How To Install a Remote Start and Alarm
By MeltingPlastic

Unfortunately there are no pictures at this time. Next time I do an install on an s-10 I will take pictures. Unless someone else wants to take pictures when they do it.

NOTE: I’m giving you this information free of charge. I’m not responsible with what you do with it. You can do a lot of damage to your car/truck’s electrical system by messing up while installing remote starts and alarms. PLEASE make sure you understand each step of what you are doing before you attempt this. If you are the least bit unsure, please have a professional do the installation.

So you’ve decided you don’t want to spend the money at a retail store or install shop on an alarm and bought one off eBay. Problem is now who’s going to install it? Sure Tom Dick and Harry install them so why can’t you. Before I go into any sort of information on remote starts here is some background information you will need.

Tools

Digital Multi-Meter (DMM) - THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT TOOL!!! I REPEAT! IF YOU DON’T HAVE ONE OR DON’T KNOW HOW TO USE ONE LET A PROFESSIONAL DO THIS INSTALL. Sure you can get any wiring colors you need, but guess what when your in a harness with 20+ wires, There are some wires that are the same or look the same. You need this to test the voltage of the wires and confirm you are getting the correct voltage. They are relatively cheap and will save you headaches and a lot of money incase you tap the wrong wire.

Wire Strippers These are your best friend when it comes to remote starts. The style in the link below allows you to strip open the wire yet not cut it, making it great for getting your wire prepped for connections
http://www.cardomain.com/item/SOU18950

Pick Tool This is another tool that you shouldn’t be doing your remote starts without. Once you’ve stripped your wire back to make your connection, use the pick tool to poke a hole in the wiring and spread it open. You can then insert the wire from the remote start system into the hole and twist it around to make a tight connection.

3M Super 33 Electrical Tape This is the only electrical tape I will ever use when it comes to doing installs. This stuff is durable and sticky as hell!

Zip Ties After making a connection to a wire I like to run the connected wire parallel with the factory wire and zip-tie them together. That way, if the wire ever gets tugged on, the force is on the zip-tie not at the connection joint allow for a cleaner better install

Unibit This isn’t a cheap tool at all and isn’t necessarily needed, but if u plan on doing a lot of installs, pick one up. It makes it easier to drill through the firewall to the size hole you need
http://www.irwin.com/irwin/consumer...ml?brand=Unibit

Right Angle Drill Another tool that is great for when you are doing these installs a lot. It allows you to get into places on the firewall that stardard drills don’t allow you to.

Prepping Your Wires

This is the most important part if you would like a clean, factory looking install. Remember, an alarm is only as good as its installation. What I like to do is sit at a bench with both the wiring diagram to the alarm and to the car. Take your time and separate each wire by destination. Put all the wires going to the BCM together, all the wires going to the ignition harness together, etc. once you have all of the wires separated by their locations, clip off the wires you are not going to be using for the install(some cars don’t need the factory alarm disarm/arm or other such wires) With DEI alarms, I like to use my pick tool and pop the wires I’m not using completely out of the harness. The extra channel wires I’ll keep in the harness but cut them short so that they are not in the way. Now, with the wires you cut short tape up the ends to terminate them and begin taping your other wires. Make sure you cover each group completely with electrical tape. This will deter the thief from knowing which wire is what if done correctly and also allows you to route the wires easier because you only have to worry about 3 or 4 looms instead of about 30 wires.

Mounting the brain

This is the most crucial part of the install. Not only must the brain be hidden but if you place your brain first, your install will be cleaner because you can cut your looms to as long as they have to be and not have to worry about all the excess. On the 2nd gen s-series I like to place my brains (NOTE: I mainly use DEI alarms/remote starts which have small brains which allow for ease of hiding, if you have a unit with a much larger brain like Auto Page, it might take a while to find where you can mount it) above the accelerator pedal by the steering column. There’s a piece of metal that the brain can be zip tied to very nicely and does not get in the way of the pedal if done correctly. Many installers will screw the brain into the firewall somewhere. Its all personal preference and after a while of installing you’ll find places for each car where a brain can go.

