Just got my Hella Twin Supertone Horn Kit, problem is...the instructions suk. What I'm tryin to figurer out is if the supplied relay is necessary to install on my '90 4Runner. And whether or not the horn push is negatively or positively connected to the stock horn, there are different diagrams. Any help would be appreciated.

 

i hooked up some air horns on my friends truck. definatly did not need the relay. it made things more complicated if anything, so we just said forget it. i dont really know what they are for, but they seem pointless to me.

i wanted to get some of those horns but they are very expensive and now after hearing your trouble with the instructions and whatnot....... well let me know what they sound like

 

Denk,

Haha, the instructions do suck! I bought them on my 99 and swapped them onto my current 98. I recall saying to myself "Damn, I thought the Germans had everything sewed up tight!"

No, I didn't use the relay. I just clipped the wires from the existing horn power wires, split them to pos and neg and routed them appropriately. I ground the negs to the frame itself by unscrewing a bolt, crimping a ring connector to the neg end, and re-bolting. It works fine but keep the relay for some othe future use. You never know.

Also, the sound of the Hella Supertones---well, i like the fact that it is loud but I'm not 100% pleased by the BMW sound. Rowan, if you want to hear them, find a 325i owner and honk the horn. It is not identical, but it sounds like that.

I think I want Corey and UK's horns. I believe they bought them from NAPA---at a fraction of the price. Go into the tech section and read, my man.

Bob

 

I have Fiamm's Highway blasters.
Two of them, each with a different pitch tone.

They are not air horns, but regular ones.

I had to use the relay on my 2nd gen, because Toyota uses a weird grounding system on 2nd gens.

When I hooked up the hot wire to the horn, then went to mount it to the frame, off it went scarring the heck out of me.
The ground to frame completes the circuit.

So I bought a relay much like the 30 amp one I use for all of my off roading lamps.

They are wired up the same as if you wired up lamps too.

One day I will do an exact write-up with pics on how to wire these.

 

I bought some hella air horns and was really dissapointed by (1) the very confusing instructions and (2) the damn high pitch it made. Also I think the relay was messed up cause after I installed them , I went for a drive and every bump I hit on PCH the horn went off. Wasn't too cool.

I did a search for some air horns, and when (if ever) I get the money, I'll be getting one of these bad boys. (the 820 model)

 

So I got those horns installed last nite. took me about an hour or so...minus the time it took me to go to ye ole hardware store for some supplies. As it turns out, the install was fairly easy, only tricky part was mounting the second horn. Just make sure that when you open the box...throw out the instructions, cuz those wopn't help one little bit!! One fits pretty good in the stock position, and the other was eventually mounted to one of the radiator supports. I didn't use the realy, but I did pop in a more amped fuse (20amp). When the grill went back on, the horn in the stock position gave me some spacing issues, but I finally coerced it in there. The other horn had no problem with the clearance. And as for sound....Damn...I almost gave my friend a heart-attack. And as for pitch, i am not so impressed. So in sum, the Hella twin supertone horn kit, although costly, is of high quality and will probably last the life of yer truck. You will command attention while driving on the freeway when you lay on this sucker. But if you want yer rig to sound good...this is not the route I would take. Thanks for all your help fellas.

 

Yeah! i had the same problem as you Corey. Every time it happened i jumped three feet into the air, even when i was expecting it. You never get used to it!
:pat:

 

i need a new horn too. my girlfriend always says that i have a sucky horn for a big truck.

i was looking into the arb, but i dont want loud sucky sounding horn. i want a massive.... ear deafening,shiet, get out of his way, holy cow what was that horn.

my friend has a flexible bus, and his horns are hella loud. do you think i could rig something to my ARB air compressor ? lol

that'd b sweet!

 

Air horns are rad (havent heard that word in a while I bet).

But, if you want to go cheaper, you can get the "factory" replacement horns found at Schmucks or Checker Auto. Install takes about 5 minutes, and the horn will sound like a muffled Ford horn - which is much better than the wimpy horn I currently have.

 

I did a small write-up, and it's in the Electrical section of Tech.

The 2 horn pics are not the greatest, as they are tucked way down inside the grille.

But I give an explanation of the process I had to go through to get the horns to work on my rig on account of the floating "ground" system Toyota used on my year of vehicle.

I hope this helps someone who ran or runs into the same problem I had the first time hooking them up.

 

I put a pair of these "El Grande" Twin Electric Horns in my 4Runner. They're loud and sound pretty good. Got them from my local NAPA distributor for $22.