akoza
Senior Member
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I installed the side mirror reverse auto tilt kit from Mikstore on my ITS today. Here's a write-up for those interested.
When I bought the car a few months ago, I bought this kit for $129, along with the power folding mirror kit and sequential turn signals. I also bought (from Honda) the frameless HomeLink mirror and harness intended for the 2024 Accord. I installed the HomeLink mirror, the power fold kit, and the sequential turn signals right away, but held off on doing the tilt kit for a few reasons:
1) One of the modules needed to tap into the reverse lighting, and there isn't a good way to access the connector on the reverse lights without pulling the rear bumper and removing the taillight, and
2) The connectors on the wiring harness were different than the stock connectors for the mirror.
The Mikstore instructions called this out and they emailed me prior to shipping out the kit, to confirm that I'm with doing some rewiring. The instructions said to cut the wires and splice them into the existing connector, but I'm not about having a janky mess of wires. I looked around online for a bit to see if I could find a connector but my search came up short. I decided to table it for a while until I could figure out a solution to both my problems.
A few months went by and it dawned on me that I could re-pin and swap the connectors. I also realized that there might be other (more easily accessible) spots in the car where I can tap into the reverse signal. I'll get into more detail on these further down below.
I broke this up into steps so it's easier to follow. I didn't take many pictures as I was on a time crunch so I did my best to describe what I did and draw some diagrams where necessary (they'll be down at the bottom - please forgive my poor Paint skills). One thing to note is that once this is installed, it is always active regardless of which position your mirror adjument selector is in (many other cars, including the A-Spec w/ Tech, only enable this when the mirror switch is in "R").
0) Always a good rule of thumb, if you're doing any electrical work, disconnect the negative terminal on your battery. I didn't do this right away, but I did when I started to work on de-pinning any connectors. I reconnected it throughout when I needed to test some wires with my multimeter. Whatever you do, be smart about this.
1) I started by taking the passenger side door card off. To do this, you first need to take a plastic trim removal tool and remove the window switch panel. There are a few clips holding it in place around the outside so work your way around to get it loose. Once it's out, remove the connector by pressing in the lock tab and pulling the connector off.
1a) Now you should be able to see a screw that holds the door card in place. Remove it with a Phillips head screwdriver.
1b) Next, take your plastic trim removal tool and work your way around the sides and bottom of the door card to pop the clips holding it in place. Once most of them are out, it should start getting easier to do this by hand. Once the sides and bottom are out, you should be able to pull the top toward you and the door card off. Before you walk away with it, you need to unclip 2 wire connectors and a clip holding one of the wires in place. To remove that clip, you need to get underneath it with the forked end of the plastic trim tool so it squeezes the clip on either side while you apply upward pressure to get it out. Once that's loose, put your door card off to the side.
2) Next, I disconnected the mirror harness from the door's wiring harness. The connector is a 14-pin connector up at the top towards the front of the car. The mirror side (the one with the female pins) is the one I depinned and swapped with the female-pinned connector on the Mikstore harness. The connectors on the Mikstore harness only have 8 pins. This works for the Type S because there are only 8 wires going to the 14-pin connector. I'm not sure whether Civics or other trims of the Integra use more than those 8 wires - in that case what I did might not work. I took a picture of all my connectors so I have a reference in case I messed up. I don't have a depinning tool, but I used a sharp pointed tweezer I had laying around from a phone repair kit. I stuck it into the holes above the pins, pushed the plastic internal clip up, and pulled the wire out from the back. The first time can be tricky if you don't know what you're doing, but the rest are smooth sailing.
2a) The yellow, blue, and green wires on the mirror harness are the important ones to get right here - these are the wires that control the mirror tilt and need to be attached correctly to the Mikstore harness since they go to the controller module. The rest of the wires get relayed straight through by the black wires on the Mikstore harness. Per Mikstore's instructions, the order the 3 wires I mentioned should connect from left to right is Green, Yellow, Orange. Meaning:
Acura yellow = Mikstore green
Acura blue = Mikstore yellow
Acura green = Mikstore orange
This was a bit scary to do at first but their color order matched up with mine so I trusted what they said.
2b) I started by re-pinning the Mikstore harness. First I did the black wires - those go straight through and the order doesn't matter, as along as the connection on the other side is the same color. I re-pinned those 5 wires on the mirror harness into the 8-pin connector, following the black wires through from the car's harness to make sure I got them in the right spot. Finally, I did the other 3 wires, being sure to follow the mapping I described in the previous step. Notice the order is NOT the same as the order from the Mikstore connector. I did the "Before" MikStore harness drawings from memory, so my colors might be inaccurate, but the "After" mirror colors are what the result would be if the rest of the colors were in the correct spot. The important part is that you follow the wires from the Car side, through the corresponding black wires in the Mikstore harness, and match that color in the resulting position on the Mirror side. Remember, the matching connectors that plug into each other have a mirrored order from each other.