Running the Wires

Like I said before, you want the install to look as factory as possible. It’s suggested to run the wires along side factory wires. This not only makes it clean and compact but allows for easier routing of the wires. I HIGHLY Suggest this method.

The Remote Start Wires

Starter: This wire only shows 12 volts when you go to crank the car. To test this, put your DMM on DC, ground the black probe, put the red probe into the wire were you stripped and crack the car. It will she 0 volts on rest, 12 while cranking ( your DMM may never get to 12 but to like 8-10 depending upon how fast it updates its values) and the drop back to 0 when you stop cranking.

Ignition wires: These wires show 12volts when the key is in the ignition position, KEEP 12 volts throughout the crank and keep 12 volts after the crank. They will show 0 volts when you put the key into accessory.

Accessory Wires: These wires will show 12volts when the key is in accessory. When you crank the car, they will drop their voltage (ever notice how your radio shuts off when you crank you car?)

Keysense Wires: These wires are different for every car. Most of the time they will show a ground when the key is in the ignition

Tachometer Wire: This wire is an AC wire, so you must set your meter to AC. This measures the RPMs of your engine, the car should idle at about 1.2-1.4 V AC and go up to about 3 v when you rev the engine. This wire is usually located under the hood of the car by the computer. You are either going to have to drill a hole in your firewall and use a rubber grommet and run the wires through there or find a factory grommet that you can get the wires through.


The Alarm Wires

Horn Trigger: This wire is a negative trigger. That means, it will show 12 volts at rest and when you press in the horn it will go to 0 volts(or ground).

Door Trigger: Each car is different. Some of positive some have negative. S10s have Negative. That means, when your door is open, it will show ground on that wire

Dome Supervision: This wire allows for your dome light to go on when you press unlock. In s10s you are told to use a door trigger. This is because on S10s, the dome light goes on when you pull on the door handle even when its locked.

Factory Alarm Arm/Disarm On S10s, you only have to deal with the factory alarm disarm wire because the factory alarm arms when you lock the car. What this wire does is when a negative pulse is sent to it, turns off your factory alarm (yes your truck comes with one from the factory but all it does it honk the horn and flash the lights)

Parking Lights These are the lights that flash on your truck when you lock and unlock the car. They are positively triggered lights. (When you put 12volts to the line they turn on) This wire will test for 12volts when you put your headlight switch the parking light option (the one before the lowbeams) *NOTE* Many cheaper alarms only come with a negative parking light wire. S10s have both pos and negative. If you prefer to use the positive wire and only have the negative wire, you must use a relay to convert the polarity of the wire!

Lock/Unlock These are the wires that are used to lock and unlock your truck. They are a positive pulse to the wire. They meter out to 12v when you push the lock or unlock buttons. Again, many alarms only come with negative lock and unlock triggers. You will need to use 2 relays to convert the negative triggers to positive triggers for both the lock and unlock wire on the alarm.

 

Hood Trigger This wire monitors your hood. If your hood gets opened your alarm will go off. Also if your hood is open your car will not remote start. It is highly suggested to hook this up. Many alarms come with pin switches. Pin switches work by when you push them in there is an open circuit but when its left to pop out, it shows a ground. The ground is what sets off the trigger(like a door trigger).

Siren output This is the wire that sends 12volts to your siren when your alarm goes off or when you lock/unlock your car.

The Passlock Wires

98+ s10s have a passlock system which is a factory starter kill. You must use a pass lock bypass in order for your car to remote start. The pass lock wires are located on the back of the ignition cylinder. You may be able to find the wires in the ignition harness if you have done installs for a while but beginners should get them right at the cylinder. There will be 3 wires coming out of the cylinder; you only need to concern yourself with two of them. One of them is the reference ground and the other is the resistance wire. To measure this resistance, cut the starter wire. Then strip the orange/black wire and the yellow wire. Put the key to crank and measure the resistance of those 2 wires. You can use a relay setup to trigger them but I highly recommend using a bypass. This is because your meter has to be dead on and you have to put the correct resistance in the circuit to mimic your key. Depending upon the bypass you use there are different methods of hooking up the wires. For DEI’s 555L, the install goes as follows. The black wire from the 555L harness goes to the orange/black wire. The yellow wire goes to the keyside? And the yellow/black wire goes to the BCM side of the yellow wire coming of the cylinder. The blue wire from the 555L gets hooked up to the ground while running wire or the status output wire on the alarm. These are negative triggered wires. The red wire gets hooked up to a constant 12v and the pink wire gets hooked up to an ignition wire.

