that's weird. It told me I didn't have enough posts to do attachments, yet I see the pic above. Oh well...

With that in mind, I set out to replace my OEM upper horn.
above is a comparison shot of the two horns side by side (stock on the left, Stebel on the right)

 

Anywho, there are video tutorials of how to replace the stock CRV horns located at
http://blog.diyhonda.com/search/label/CR-V

link to the specific horn replacement video tutorial page:
http://blog.diyhonda.com/2012/10/episode-241-2012-honda-cr-v-low-horn.html

Here is the installation instructions for the Stebel:
http://www.valkmotive.com/installation-nautilus-419-519-619-vm2-nm2-gp-418-404-415

The instructions call for wiring the horns using a relay to help provide enough juice to the compressor.

I decided to locate my relay on the backside of the front crossmember - I drilled and tapped an 8-32 hole.

The stock horn only has one wire going to it. The common (negative) is basically returned through the car's grounding bolts and the horn metal frame mount. The instructions call for using a similar grounding point for the relay (pin 85), which you can see I used the relay mounting bolt for.

Here is the wiring after tidying up everything. The yellow and black wires are the new power leads going from the relay towards the Stebel horn.

I originally started out by removing the horn mounting bracket and the horn itself as illustrated in the above tutorial video. Once that was out, I was able to remove the plastic retaining shield over that area - there are 3 clips you have to remove to be able to then wiggle it free. I then unbolted the OEM horn from the thin straight bridging metal bracket, and the thin metal bracket from the more hefty frame mounting bracket. I had to dremel out the frame bracket so that the thin bridging bracket could hang down in a more vertical orientation. I also had to drill out a slightly larger hole in the thin metal bridging bracket to accommodate the larger mounting bolt from the Stebel.

In the original comparison picture above, you can see that I attached the lower part of the mounting bracket already to the new Stebel horn (vertically).

Next after doing all the wiring, I had to fit everything back in to place.
here's a pic of how the new horn sits (looking from the back of the engine bay, looking forward and down).
You can see how the Stebel mounts to the (now vertically oriented) thin metal bridging bracket.

Of course, the most important thing is how it sounds, right?
Here is the stock horn:

and the Stebel:

sorry the clips are so short - it was around midnight when I finished up and I didn't want to wake the kids up
Also, I know it doesn't sound like the volume has changed, but in person, it is quite a bit louder.
The tone, as you can tell, has deepend overall. I'll try to take another longer video later on...
enjoy!
-Chris



edit2: better sound clip of the new horn. I dunno if it translates well to the video, but in person, the sound is much louder and the combination of the 2nd OEM horn and the new Stebel reminds me a bit of a train horn...
http://vid882.photobucket.com/albums/ac29/cannibal869/CRV/7BF980C2-C897-402E-A1F9-DACFBAA97092_zpsnpnkkxsg.mp4

 

Anywho, there are video tutorials of how to replace the stock CRV horns located at
http://blog.diyhonda.com/search/label/CR-V

link to the specific horn replacement video tutorial page:
http://blog.diyhonda.com/2012/10/episode-241-2012-honda-cr-v-low-horn.html

Here is the installation instructions for the Stebel:
http://www.valkmotive.com/installation-nautilus-419-519-619-vm2-nm2-gp-418-404-415

The instructions call for wiring the horns using a relay to help provide enough juice to the compressor.
View attachment 68730

I decided to locate my relay on the backside of the front crossmember - I drilled and tapped an 8-32 hole.
View attachment 68738
The stock horn only has one wire going to it. The common (negative) is basically returned through the car's grounding bolts and the horn metal frame mount. The instructions call for using a similar grounding point for the relay (pin 85), which you can see I used the relay mounting bolt for.

