New here and got some ideas any input is welcome.

abram3265 · Jan 24, 2026

Ok new here and have an idea or 5 of improving the interior and exterior with some lighting. Here’s some details and finding for anyone that wants copy.

1. Ambient footwell light that matches the car stock and can be change in the cars menu. Already started on this, OEM light controller behind the dash on passenger side. Car LED system runs on 5.5v trough the Orange + wire, the remainder RGB wires do what the colours say 0.03v when non colour 0.05v when coloured.

2. Ambient light front and rear round air vents, taking a tap again from the stock led controller behind the dash so this all matches the cars colours and be controlled in the OEM menu.

3. Create my own CK71 DRL front lights. This is what I’m struggling with… the Aliexpress ones look terrible, chunky and cheap. I’ve seen people using Diode Dynamic LEDs for this but they are over $150 to buy and post to the UK. I’m struggling to find any switchback strips in the UK that don’t have sequential lighting for the turn signal or a crap looking start up sequence. My other option is a smaller than the size and cut the metal piece that’s in there from stock to fit.

4. Create my own sequential rear lights, again due to cost of getting the ones offered online posted to the uk I’m gona go for this my self see how I get on.

I plan on posting images and updates of doing all of this to keep people posted

Any help in people’s experience or finding relevant parts it’s always welcome

Snicklefritz · Jan 24, 2026

I'll be interested in watching this.

abram3265 · Jan 24, 2026

As said already started tested all wiring with multimeter behind the dash. Wanted to add ambient strip/light in the rear doors as I think it’s a little crap they don’t have this in as stock. Unfortunately most of the ultra thin between the trim ambient strips use addressable LEDs not dumb RGB ones so with the stock set up it’s a no for that. Waiting on some parts to get this started. And I’ll be putting plenty pics up as I think this is missing in a lot of how to things… maybe even some YouTube videos if I’m feeling it

Buzzman12 · Jan 25, 2026

abram3265 said:
4. Create my own sequential rear lights, again due to cost of getting the ones offered online posted to the uk I’m gona go for this my self see how I get on.

I plan on posting images and updates of doing all of this to keep people posted

This I gotta see for myself. I don't see how you could do that with the existing tail lights.
I just bought the Kia rear light assembly with the sequential turn signal, direct from Kia, and have them here now.
I am just waiting for spring to put them in (I'm in Canada, winter, cold, snow..... bleah).

abram3265 · Jan 26, 2026

Buzzman12 said:
This I gotta see for myself. I don't see how you could do that with the existing tail lights.
I just bought the Kia rear light assembly with the sequential turn signal, direct from Kia, and have them here now.
I am just waiting for spring to put them in (I'm in Canada, winter, cold, snow..... bleah).

This isn’t the OEM I’m planning to remove the lower L&R reflectors in the bumper and you can cut them open and install the diodes etc. picture circled in blue.

This is similar to videos I’ve seen on YT if it looks a bit Boy-race-ish and takes away from the look of the car I’ll obvs not be doing it but at the min that’s the plan

Daniel @ K8 Stinger Store · Jan 26, 2026

Welcome to the forum!

Looks like you are off to a great start!

Can't wait to see how everything looks when finished.

If you are looking for more mods in the future, hit us up, we can hook you up with a forum member discount!

abram3265 · Jan 26, 2026

Daniel @ K8 Stinger Store said:
Welcome to the forum!

Looks like you are off to a great start!

Can't wait to see how everything looks when finished.

If you are looking for more mods in the future, hit us up, we can hook you up with a forum member discount!

Thanks @Daniel K8 stinger store the problem is the import cost with Trumbs tariffs etc on the post but you guys do have some amazing things if only I lived in the USA.

Daniel @ K8 Stinger Store · Jan 26, 2026

abram3265 said:
Thanks @Daniel K8 stinger store the problem is the import cost with Trumbs tariffs etc on the post but you guys do have some amazing things if only I lived in the USA.

We ship to Europe often, a lot of times we are able to offer a discount if you reach out to us directly.

abram3265 · Jan 26, 2026

#1 update - Ambient footwell lights.
Been doing some tinkering with the ambient lights for the footwells. Striped the dash and spliced into the OEM wiring harness. Ended up cutting and soldering in connections.

won’t show how to get the dash off as there’s plenty vids how to do this, but in the images the white box is the OEM controller and the orange foam cover on the wiring. (Yes cutting into a harness is daunting as it sounds). Did some testing and it worked so I went for it, unfortunately didn’t test enough tho… spoiler.

Got all the wiring with 2 connecters soldered, covered and tested and back off to the car feeling confident and happy. Plugged it all back into the car and it all seemed to work fine!

It worked with the cars program etc and could be selected on the dash… happy days. The problem is when it comes to reconnecting the OEM ambient light strip on the dash. The red LED on the strip pulls the voltage down for the floor lights but only on the red side. So all you get is effectively a dim white.

As you can see in this image with the 2 OEM lights and the floor lights the red is non existent. This can be mitigated with a mosfet gate etc but if I’m honest this isn’t top of my priorities.

If any one has any ideas to get round this help would be more than welcome. I’ve seen people connect to this for the air vent LEDs and it’s worked so I’m slightly stumped at this point.