Installing the Alarm

After you have prepped your wires its time to actually install the alarm. Take apart the lower port of your dashboard. If you cannot do this step do not do this install, you obviously do not have enough mechanical knowledge to attempt this. Now, with you under dash installed, find the locations to where all your alarm wires are so that you are familiar with them. This also helps you find a spot for the brain and to make the install a clean one. Next part of the install, after you have prepped your alarm wires, is to mount the brain. Mounting the brain first allows you to cut the wires to the correct length from the start and make it a lot cleaner. With the brain mounted its time to tap some wires. I like to start with the ignition harness because that’s where most of your thicker wires for the remote start are going. Hook up your remote start wires by take the strippers and stripping the wires insulation to expose the wire. Take your pick tool and push it through the wire making a big enough opening to push your alarm wires through it. Once the wire is pushed through, I like to wrap the wires together and then solder the wires. With the wires soldered I run the 2 wires parallel to each other and ziptie them together. This puts the force on the ziptie, not the joint, if they get tugged. Tape up the wires and your basically done with that part. Repeate these steps with all your wires. As you do more and more alarms, your installs will get cleaner and you will get faster. It will take the average beginner a weekend to install his alarm and remote start the first time. DO NOT RUSH IT. Give yourself the weekend. You may run into problems and my be unsure of where certain wires are. This is what forums are for, s10forum and forums like www.the12volt.com have many knowledgeable installers that will help you as much as you can.

Installing your horn/tach wire/ and hood wire

All these wires have to be hooked up under the hood of your car/truck. This means that you need to get them there somehow. This is done by either running your wires through a factory grommet on your fire wall or drilling a new hole for them. On S10s, I like to drill a new hole right above the factory wiring harness because there’s a lot of room there. USE A RUBBER GROMMET WHEN DRILLING HOLES. You do not want your wires to short out. Attach your tach wire as instructed in your wiring diagram. If you are told to use an injector wire, you should use the NON common color (ie if every injector has black, don’t use it, use another wire on the injector) Next up is the hood pin switch. Many alarms come with a pin switch that you need to mount, I don’t like to use them, some cars it’s a bitch to find a place to put them. I suggest using mercury tilt switches. They screw into the under structure of your hood, the part that sticks out(NOTE; do not screw through your hood!!!) The horn wire is the last wire you need. Find a suitable mounting spot for your horn and mount it. Take the black wire of your horn and ground that using a star washer. I like to ground to the mounting point of the horn and of the mercury tilt switch, it’s a lot cleaner and easier to install that way. Hook the red wire from the horn to the positive siren trigger from your alarm.

Optional Installs:

Starter Kill: What a starter kill does is when your alarm is armed, you cannot crank the car. Many alarms have built in starter kills but some require a relay. To wire up a starter kill, you must have a dioded relay. The wiring of a starter kill is as follows.
85: SWITCHED 12 volts.
86: Ground when armed wire.
30: Starter side of starter wire
37A: Key side of starter wire
37: Nothing

Diode Isolation: Many door triggers need to be diode isolated. This is because if they aren’t they will feed into each other. To install diodes when diode isolating, take a small wire and solder a diode to it. Do this twice so that you have 2 wires. Connect the 2 wires together. The stripe on the diode must be on the other end of where your connected the wires. Tap each wire to an individual door trigger. And then the connected part gets connected to your door trigger input on your alarm. Basically you want the stripes on the diode to be next to your connection to the cars trigger wire, not towards the brain of the unit. Here’s info on diodes which includes a visual diagram of what I’m talking about since its probably gibberish to you. http://www.the12volt.com/diodes/diodes.asp