Here is the wiring after tidying up everything. The yellow and black wires are the new power leads going from the relay towards the Stebel horn.
View attachment 68746
I originally started out by removing the horn mounting bracket and the horn itself as illustrated in the above tutorial video. Once that was out, I was able to remove the plastic retaining shield over that area - there are 3 clips you have to remove to be able to then wiggle it free. I then unbolted the OEM horn from the thin straight bridging metal bracket, and the thin metal bracket from the more hefty frame mounting bracket. I had to dremel out the frame bracket so that the thin bridging bracket could hang down in a more vertical orientation. I also had to drill out a slightly larger hole in the thin metal bridging bracket to accommodate the larger mounting bolt from the Stebel.

In the original comparison picture above, you can see that I attached the lower part of the mounting bracket already to the new Stebel horn (vertically).

Next after doing all the wiring, I had to fit everything back in to place.
here's a pic of how the new horn sits (looking from the back of the engine bay, looking forward and down).
You can see how the Stebel mounts to the (now vertically oriented) thin metal bridging bracket.
View attachment 68754

Of course, the most important thing is how it sounds, right?
Here is the stock horn:

and the Stebel:

sorry the clips are so short - it was around midnight when I finished up and I didn't want to wake the kids up
Also, I know it doesn't sound like the volume has changed, but in person, it is quite a bit louder.
The tone, as you can tell, has deepend overall. I'll try to take another longer video later on...
enjoy!
-Chris



edit2: better sound clip of the new horn. I dunno if it translates well to the video, but in person, the sound is much louder and the combination of the 2nd OEM horn and the new Stebel reminds me a bit of a train horn...
http://vid882.photobucket.com/albums/ac29/cannibal869/CRV/7BF980C2-C897-402E-A1F9-DACFBAA97092_zpsnpnkkxsg.mp4

Been playing with this idea since we bought our '16 Pilot, but we traded that in on our '16 CR-V, which I still want to do that to. Couple quick questions:
1) What particular relay did you use?
2) Why? Doesn't the CR-V have one for the horn already?

 

cannibal869, do you have any diagrams or instructions on how to get the Stebel in behind the grille of the 2016 CRV. I attempted to install one on my 2013 CRV but for the love of me i couldn't get the grill to come out, I couldn't get the clips on the sides of the grille that attach to the frame to release.

I'd love to now put the Stebel on my 2016 CRV, I have been waiting and looking for somebody that has removed the grille on a 2016 to see if anything has changed.

Regards,

 

Hi Wombat,
I just followed the Diyhonda video that I posted a link to near the top of the thread (where they basically pry the horn out from under the grille cover).

I actually didn't remove the front grille. There is a black plastic "floating ledge" kind of piece that you can see the horn dives down under. Once you remove the retaining clips in the area, you should be able to wiggle it around. There's one more retaining clip buried underneath closer to the headlight that you also have to pry out. It's easier to see and understand once you have removed the original horn frame like in the video above...

 

I'm not sure if the pieces are different on your 2013 model, although they should be very similar. I was not able to fit the Stebel *without* removing that plastic cover piece.

 

Maybe I didn't hold my mouth right when I tried that.

 

sorry just to clarify - in the above picture, you can see that the black metal shiny bracket just to the right of midline near the lower 1/3 of the image is the horn mounting bracket (it's the one just to the left of the black and yellow wires).
just BELOW that is the plastic piece you need to remove. In the installation DIY video, the guy bends this upwards to remove the old stock horn.


My advice is to remove all of the retaining plastic clips that you can see in that photo (4 visible).
Two of those (seen at the very bottom left hand corner of the picture) help to anchor that removable plastic piece down.
There is also a third (unseen) clip buried underneath the right hand side of that piece, which you can only really see once you get the others out of the way.

I hope that helps explain it a little better? If not I can try to take some more pics and walk you through it later.
-C

 

Is there any lag time for the compressor to spool up and sound the horn? I had a set installed on a car about 40 years ago, twin trumpets with a separate compressor. They were wired through a solenoid in addition to the standard horns. I could get about a 1 second beep of just the standard horns and then the air horns would kick in and really wake things up.