Looking for ideas on adding white LED DRL’s to the front of 2018 Ram 1500 Limited.

A_mod_too_far said:

Fog lights with drl is easy compliment to headlight drls, they are like 150$ on Amazon and anything looks better than the factory fogs. Should check out boosted motorsports on youtube he did a pretty sick combo on his blue 1500.

And then theres the various grill light arangements. The most basic and best looking one is the trx style marker lights across the top, that one take minimal modification.

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I looked into both those options and as far as the fog lights with DRL’s, most of them were black for blacked out and sport model-type trucks and there was only one style that I could find that would go good with the chrome-themed trucks but wasn’t really impressed with the style and besides, it wasn’t cheap.

As far as lights in the grill, this limited and longhorn grill that I have that has the nostrils on it with the big ”RAM” in the center is gonna be too much of a pain to put any kind of lights inside of it so I came up with this idea to use that little space there above my tow hooks.

ramffml said:

Personally I'd just "do it right" and buy a set of morimoto headlights; the entire housing etc, it's all plug and play and makes your truck look more premium. I'm not a fan of adding lights randomly to a truck.

Morimoto are not cheap, but that's the entire point.

https://www.morimotohid.com/09-18-ram-xb-hybrid-led-headlights-morimoto?quantity=1

Just my 1 cent as a Morimoto customer.


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That sumbiotch looks good.

Well, I figured I’d finally update the thread to what I decided to go with in case anyone’s interested.

I went to a place called Sparksmith and picked up a set of their Universal Grill Bar LED’s with Directional Turn Signal Switchbacks in a 9 inch length. They’re pretty nice because all I had to do was run the main power wire to an ignition-controlled spot in the fuse box with a fuse tap and run the turn signal wires to the front turn signal circuits going to each headlight so when you power on the ignition, the white DRL’s go though an animated start up sequence and when you turn on either signal, the white DRL on the appropriate side turns off and the orange turn signal blinks in a directional pattern, then re-lights the white DRL’s once the turn signal’s turned off. Using Alfa OBD to make them work this way wasn’t necessary as the lights are already programmed to work the way they do. You just run the wires and that’s it.

I mounted them to the top of the black plastic bezels in the front bumper that surrounds the tow hooks. It was pretty much the only place I could find to mount them.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with them.

corneileous said:

Well, I figured I’d finally update the thread to what I decided to go with in case anyone’s interested.

I went to a place called Sparksmith and picked up a set of their Universal Grill Bar LED’s with Directional Turn Signal Switchbacks in a 9 inch length. They’re pretty nice because all I had to do was run the main power wire to an ignition-controlled spot in the fuse box with a fuse tap and run the turn signal wires to the front turn signal circuits going to each headlight so when you power on the ignition, the white DRL’s go though an animated start up sequence and when you turn on either signal, the white DRL on the appropriate side turns off and the orange turn signal blinks in a directional pattern, then re-lights the white DRL’s once the turn signal’s turned off. Using Alfa OBD to make them work this way wasn’t necessary as the lights are already programmed to work the way they do. You just run the wires and that’s it.

I mounted them to the top of the black plastic bezels in the front bumper that surrounds the tow hooks. It was pretty much the only place I could find to mount them.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with them.

New Sparksmith LED DRL’s

youtube.com

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Those are awesome. I may look into those and turn off the fog lights. I have aftermarket ones and even they bounce all over the place.

MoparFin said:

Those are awesome. I may look into those and turn off the fog lights. I have aftermarket ones and even they bounce all over the place.

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If you get some, they have those and for a few bucks more, they have a version 2 of these that are supposedly built a little better and have a little thicker-gauge wiring. These are fine, all I did was just add a little bit more silicone around where the wires come out. They kinda over-gobbed the sealant a little bit in that area so I had to carefully use a razor knife to clear the sealant away so right before I mounted them, I put fresh silicone on the bottom side and then siliconed around the hole in the tow hook bezels that I drilled to run the wiring through. Hopefully this will keep them waterproof.

These are an option. GrilleGrill White Light Fit for Dodge 1500 Ram Grille 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 4Pcs LED Lights (Black surface white light)

bretthays said:

These are an option. GrilleGrill White Light Fit for Dodge 1500 Ram Grille 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 4Pcs LED Lights (Black surface white light)

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An option they are but only for certain grilles, I would think. I don’t think those would work in the OE Longhorn/Limited grilles unless you probably came up with something different to essentially mount them behind the grille as opposed to in it, like those.

corneileous said:

Well, I figured I’d finally update the thread to what I decided to go with in case anyone’s interested.