Buzzman12 · Jan 26, 2026

abram3265 said:
This isn’t the OEM I’m planning to remove the lower L&R reflectors in the bumper and you can cut them open and install the diodes etc. picture circled in blue. View attachment 92789This is similar to videos I’ve seen on YT if it looks a bit Boy-race-ish and takes away from the look of the car I’ll obvs not be doing it but at the min that’s the plan

I see what you are doing.
I did something similar to my 2017 Mazda 6 GT (bought new in 2017, sold in 2023).
It had the same type of bumper reflectors as the Stinger, and so I bought matching inserts off Amazon that were LED wired for signal and brake lights.
They weren't sequential though. They were not an easy install, as access to the back side of the bumper was minimal, to put it mildly.
The biggest problem I had was getting the reflectors out. They were screwed in place from behind (not clipped in like I had hoped).
The wiring was the easy part. I just ran the harness to my tail lights and spliced them in.
Good luck.

Buzzman12 · Jan 26, 2026

Mazda bumper reflector replacement. Wired to signal light and brake light. No sequential though. Bummer.

abram3265 · Jan 27, 2026

Not sure if people are interested but I’m gona keep rambling on anyway… after a full day of head scratching and chatGPT think I have the answer to hacking the OEM ambient light. Comes in the form of a 12v -5v buck converter paired with a low side mosfet switch. This takes the OEM led signals as a reference only and uses the buck converters power and ground to match the add on LEDs this will allow a greater number of ambient lights to be powered while matching the OEM colour and fully controlled through the car.

PCB is only 4x2cm and using JLPCB is cheap to produce. If (likely) I go ahead with this the minimum order is 5 PCB complete with components so if people are interested I’ll have 4 left over.

Also being looking at the DIY CK71’s same story, EASYEDA & JLPCB to the rescue.

Waiting for components to test this before ordering.

Brotherspoon · Thursday at 2:13 PM

Interesting endeavor you are sharing with us here. This is my favorite kind of thread - I've designed some custom PCBs for my car and installed my fair share of the dreaded, "AFTERMARKET WIRING" that the dealership enjoys. 5x pcbs for ~$6 CAD from JLCPCB is outstanding. I may post about them in detail at some point. So far I've made a auto daylight sensor activated pwm controller to work with the chinese winauto switchback drl/foglights which I am quite fond of coming from the handmade korean strips (that fail) Also made a full bypass back to stock module for my windbooster.

abram3265 · Friday at 12:16 PM

Brotherspoon said:
Interesting endeavor you are sharing with us here. This is my favorite kind of thread - I've designed some custom PCBs for my car and installed my fair share of the dreaded, "AFTERMARKET WIRING" that the dealership enjoys. 5x pcbs for ~$6 CAD from JLCPCB is outstanding. I may post about them in detail at some point. So far I've made a auto daylight sensor activated pwm controller to work with the chinese winauto switchback drl/foglights which I am quite fond of coming from the handmade korean strips (that fail) Also made a full bypass back to stock module for my windbooster.

Yeah I’m hoping to get the PCBs made in the next week or so then who knows how long posting lol. The 1st idea it hopefully going to hack into the OEM pmw and replicate it into the aftermarket ones while keeping the OEM separate, if you want seen as you might have a little more experience with this I could share the BOM and Gerber files see if you can sanity check and this has been very much my limited knowledge and chatGTP.

Brotherspoon · 2026-02-03T21:00:59-0500

The buck regulator solution seems right to me. The CARR, CARB, and CARG mosfet gate inputs are what voltage(s) and from where are they sourced? The Vout from your buck regulator will high side power the RGB module? and it has individual low side wiring for each strip color that you are enabling separately with each of the n channel mosfets? Curious for you to share the technical details.

ianf · 2026-02-04T08:05:19-0500

abram3265 said:
Ok new here and have an idea or 5 of improving the interior and exterior with some lighting. Here’s some details and finding for anyone that wants copy.

1. Ambient footwell light that matches the car stock and can be change in the cars menu. Already started on this, OEM light controller behind the dash on passenger side. Car LED system runs on 5.5v trough the Orange + wire, the remainder RGB wires do what the colours say 0.03v when non colour 0.05v when coloured.

2. Ambient light front and rear round air vents, taking a tap again from the stock led controller behind the dash so this all matches the cars colours and be controlled in the OEM menu.

3. Create my own CK71 DRL front lights. This is what I’m struggling with… the Aliexpress ones look terrible, chunky and cheap. I’ve seen people using Diode Dynamic LEDs for this but they are over $150 to buy and post to the UK. I’m struggling to find any switchback strips in the UK that don’t have sequential lighting for the turn signal or a crap looking start up sequence. My other option is a smaller than the size and cut the metal piece that’s in there from stock to fit.

4. Create my own sequential rear lights, again due to cost of getting the ones offered online posted to the uk I’m gona go for this my self see how I get on.

I plan on posting images and updates of doing all of this to keep people posted

Any help in people’s experience or finding relevant parts it’s always welcome

Hi, not many of us brits here on this forum, like your ideas very much! I’ve done a couple of things to mine, but stalled a bit as life has a way of getting in the way. I’m in Kent, where are you? Cheers Ian

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