Remote Start/Keyless Entry DIY

[slick]

First and foremost:

 

You are responsible for testing every wire in your vehicle with a multimeter. DEI, W-body.com, nor I assume responsibility in the event that you may damage electronics in your vehicle. Any wiring diagrams I provide may not be accurate, and you must check your application and installation manual for installation. This is just a general how-to.

 

 

So... You want to put a Remote Start/Keyless Entry system into your vehicle. Follow this guide, and it should make more sense to you. This guide will be using DEI's Viper 160XV system (most DEI's wiring is the exact same, just different names, but be sure to check your installation manual for any changes or updates).

 

Heres the basic tools that you will need: a Digital Multimeter, wire strippers, wire crimpers, hook and pick tools, electrical tape, zip ties, knife or blade, and another other parts to take apart your dash. If your unfamiliar with the hook or pick tools, you use them to create a "hole" in the wire that your tapping into once you strip back the insulation. BTW, automatic wire strippers are a MUST, and the same with crimpers. You can get the wire strippers at most parts stores, and Radioshack actually has an even nicer pair(rebadged mac tool strippers, half the price). You can get the crimpers at Sears, along with the pick tools. The larger hook tool is commonly used to bend the tabs down for the radio cages in dash kits, but is also used to make larger holes in the ignition wires for the larger guage wires.

 

Generally, when you open the box, you will see a plethora of wires. Some heavy guage wires, medium guage wires, and light guage wires. This will scare off most people that are timid when it comes to electronics. Don't worry, it's not as bad as what it seems. In general, you will only use MAYBE half of the wires provided inside the box, and the others can be snipped off during preperation, and you will never have to worry about seeing them again.

 

So... First thing is first. Get the wiring diagram for the vehicle you are adding this system onto. For this guide, I will be doing a 2002 Chevrolet 1500 Full Size Pickup. This vehicle has a BCM(Body Control Module) underneath the drivers side of the dash that I will be able to get several of my wires from. Also, I will be able to get many of the ignition wires under the drivers side of the dash as well.

 

Here you can see the wiring diagram for the vehicle I will be installing into. A good thing to do, is go through and highlight the wires that you will need to find. It makes life a bit easier when you laying on your back, under a dash, and having to look at the piece of paper.

 

 

 

 

So, I go to the brain. There are a total of about 10 plugs that plug into the actual brain itself. On the front is the biggest plug, and it also has some of the essential wires to get this thing to work in your car.

 

 

Here you can see about 10 different colors. I will list them off, and whether I use them or not:

 

 

Red/White- 200mA output, used mainly for trunk pop, could also be used for gas door pop. Obviously this truck has neither. So I snip the wire down to about 3 inches.

Red- 12V+ Constant power. Obviously this is what powers the brain, so this will be used.

Brown- Horn Honk Output(-) This vehicle has a negative (-) triggered horn honk stock. Since I will not have to use a relay to reverse the polarity to positive(+) trigger, I'll go ahead and do it.

Black- Chassis Ground(-). Duh, again, if I don't use this, the brain will not power up.

Green, Blue, and Purple- These are unlock outputs, but hardly ever used. They are mainly used for door triggers for when you are doing an alarm. You can snip these short.

Black/White- 200mA Domelight Supervision(-). This vehicle doesn't have it, so I'm not using it.

White/Blue- Remote Start activation input(-). The name of this wire is very deceiving. This would would be used for if you want to have, say, a push button starter installed on your dash so you wouldn't have to turn your key. Would be a fun little project I guess. Snip if you don't plan on it though.

White- Selectable Light Flash output.(+ or -). This is for the parking lights to flash when lock/unlock or remote start. This is selectable by a jumper on the brain(as seen above). Default is +, so I leave it at that unless noted(Chrysler minivans for example have to use the - trigger plus a relay and resistors to isolate it away from the switch itself).

Orange- 500mA armed output. Used if you want to install a starter kill relay. Not used here- SNIP.

 

So... now I have a total of 4 wires coming out of that harness. This makes it look a lot better. You can tape up the rest of the snipped wires, and tape down the harness just a bit, being sure to tape SECURLY over the inline fuses in the red and white wires so they don't get pulled out accidently.

 

 

Next, onto the little 5 pin harness right beside the harness you just prepped. This harness has several functions as well:

 

 

Black/White- Neutral Safety Switch Input(-). For automatics, this can be tied into the other harness's ground wire. For manual equipped vehicles, install a neutral safety switch, then hook this up. Basically, this wire is supposed to keep you from remote starting the vehicle without a reading. If I'm doing a manual vehicle(not at work), I usually hook this line to the parking brake line, so the person MUST pull the parking brake for the remote start portion to work.