I went to a place called Sparksmith and picked up a set of their Universal Grill Bar LED’s with Directional Turn Signal Switchbacks in a 9 inch length. They’re pretty nice because all I had to do was run the main power wire to an ignition-controlled spot in the fuse box with a fuse tap and run the turn signal wires to the front turn signal circuits going to each headlight so when you power on the ignition, the white DRL’s go though an animated start up sequence and when you turn on either signal, the white DRL on the appropriate side turns off and the orange turn signal blinks in a directional pattern, then re-lights the white DRL’s once the turn signal’s turned off. Using Alfa OBD to make them work this way wasn’t necessary as the lights are already programmed to work the way they do. You just run the wires and that’s it.

I mounted them to the top of the black plastic bezels in the front bumper that surrounds the tow hooks. It was pretty much the only place I could find to mount them.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with them.

New Sparksmith LED DRL’s

youtube.com

Click to expand...

They look good! I like the startup sequencing. I have amazon fogs (temporarily) with the DRL's built in and they look when the fogs aren't on but once they are on they are washed out. I have morimoto HXB fogs to go on once I convert over to color matched bumpers this spring so I'm looking for a new DRL as well. My aftermarket grill has the optional leds posted above in a comment but I don't want to be like everyone else with the raptor lights. Do you have any better pics how how you mounted them? I have Rigid SRQ flush mount pods in the tow hook locations so I don't have alot of room for anything.

Another option are the underhood startup sequence lights which look really cool but if I did it I would prefer amber and I have yet to find them. https://youtu.be/c5BynoCFGqY

blackbetty14 said:

They look good! I like the startup sequencing. I have amazon fogs (temporarily) with the DRL's built in and they look when the fogs aren't on but once they are on they are washed out. I have morimoto HXB fogs to go on once I convert over to color matched bumpers this spring so I'm looking for a new DRL as well. My aftermarket grill has the optional leds posted above in a comment but I don't want to be like everyone else with the raptor lights. Do you have any better pics how how you mounted them? I have Rigid SRQ flush mount pods in the tow hook locations so I don't have alot of room for anything.

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Thanks. Yeah, I like em too. As far as mounting, I didn’t take any other pics but all I did was just ran a power wire to both lights for the white DRL portion from a fuse tap in the fuse box and then ran a single ground from both lights straight up to the negative battery terminal and for the turn signal portions, I just pulled out both headlights and tapped a wire from the turn signal circuits to go to each new light.

For the actual mounting part, I pulled out my front tow hooks so I could remove the bezels that surround them to make it easier to mount and use a little silicone between the light and the place where the wiring comes out and then a little more silicone on the backsides of the bezels where the wires poked through just to make sure they had no water intrusion into the lights.

They also have 3M double-sided tape and they came with some little Phillips head screws to go on each end to help hold them in place.

blackbetty14 said:

Another option are the underhood startup sequence lights which look really cool but if I did it I would prefer amber and I have yet to find them. https://youtu.be/c5BynoCFGqY

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I’ve been contemplating getting one of those but I’m unsure of where to get a good one because those cheap prices on Amazon kinda scare me about what their quality might be….lol.

As far as wanting one in orange, are you wanting one that switchbacks from white to orange or just a straight-up orange one?

corneileous said:

Thanks. Yeah, I like em too. As far as mounting, I didn’t take any other pics but all I did was just ran a power wire to both lights for the white DRL portion from a fuse tap in the fuse box and then ran a single ground from both lights straight up to the negative battery terminal and for the turn signal portions, I just pulled out both headlights and tapped a wire from the turn signal circuits to go to each new light.

For the actual mounting part, I pulled out my front tow hooks so I could remove the bezels that surround them to make it easier to mount and use a little silicone between the light and the place where the wiring comes out and then a little more silicone on the backsides of the bezels where the wires poked through just to make sure they had no water intrusion into the lights.

They also have 3M double-sided tape and they came with some little Phillips head screws to go on each end to help hold them in place.

I’ve been contemplating getting one of those but I’m unsure of where to get a good one because those cheap prices on Amazon kinda scare me about what their quality might be….lol.

As far as wanting one in orange, are you wanting one that switchbacks from white to orange or just a straight-up orange one?

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Gotcha, I looked harder at your pics and noticed you had tow hooks so you have a good bit of room above the tow hook for the LEDs.

I would like pure amber the whole time- no switchbacks. Currently my truck is stock amber but has the white DRLs in the fogs which look odd as its the only white light on the truck besides the HIDS and LED light bars. When the Fogs come off I won't have any white DRL so I thought amber would look cool instead of the white.

blackbetty14 said:

Gotcha, I looked harder at your pics and noticed you had tow hooks so you have a good bit of room above the tow hook for the LEDs.

