Good work on the clutch, although the bill is a bit eye-watering... but at least that part of the car should last forever now..
Agreed that the horn is quite puny. It's a single "disc" type, and originally I thought someone must have removed or lost a second/twin disc horn (or only one of a pair was working)... but I discovered that the Stilo does correctly have just one horn.
It packed up soon after it came to my attention, so it may not have been in the best shape... but anyway, I've had mortal combat to the death with my horn ever since, trying to get it to sound better.
All horns (original and after market) have two spade connectors. These connect to a light blue and black wired connector block ahead of the right hand side wheel arch (behind the liner). So this is a wheel and liner off job.
The "horn side" of the connector block was corroded on mine (spray passes through the slots in the wheel arch liner, so it gets wet/salty... ) so I cut off the OE connector on the horn side and used female spade connectors on the wires instead. They connect to the OE "battery side" connector block as before.
These wires connect to the two spade connectors on the horn. Any aftermarket horn will have two connectors, so if all your wiring is okay, it's a simple swap.
The biggest problem is what horn to replace your standard/possibly failing one with.
I tried one of those integrated "Nautilus" compact air horns, which was impressive.. but the first one I bought was a cheapo one and it didn't survive more than 12 months... partly because it seemed to not like getting wet.. and the second one I tried was more expensive and "branded" but it looked identical to the first and fared no better.
These need to be mounted to a suitable location (there's a handy hole in the bumper support that is perfect for the bolt it needs) since it's a bigger beast than the original disc horn.
I next tried a regular Ring single disc, as OE. The problem with these is that they are either "low tone" or "high tone". The Fiat one seemed to be a mid-tone with a hint of baritone...
I went for "low" since I didn't fancy "beep beep"... but it sounded like a van instead.... so then I had a Eureka moment and thought about adding a "high" tone to the "low".. to get twin tones.
This adds a spot of complication. The horn mounting only accommodates one horn but most aftermarket horns come with a short metal bracket. I fixed one horn through the handy hole in the bumper support above, using a long bolt.. Then I attached the second horn onto the protruding end of the same long bolt. You need to do this to space the second horn bracket away from the bumper support, since that has a raised edge around some of it. The first horn fits where there's no lip, so it's flush with the bumper support.
The second horn will also likely foul on something.. I remember I joined two of the horn brackets together... to form an elbow/bend in the two brackets. This is handy since you can fix the bracket to the bumper mount without it fouling around the lip.. then rotate the horn around the joint, to a place where the horn doesn't touch anything or rattle against the car.
To power two horns instead of one, I fitted a 4-pin relay. The car's wiring (light blue and black wires) only activates the relay (86 and 85 pins respectively). I ran a power feed from the battery to the relay 30 pin and connected the 87 pin to the horns (via a Y branched wire). The horns' earths are connected to the car body (the inner wing mount) while the relay is bolted to the coolant reservoir bolt inside the inner wing.
I've used a 20A fuse in the feed from the battery, which was trial and error. The F10 car fuse is a 15A so I tried a 15A fuse in the battery feed but that popped if you pressed the horn for more than a quick "toot". A 20A fuse doesn't give me any problems.
The twin discs is not bad.. but still not 100% where I want to be..
so my next project will be to fit a pair of Lucas twin-tone snail horns using the wiring that's there now (via the relay). The horns are more bulky so fitment might need some re-engineering but I had a similar setup on my old Alfa 155 and that was the best horn I've ever had on anything... You can't have too much horns...
Ralf S.