2c) These connectors are now done, so I plugged them into each other.
3) Next, I had to connect the red and black wires from the Mikstore harness to the grey connector I pulled from the window switch. The Mikstore instructions said red=green and black=black, but my connector looked flipped from the connector in their image. So I tested with a multimeter and the colors were indeed correct.
3a) I took a picture of the green and black wires first so I didn't forget the order, and then I disconnected the battery again and worked on depinning the 2 wires from the grey connector. In order to pull out the connections on this one, there's a black rectangle on top that needs to be snapped loose. I stuck my tweezers into the little openings at the bottom of the rectangle and popped it loose - it'll look like it barely moved, but that's all you need.
3b) Once the wires were out, I carefully pried open the metal clamps holding the wires to the connector. I only did this on the part surround the colored insulation, and not the ones holding the bare wire in. Then, I cut the pins off the red and black wire on the Mikstore harness and stripped off a small amount of insulation - an eighth to a quarter inch tops. I placed that exposed wire where the clamp was and re-crimped it to hold the wire in place. Finally, I slid the pins back in, being careful to put them in the correct spot in the connector. I tugged on all 4 wires to make sure they were secure.
4) Finally, I plugged the Mikstore controller module into the Mikstore harness.
4b) At this point, I decided to turn on the car and test the original functionality of the car to make sure I didn't mess up. I immediately noticed the blind spot monitor turned on when the car does its initial checks at start-up - so far so good. The driver side mirror adjustments worked well, but when I went to check the passenger side, nothing. I quickly realized I didn't plug in the window switch, so I plugged it in and it worked - whew, crisis averted.
5) Now to figure out a solution to my second problem. Out of curiosity I took out the lining in my trunk to see if I could easily access the wiring for the taillights/reverse lights. Mikstore's instructions were for the Civic, where this connecter is easy to access through the trunk. On the Integra, however, it's not as easy. I could see the harness through a hole but it's hard to get your fingers in there, let alone depin/splice into the wires. The best way to access that connector is to pull the bumper and remove the taillight, and I didn't want to do that.
5a) When I bought the car, I had installed a HomeLink mirror and a new wiring harness to go with it, but I had left the original wiring harness intact. I remembered reading somewhere in a Civic forum that one of the wires going to the mirror is a reverse signal which tells teh mirror to stop dimming when the car is in reverse. The Mikstore controller is small enough to fit up in the headliner so I figured I'd give it a shot. I started by opening the cover around the base of the mirror. This is such a pain in the ass to do the first time. I made a YouTube video on the HomeLink install a while back that shows how to do this. Next, I removed the flat panel covering the mirror wiring and camera. I also removed the panel with the sunglasses holder by removing the 2 screws at the top (need to open the sunglass compartment first) and then pulling the other side down by hand, hard. There are 2 connectors up here that need to be removed as well.
5b) Find the mirror connector and look at the wires. The black wire is ground and the green is the reverse signal. These should connect to the black and red wires on the small module (black=black, green=red). Since I was no longer using my original mirror connector, I just used two female-female wires I had laying around and popped them onto the male pins and the wires from the Mikstore connector, and wrapped all the connections with electrical tape. However, if you are still using your original mirror, you'll probably either have to splice into the wires or add them in from the back (it's been done with a Civic non-frameless HomeLink mirror with a jumper cable - it's in a forum somewhere, you can Google it). I ziptied the wires and controller to prevent rattling.
6) I plugged the battery back in and tested all the functionality. With the car on (or at least in accessory mode) put the car into reverse. The mirror goes down. Take it out of reverse and it goes back up. Yay!
6a) One thing I noticed was that it only went down a tiny bit, not enough to actually see the curb. I tried adjusting it while the car was in reverse and no dice. What I found was that if you hold the mirror adjustment switch to "down" as you're shifting into reverse, it'll go down and set the position you want. Once I set it once, it remembered my preference and now goes down to where I want it every time.
7) Finally, I put everything back together in reverse order. When doing the door card, I used the provided velcro to stick the Mikstore controller module under the window switch panel onto the door card plastic itself, toward the front of the front of the car. Be sure to test fit this - if it's too far back, you might have trouble snapping in the window switch panel. I also made sure it wasn't directly under the front clip and pushed it inwards a little (toward the outside of the car).
8) I did one final check to make sure everything was working and then went for a quick drive to clear out my error codes and reset the radio.
