Hella Sharptone DIY- Relay free, splice free, and no drilling!

huli467 · Mar 24, 2018

My stock horn wiring is all chopped up. Can someone detail or show me which wire you tapped into for the stock horn??

Man of Steel TRD · Apr 4, 2018

Nitori[OP] initial post: ↑

I figured after I spent the time and effort figuring out a nice, integrated setup for a horn upgrade, I might as well do a little DIY/Write-up for TacomaWorld, in case other people want to do the same! It's quite easy- as long as you can use a crimp connector you can make this harness yourself. It doesn't require any modifications to your truck!

Before I start, let me make this 100% clear- this is for Hella SHARPtones not Hella SUPERtones. SUPERtones are the older variant that draws a lot more current and has a high pitched "euro beep" that a lot of people don't like as much for a truck. Hella SHARPtones are more efficient power wise, and are a lower, more "truck-like" horn.

Now that that's our of the way, first off is mounting the horns. It's quite easy to get at them, as they are right behind the grille. SR5 and higher trim owners, you'll find that there are 2 horns. Lowly SR fellows, there is only one for us. It doesn't matter though, as there are 2 threaded holes there just waiting to mount up your sweet new horns.

The passenger's side one is slightly smaller- use an M6 bolt that's 16mm long for that one. Driver's side, you can reuse your Toyota brand bolt or dig out a shiny new M8-1.25 pitch bolt, also 16mm long.

In they go:

For the picture I took the grille off, but you can do this whole job without taking it off!

Now, make up a very simple wiring harness for them. Since I have an SR, I need to make a doubler for the positive wire, and then a ground strap for them.

Here are my materials:

Pretty simple. 18 gauge wires, one ring terminal, one male spade terminal, and 4 weatherproof female spades. Heat shrink and fancy sleeving is totally optional. I'm a huge nerd. Remember to measure your lengths! I probably made some of my wires on the short side, but I didn't want there to be gobs extra to contend with.

Here's my positive wire doubling harness:

As you can see it's quite simple. I just have 2 wires mated to the male spade, going out to their respective weatherproof female spades.

Then comes my ground strap:

It's also very simple. 2 Wires, mated to that ring terminal, going out to 2 weatherproof female spades. I went a little wild here with my fancy heat shrink and cable sleeve. You really don't need to do this if you don't want to!

The ground strap uses the ring terminal to sit directly on the ground that's right next to the negative terminal of the battery:

String that bad boy across your engine bay neatly, out in front of the radiator. Took me only 3 zip ties to get it nice and secure:

Then, push the female terminals of your ground strap onto the male spades on the horns, 1 each. Side doesn't matter, these are non-polar. As long as you have 1 positive wire and 1 ground on each, they will work just fine. Then take that positive wire doubling harness you made, and push the male terminal into the stock horn's original wire. Get those remaining connectors onto the horn terminals, and you're done!

I went the extra mile and camouflaged the wires with some of that plastic tubing to make it look stock.

Yup, that's it! Beep the horn just to make sure, but that's all there is to it. Probably took me about as much time to write this up as it took to do it.

SR5+ OWNERS: You will only need to make an extender for one of the passenger's side horn connectors. Just push the closer stock connector onto the closer one, and then make a 1 male spade to 1 female terminal wire extender to reach out to that other horn.

==== Nerd Content Below ====

-Wait a Second, Hella says you need to use a relay!
Yes indeed, Hella includes a relay for you to use and gives you very nice instructions on how to use it. However, for a modern car like a 3rd Gen Tacoma it's entirely optional. Your factory horn already has a relay rated at 20A, and is fused at 10A. These horns draw 7A. That's plenty of safety margin. The older, more traditional Supertones do draw 12A, so that does require more engineering.

-Why didn't you just ground the horns to the chassis?
I freely admit that my large ground strap is not necessary for functioning horns. I'm coming from the Subaru enthusiast community, and I've found that at least with those, the chassis kinda sucks for grounding in in some cases. It'll work, but it won't work as well as it could. Many users reported that after "the grounding mod" their horns were suddenly much louder. I figured why not just go for it, it gave me an excuse to use some neat cable sleeve.

-How are your horns white? Didja paint them?
Nope, I bought them from Subimods. https://subimods.com/hella-sharptone-horns-h31000001.html and paid a small extra fee for powder coating. Other places like Subispeed and other Subaru tuning places sell these, the horns are a big thing in the Subaru community.
Click to expand...

