Honda Prelude Forum banner

HOWTO: Warm your ass up, the OEM Canadian Honda way!

15K views 30 replies 17 participants last post by  ZippiT 
#1 · (Edited)
Couldnt find any writeups for how to do this, so after days and days of running wire and poring over wiring diagrams, i finally got them to work and decided a writeup was in order.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
1. Seat heaters out of a CDM prelude.
2. Heated seat pigtail from under seat
2. Heated seat switches and shrouds from CDM door panels
3. Heated seat relay, labeled "MITSUBA JAPAN RC-5001 12V NO 60 G"
4. PATIENCE! Go slow and follow this guide. you got this!

LETS BEGIN!

STEP 1. MODIFYING THE STOCK SEATS!
You will be removing the seat covers and inserting/removing the heater grids.
Below are the tricky areas that will try to prevent you from accomplishing this wonderful feat.

- The Headrest adjustment button
There is a screw underneath this to remove the plastic panel at the top of the seat. Insert a small flathead between the button and the plastic panel and press down. should pop up and out. There is a spring youll need to make sure not to lose as well.

- Seat Pan Adjustment Wheel.
This is held in with a pressure ring youll need to get out first. a pair of angled pliers and a small flathead will aid you in getting this thing out. i broke mine trying to figure that one out so trust me on this one.
After that the knob slides off, and you can continue with the seat disassembly

- Inside the seat
Once you have the plastics off, you will find clips stretching the cover to the seat pan. unhooking these should be relatively straightforward. Once thats done, you will be able to pull the seat cover back far enough to peer under the seat cover and see the seat heater grids. They are held in on either side by the plastic tag things that hold labels on clothing items in stores. Simply cut them and gently work the heated element out as it is pretty contoured. There may be springs littered throughout that attach the cover *to the seat pan. you should be able to release these underneath the seat pan if there are any. i may be confusing these with the prelude seats however, so your mileage may vary.

STEP 2: Modifying your door panes for the CDM Switches
Start by removing your door panels. Turn them over and take a look at the map pockets. With any luck, the heated seat switches will have come with a couple shrouds that you will need to screw into the door panel. You will need to cut out a rectangle about 2 inches by 1 inch, with a hole on either end drilled so you can screw the things down. Once youve mounted the shrouds, dont pop them in yet. youll need the switches connected to the harness for testing purposes.

Step 3: Running wiring through the door harness
Disconnect door harness and pop out of door and chassis (this will require removal of fenders to gain access to the harnesses
BE CAREFUL! there are many wires running through this harness, and damaging them means big trouble for anything connected to your door switches. i dont need to elaborate on how important this is. That said, grab a paperclip and begin probing for unused pins through the grease. Find a block of 4 unused wire locations and carefully expand them toward each other with a drill so that they are one giant glory hole. You will need to do this for both sides of the connector on the door connector and the chassis connector.

Once you have the drilling done, run your wires through. Refer to wiring diagram below.

Step 4. Making it all work
Ive taken the pain of making a diagram for you noobs. This shows you where each and every wire is supposed to go.

WIRING DIAGRAM:


If youve hooked everything up correctly, your ass should be nice and toasty by now!

Rep gladly accepted!
 

Attachments

See less See more
1
#2 ·
I need the god damn shrouds or I may mount them some where else. I have installed the heating elements in the seats but thats it so far. Like you I'm also doing the digital climate control as well. It's on the back burner though right now. My house was destroyed by hurricane Irene so I'm dealing with that krap right now. Nice write up though. Did you get enough schematics and what not for the climate control? I have a lot info for it.
 
#3 ·
Damn, that sucks! hope everything turns out ok for you...No shrouds? you should see if you can find someone in canada that can maybe get some for you. If you are mounting them inside the car, not on the doors that sure would save you ALOT of wiring, but not exactly the OEM fitment that honda intended.

I havent gone through the schematics on the climate control yet, but Kane666 sent me all the data hes got so i can build a howto doc on that as well since nobodys done it yet. If you can send me what you got so far, that would be awesome! its my user name @gmail.com
 
#14 ·
I was considering this up until a week ago. My new to me TSX will do much better in the winter. Im amazed at how uncomfortable my prelude is after switching back for just one day.
 
#15 · (Edited)
True, the TSX is probably alot more comfortable. Personally, i just picked up a set of NSX seats that are super comfortable that i will be retrofitting the heater elements into. Are the prelude seats THAT uncomfortable though? ive slept in mine plenty...
 
#16 · (Edited)
Sorry if that came off rough. That was not my intention, I could have worded it differently and will:

I appreciate threads, like this, that help Prelude owners like myself to improve the vehicles we own and love. Now that I am out of school and working in my field I am fortunate enough to be able to add a newer, less single purpose vehicle to my garage.

I will keep contributing to the Prelude forums where I can, like I have been for the last four or five years (this one fairly recently). And neither this post or my last were meant to be sarcastic.
 
#18 ·
No worries, the prelude isnt very comfortable after 200k miles, despite having seats rebuilt, and the linear springs, koni's and low pros dont help much either. I would love to daily drive it still but some back problems are making it difficult.
 
#20 · (Edited)
Im from Canada, and my pride and joy does not have this option... Because its from the U.S :/
Fortunately, my other DD 5th gen does. They are a joy.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top