When I bought the car a few months ago, I bought this kit for $129, along with the power folding mirror kit and sequential turn signals. I also bought (from Honda) the frameless HomeLink mirror and harness intended for the 2024 Accord. I installed the HomeLink mirror, the power fold kit, and the sequential turn signals right away, but held off on doing the tilt kit for a few reasons:
1) One of the modules needed to tap into the reverse lighting, and there isn't a good way to access the connector on the reverse lights without pulling the rear bumper and removing the taillight, and
2) The connectors on the wiring harness were different than the stock connectors for the mirror.
The Mikstore instructions called this out and they emailed me prior to shipping out the kit, to confirm that I'm with doing some rewiring. The instructions said to cut the wires and splice them into the existing connector, but I'm not about having a janky mess of wires. I looked around online for a bit to see if I could find a connector but my search came up short. I decided to table it for a while until I could figure out a solution to both my problems.
A few months went by and it dawned on me that I could re-pin and swap the connectors. I also realized that there might be other (more easily accessible) spots in the car where I can tap into the reverse signal. I'll get into more detail on these further down below.
I broke this up into steps so it's easier to follow. I didn't take many pictures as I was on a time crunch so I did my best to describe what I did and draw some diagrams where necessary (they'll be down at the bottom - please forgive my poor Paint skills). One thing to note is that once this is installed, it is always active regardless of which position your mirror adjument selector is in (many other cars, including the A-Spec w/ Tech, only enable this when the mirror switch is in "R").
0) Always a good rule of thumb, if you're doing any electrical work, disconnect the negative terminal on your battery. I didn't do this right away, but I did when I started to work on de-pinning any connectors. I reconnected it throughout when I needed to test some wires with my multimeter. Whatever you do, be smart about this.
1) I started by taking the passenger side door card off. To do this, you first need to take a plastic trim removal tool and remove the window switch panel. There are a few clips holding it in place around the outside so work your way around to get it loose. Once it's out, remove the connector by pressing in the lock tab and pulling the connector off.
1a) Now you should be able to see a screw that holds the door card in place. Remove it with a Phillips head screwdriver.
1b) Next, take your plastic trim removal tool and work your way around the sides and bottom of the door card to pop the clips holding it in place. Once most of them are out, it should start getting easier to do this by hand. Once the sides and bottom are out, you should be able to pull the top toward you and the door card off. Before you walk away with it, you need to unclip 2 wire connectors and a clip holding one of the wires in place. To remove that clip, you need to get underneath it with the forked end of the plastic trim tool so it squeezes the clip on either side while you apply upward pressure to get it out. Once that's loose, put your door card off to the side.
2) Next, I disconnected the mirror harness from the door's wiring harness. The connector is a 14-pin connector up at the top towards the front of the car. The mirror side (the one with the female pins) is the one I depinned and swapped with the female-pinned connector on the Mikstore harness. The connectors on the Mikstore harness only have 8 pins. This works for the Type S because there are only 8 wires going to the 14-pin connector. I'm not sure whether Civics or other trims of the Integra use more than those 8 wires - in that case what I did might not work. I took a picture of all my connectors so I have a reference in case I messed up. I don't have a depinning tool, but I used a sharp pointed tweezer I had laying around from a phone repair kit. I stuck it into the holes above the pins, pushed the plastic internal clip up, and pulled the wire out from the back. The first time can be tricky if you don't know what you're doing, but the rest are smooth sailing.
2a) The yellow, blue, and green wires on the mirror harness are the important ones to get right here - these are the wires that control the mirror tilt and need to be attached correctly to the Mikstore harness since they go to the controller module. The rest of the wires get relayed straight through by the black wires on the Mikstore harness. Per Mikstore's instructions, the order the 3 wires I mentioned should connect from left to right is Green, Yellow, Orange. Meaning:
Acura yellow = Mikstore green
Acura blue = Mikstore yellow
Acura green = Mikstore orange
This was a bit scary to do at first but their color order matched up with mine so I trusted what they said.
2b) I started by re-pinning the Mikstore harness. First I did the black wires - those go straight through and the order doesn't matter, as along as the connection on the other side is the same color. I re-pinned those 5 wires on the mirror harness into the 8-pin connector, following the black wires through from the car's harness to make sure I got them in the right spot. Finally, I did the other 3 wires, being sure to follow the mapping I described in the previous step. Notice the order is NOT the same as the order from the Mikstore connector. I did the "Before" MikStore harness drawings from memory, so my colors might be inaccurate, but the "After" mirror colors are what the result would be if the rest of the colors were in the correct spot. The important part is that you follow the wires from the Car side, through the corresponding black wires in the Mikstore harness, and match that color in the resulting position on the Mirror side. Remember, the matching connectors that plug into each other have a mirrored order from each other.
