooo Chooooo0o