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There’s a pretty good amount of room there but only for something small, though. These were about the only lights I could find that were small enough profile that I could still use in conjunction with my front tow hooks because they’re only just a little bit over a half inch tall or wide, depending on how you’re looking at them.

If I someday decided I didn’t want my tow hooks anymore, I could put my solid blank bezels back in that the truck originally came with and then there would be a whole lot more room and option for a pair of true DRL LED light bars that was enclosed in metal housings that had a base that would’ve bolted to those bezels that the light housings would’ve attached to but the only problem though, even though those super bright LED turn signals that come in the premium projector headlights don’t really need all that much help, I kind of like the directional orange turn signals that’s built into these that automatically takes care of the DRL dropout on whatever side the turn signal’s on and, I don’t think any of those true DRL lights I mentioned actually have that feature. Although, it would’ve been nice to be able to use those that I could’ve wired into the dedicated DRL circuit that goes to my headlights and then the lights would’ve only turned on as soon as the truck was running and the transmission was moved out of Park.

blackbetty14 said:

I would like pure amber the whole time- no switchbacks. Currently my truck is stock amber but has the white DRLs in the fogs which look odd as its the only white light on the truck besides the HIDS and LED light bars. When the Fogs come off I won't have any white DRL so I thought amber would look cool instead of the white.

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So, if I’m understanding you correctly, you have aftermarket fog lights that have built-in white DRL’s correct, and if you do, do you have them hooked up to where they only come on when your fog lights are on?

If that’s the case, I was gonna say if you want those to be DRL all the time during the day when your headlights aren’t on, you could do like what I was talking about above and just run the power wire for those to that dedicated DRL wire that comes into the truck-side of the wiring harness for your headlights and then if you have alpha OBD, you would just go into your alpha OBD stuff and turn your DRL’s on, then select dedicated which will make the white DRL’s in your fog lights illuminate just like stock of these trucks actually came with them from the factory like the nearly-identical stock headlights in the Dodge Durangos. Then, if you were able to find one of those long LED strips in orange, you’d have only all orange lighting up front at night when your headlights are on.

corneileous said:

There’s a pretty good amount of room there but only for something small, though. These were about the only lights I could find that were small enough profile that I could still use in conjunction with my front tow hooks because they’re only just a little bit over a half inch tall or wide, depending on how you’re looking at them.

If I someday decided I didn’t want my tow hooks anymore, I could put my solid blank bezels back in that the truck originally came with and then there would be a whole lot more room and option for a pair of true DRL LED light bars that was enclosed in metal housings that had a base that would’ve bolted to those bezels that the light housings would’ve attached to but the only problem though, even though those super bright LED turn signals that come in the premium projector headlights don’t really need all that much help, I kind of like the directional orange turn signals that’s built into these that automatically takes care of the DRL dropout on whatever side the turn signal’s on and, I don’t think any of those true DRL lights I mentioned actually have that feature. Although, it would’ve been nice to be able to use those that I could’ve wired into the dedicated DRL circuit that goes to my headlights and then the lights would’ve only turned on as soon as the truck was running and the transmission was moved out of Park.

So, if I’m understanding you correctly, you have aftermarket fog lights that have built-in white DRL’s correct, and if you do, do you have them hooked up to where they only come on when your fog lights are on?

If that’s the case, I was gonna say if you want those to be DRL all the time during the day when your headlights aren’t on, you could do like what I was talking about above and just run the power wire for those to that dedicated DRL wire that comes into the truck-side of the wiring harness for your headlights and then if you have alpha OBD, you would just go into your alpha OBD stuff and turn your DRL’s on, then select dedicated which will make the white DRL’s in your fog lights illuminate just like stock of these trucks actually came with them from the factory like the nearly-identical stock headlights in the Dodge Durangos. Then, if you were able to find one of those long LED strips in orange, you’d have only all orange lighting up front at night when your headlights are on.

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yea, but my Rigid SRQ pods take up more room than your how hooks so I don't have but maybe 1/4" at the top.

I also like that feature with yours. I did switchback Halos in my fogs when I had retrofitted Matchbox projectors in my fogs and they did a similar thing. However had the same issue where the DRL gets washed out when the Fog/projectors are in use. No external switching... all happened in a small DRL box.