2c) These connectors are now done, so I plugged them into each other.
3) Next, I had to connect the red and black wires from the Mikstore harness to the grey connector I pulled from the window switch. The Mikstore instructions said red=green and black=black, but my connector looked flipped from the connector in their image. So I tested with a multimeter and the colors were indeed correct.
3a) I took a picture of the green and black wires first so I didn't forget the order, and then I disconnected the battery again and worked on depinning the 2 wires from the grey connector. In order to pull out the connections on this one, there's a black rectangle on top that needs to be snapped loose. I stuck my tweezers into the little openings at the bottom of the rectangle and popped it loose - it'll look like it barely moved, but that's all you need.
3b) Once the wires were out, I carefully pried open the metal clamps holding the wires to the connector. I only did this on the part surround the colored insulation, and not the ones holding the bare wire in. Then, I cut the pins off the red and black wire on the Mikstore harness and stripped off a small amount of insulation - an eighth to a quarter inch tops. I placed that exposed wire where the clamp was and re-crimped it to hold the wire in place. Finally, I slid the pins back in, being careful to put them in the correct spot in the connector. I tugged on all 4 wires to make sure they were secure.
4) Finally, I plugged the Mikstore controller module into the Mikstore harness.
4b) At this point, I decided to turn on the car and test the original functionality of the car to make sure I didn't mess up. I immediately noticed the blind spot monitor turned on when the car does its initial checks at start-up - so far so good. The driver side mirror adjustments worked well, but when I went to check the passenger side, nothing. I quickly realized I didn't plug in the window switch, so I plugged it in and it worked - whew, crisis averted.
5) Now to figure out a solution to my second problem. Out of curiosity I took out the lining in my trunk to see if I could easily access the wiring for the taillights/reverse lights. Mikstore's instructions were for the Civic, where this connecter is easy to access through the trunk. On the Integra, however, it's not as easy. I could see the harness through a hole but it's hard to get your fingers in there, let alone depin/splice into the wires. The best way to access that connector is to pull the bumper and remove the taillight, and I didn't want to do that.
5a) When I bought the car, I had installed a HomeLink mirror and a new wiring harness to go with it, but I had left the original wiring harness intact. I remembered reading somewhere in a Civic forum that one of the wires going to the mirror is a reverse signal which tells teh mirror to stop dimming when the car is in reverse. The Mikstore controller is small enough to fit up in the headliner so I figured I'd give it a shot. I started by opening the cover around the base of the mirror. This is such a pain in the ass to do the first time. I made a YouTube video on the HomeLink install a while back that shows how to do this. Next, I removed the flat panel covering the mirror wiring and camera. I also removed the panel with the sunglasses holder by removing the 2 screws at the top (need to open the sunglass compartment first) and then pulling the other side down by hand, hard. There are 2 connectors up here that need to be removed as well.
5b) Find the mirror connector and look at the wires. The black wire is ground and the green is the reverse signal. These should connect to the black and red wires on the small module (black=black, green=red). Since I was no longer using my original mirror connector, I just used two female-female wires I had laying around and popped them onto the male pins and the wires from the Mikstore connector, and wrapped all the connections with electrical tape. However, if you are still using your original mirror, you'll probably either have to splice into the wires or add them in from the back (it's been done with a Civic non-frameless HomeLink mirror with a jumper cable - it's in a forum somewhere, you can Google it). I ziptied the wires and controller to prevent rattling.
6) I plugged the battery back in and tested all the functionality. With the car on (or at least in accessory mode) put the car into reverse. The mirror goes down. Take it out of reverse and it goes back up. Yay!
6a) One thing I noticed was that it only went down a tiny bit, not enough to actually see the curb. I tried adjusting it while the car was in reverse and no dice. What I found was that if you hold the mirror adjustment switch to "down" as you're shifting into reverse, it'll go down and set the position you want. Once I set it once, it remembered my preference and now goes down to where I want it every time.
7) Finally, I put everything back together in reverse order. When doing the door card, I used the provided velcro to stick the Mikstore controller module under the window switch panel onto the door card plastic itself, toward the front of the front of the car. Be sure to test fit this - if it's too far back, you might have trouble snapping in the window switch panel. I also made sure it wasn't directly under the front clip and pushed it inwards a little (toward the outside of the car).
8) I did one final check to make sure everything was working and then went for a quick drive to clear out my error codes and reset the radio.
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and also a great idea tapping the reverse signal up by the Mirror