Damn you @Nitori ! Now you went and made me order up some horns!! You down to help me install them?

Nitori · Apr 5, 2018

Man of Steel TRD said: ↑

Damn you @Nitori ! Now you went and made me order up some horns!! You down to help me install them?
Click to expand...

You already know I am, but heck yeah! I've actually been kicking around the idea of finding a different spot to mount mine, or making a bracket of my own or something.

Where do you think you are gonna mount yours?

Man of Steel TRD · Apr 5, 2018

Nitori[OP] said: ↑

You already know I am, but heck yeah! I've actually been kicking around the idea of finding a different spot to mount mine, or making a bracket of my own or something.

Where do you think you are gonna mount yours?
Click to expand...

Probably just in the same spots as you did yours.

423 TACO · Aug 6, 2018

sub

Volksparts · Dec 1, 2018

I figured this is probably the best place to post my experience with my Sharptone and Supertone combo. I have ran it for the last month and yep it's pretty loud.
https://youtu.be/D7hk8XSJHuE

Just swapped out to Cadillac horns A, C, D and F today though.

ramirezja · Apr 28, 2019

CortezJB said: ↑

Instaled a set pf Hella sharp tone, I painted them red, and re routed the existing wiring at the front.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the hi-res photos. I wanted to do the same set up as yours but i can not see how you did the wiring. From what I can tell the stock horns have a plug in. Did you use the stock wiring, or an aftermarket wire kit?

CortezJB · Apr 28, 2019

all I did was extend the wires from the original harness, it was the simplest way!!

tspencerVA · May 14, 2019

Anybody have any details on the Hella horns and how they may impact electronics?

Getting some flakiness with this new JVC headunit install that involves the Supertone I have running on relay.

Suspecting it is a poor ground wire job but looking for any input to see if these Hellas are prone to electrical disturbances on new vehicles

max_o · May 15, 2019

CortezJB said: ↑

all I did was extend the wires from the original harness, it was the simplest way!!
Click to expand...

I did the same using this as a guideline and it works great.

tspencerVA said: ↑

Anybody have any details on the Hella horns and how they may impact electronics?

Getting some flakiness with this new JVC headunit install that involves the Supertone I have running on relay.

Suspecting it is a poor ground wire job but looking for any input to see if these Hellas are prone to electrical disturbances on new vehicles
Click to expand...

I haven't had any issues yet with my install. No interference. But I also have mine wired to the factory harness.

Arrogant Basturd · May 18, 2019

some one asked about relays, and if the supplied relays were good enough.
this picture is from their brochure. it says the sharp tones run 42 watts each. and the super tones run 66 each.
so a pair at 12 watts looks like 7 amps for a pair of sharp tones and 11 for a pair of super tones.
i'm no electrician. but i think i did the math right. and if the supplied relays are rated 20amps. i think it can power a pair of either with no issues.

https://www.hella.com/hella-sg/assets/media/Hella_Horns_Brochure_LoRes.pdf

i'm thinking about getting a pair of sharp tones. worth it?
PS. i've been running without my horn working properly for 6 months. clock spring/spiral cable must've been shorting out. horn only works in certain sweet spots when i turn the wheel. so i can never honk while i'm driving a straight line. just got it fixed today. so looking at upgrading horn. found this thread.

Gmarq · Aug 17, 2019

goofydug said: ↑

Thanks for the writeup! I have a TRD and got a little lost in the SR writeup. All i had to do was create ground wires for each horn and run them to where the battery grounds to the chassis.

These things sound pretty funny but they're loud.

Click to expand...

Yup, did the same here. Installed the Hella Sharp Tones in the stock locations. Used the original cables/connector for the OE horn and just made and added a grounding cable for both horns. Easy peasy.

c808nner · Sep 26, 2019

I just installed some sharptones on my 06 and reused the factory wiring and just made a ground that connects to where OP grounded. I feel as I must’ve done something wrong as they aren’t much louder than stock. Any guesses as to why they aren’t very loud?
Edit: They don't sound very loud when testing, but when I stood infront of the truck and had someone else beep the horn it was noticeably louder

COSTCOHOTDOG · Sep 26, 2019

Try grounding it straight to the negative battery terminal.

c808nner · Sep 26, 2019

COSTCOHOTDOG said: ↑

Try grounding it straight to the negative battery terminal.
Click to expand...

Edited my post, just didn't sound very loud from behind them.

timihendrix33 · Aug 24, 2021

Thanks, this was super helpful!

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