My afternarket AlfaRex fogs have a DRL function (single wire coming out) and they are wired into my running lights so I can turn them on with the running lights (stock projector headlight housings so I can have my running lights with DRLs on without the fogs on. However when the fogs are activated the DRL's don't turn off and since they are in the fog housing the LEDs are bright and wash out the DRLs. I don't think the DRLs make sense being in the fogs so thats why I'm going with the Morimoto HXB 4 bangers. If I do the DRL it will be up high like OEM which is why I was looking at the underhood light. But the rest of what your saying makes sense. I Don't love mixing colors with the lighting... I would prefer to have everything white or amber and not a Mix as far as accent/DRL lighting goes. I also make sure to match my HID and LED color temps lol.

blackbetty14 said:

yea, but my Rigid SRQ pods take up more room than your how hooks so I don't have but maybe 1/4" at the top.

I also like that feature with yours. I did switchback Halos in my fogs when I had retrofitted Matchbox projectors in my fogs and they did a similar thing. However had the same issue where the DRL gets washed out when the Fog/projectors are in use. No external switching... all happened in a small DRL box.

My afternarket AlfaRex fogs have a DRL function (single wire coming out) and they are wired into my running lights so I can turn them on with the running lights (stock projector headlight housings so I can have my running lights with DRLs on without the fogs on. However when the fogs are activated the DRL's don't turn off and since they are in the fog housing the LEDs are bright and wash out the DRLs. I don't think the DRLs make sense being in the fogs so thats why I'm going with the Morimoto HXB 4 bangers. If I do the DRL it will be up high like OEM which is why I was looking at the underhood light. But the rest of what your saying makes sense. I Don't love mixing colors with the lighting... I would prefer to have everything white or amber and not a Mix as far as accent/DRL lighting goes. I also make sure to match my HID and LED color temps lol.

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OK so, I’m confused…lol. You have the single wire for each one of your DRL’s in your fog lights wired to your marker lights, correct?

If I understand the problem you’re having correctly- I don’t understand why you would want your white DRL’s in your fog lights to be on with your marker lights because when you turn your fog lights on, those are definitely going to wash out your white DRL’s in your fog lights so that’s why I was saying a post ago that being that you just said you have the factory premium projector headlights, you should have that one wire going to each one of your headlight’s wiring harnesses that is your true dedicated DRL wire.

If you snip that wire on the truck side of the harness, you can essentially take those wires from your fog lights that power your DRL‘s and splice those into those wires and as long as you have your DRL’s activated within your body control module and set to “dedicated”, those DRL’s in your fog light housings will now only turn on when your ignition is on and running, and when you take the transmission out of park. They will turn off automatically when you turn your headlights on and they won’t affect how your fog lights work or detract from the rest of the orange light on the front of your truck at night.

You could even enable the DRL drop out but being that your DRL’s are all the way down there on the bottom of the bumper where your fog lights are, there’s really no need to have the DRL dropout enabled for whichever side turn signal is activated. Pretty much the only time you want that enabled is if you have DRL’s either inside or near your headlights so they don’t interfere with the visibility of your turn signals.

But yeah, I think DRL’s in the same housing as fog lights are a great idea if they’re hooked up correctly. Matter of fact, if I could’ve found a set that I liked, I probably would’ve exactly went that route but then again, I like how those lights I do have, have the automated start up sequence and the directional turn signals inside of them.

As far as mixing light colors, I feel the same way. That’s why my OPT 7 tailgate LED light bar is all red and doesn’t have orange turn signals because both my tail lights are completely red. If I would’ve had one of the new trucks, or if I could figure out a way to put a set of tail lights in my truck that had separate orange turn signals from the red brake lights, I’d have to buy a new tailgate bar because then I would want to turn signals on that to be orange just like the tail lights.

When I upgraded my highbeams to LED, I tried to match the color temperature as close as I could to my halogen low beams but I was pretty unsuccessful for the most part. I don’t worry about it too much, though. I wanted bright high beams but didn’t really want to go to much brighter than the custom-made HR1/9011 halogens I got from Daniel Stern lighting.

Grille lights, headlight drl, fog light drl

Which fogs are those?

RAM DRVR said:

Which fogs are those?

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If I had to take a guess, they’re probably these or some just like those but a different brand.

I actually wouldn’t mind trying a set of those from Amazon or whatever those are that @brianw0048 is using but in order to make the DRL’s work the way I’d want them too, I’d have to wire the DRL wires in those to the dedicated DRL wires that go to my headlights which isn’t the problem, it’s how close the DRL dropout timing would be to the white DRL’s I installed. If it was noticeably both the same timing, I couldn’t have that.

I guess before I decided to buy them, I could temporarily enable my fog lights as DRL’s to test the timing between those and my newly installed lights.