Purple/White- Tach input line. I always run a tach line in the vehicle for the remote start. It is far more reliable than using a voltage sense(built into the brain, must be switched to during programming). Basically, you will need to pop the hood, and find a tach line. To test this line, while the vehicle is running, the tach line must read between 1.5-7 Volts AC(NOT DC), while being sure to rev the engine also. A quick tip, if you are tapping into an injector line instead of a coil pack line, do not use a common wire(say each injector has an orange wire, don't use it). Use the other wire on the injector. This will send tach signal and set the idle.

Brown- Brake Switch Shutdown(+). Once you have the vehicle remote started and you get in, you turn your key to the on position, then hit the brake. This causes the brain to stop sending signal and the vehicle is running under normal operation. MUST USE.

Gray- Hoodpin switch(-). This is used if you want to install a hoodpin, which is smart especially for alarms systems. Also, if your a person dumb enough to have your hand down far into the engine bay and trying to remote start it at the same time, then I recommend using this. Not necessary, so I SNIP.

Blue/White- 200mA 2nd Status/Rear Defogger- As the name implies, rear defogger. I never use this wire, unless specially requested. If your too lazy to wipe off your rear window, then you shouldn't have a license.

 

Prepping this line eliminated even more wires, making this look easier yet!

 

 

I went ahead and plug this into the brain, and taped it up just like the last one. This time I taped these two harnesses together.

 

 

Next I move onto the Heavy Guage Remote Start relay pack. Without this relay pack, your car will not remote start. Don't let these big wires scare you.

 

 

Purple- Starter Output(Starter side). This relay is equipped with a starter kill already. When you find your starter line, you will cut it. The side of the starter wire heading towards the engine bay gets Butt Connected to this purple wire. If you do not want the starter kill, then simply tap this wire into the starter wire.

Green- Starter Input(Key side). For starter kill. Once you cut the wire, Butt Connect the wire thats heading towards the key to this green wire. If you do not want starter kill, DO NOT use this wire.

Red- 30A High Current 12V- Yes, this is your constant line. Connect this to the vehicles constant line in the ignition harness.

Orange- Accessory Output- Connect this line to your ignition harness's accessory line.

Red- Another High Current 12v line. If your vehicle only has 1 constant 12v line, connect both red wires together, and have one less wire running up to the ignition. Less wires to hook up, the better!

Pink- Ignition Output. Connect this wire to your ignitions harness's ignition line.

Red/White- This is an option high current 12v input. Generally not used. You can cut this line AFTER the fuse holder, and pull the fuse. I say after just incase you sell the vehicle and pull this out to use in another.

Pink/White- This is the 2nd Ignition Output or 2nd Accessory Output. If your vehicle is equipped with a second ignition, use this. If your vehicle is equipped with a 2nd accesssory, use this. If it is equipped with both (like this vehicle is), then use the pink/white as 2nd ignition, and you will have to use a relay for the 2nd accessory(will get to here shortly).

 

Ok, so you figured out your big wires, cut off one or two of them, and got it taped down as well. Things look better now.

 

Now is the little harness coming out of the top of the relay pack. This is used for adding a 2nd accessory, 3rd ignition, 2nd starter, and is used for a status output(for bypass modules, will talk about later).

 

 

Blue- 200mA Status Output(-). You will use this wire when you have a bypass module hooked up.

Orange- 200mA Accessory relay trigger. I will have to use this wire to power my 2nd accessory line. With this wire, I will also have to use a relay, as this is only a low current trigger, and the accessory needs to be at a much higher current. Will explain how to use the relay for this later on. A lot of vehicles don't need this wire.

Purple- Used for a 2nd Starter relay trigger. If your vehicle has a 2nd starter, you MUST use this along with a relay to trigger it. Otherwise, SNIP.

Pink- Used for a 3rd Ignition relay trigger. If your vehicle has a 3rd starter, you MUST use this along with a relay to trigger it. Otherwise, SNIP.

 

Next to the plug for this 4 pin harness, is a plug for about a 7 pin harness. This is the multicolored ribbon cable harness plug. You will plug one end into the relay pack, and the other end into the actual brain itself. This sends and recieves signal from the brain to the relay pack for the remote start.

 

Alright, so you still have a few small harness's left in your box. One of them has a couple green wires on it. That harness is mainly used for a factory alarm disarm, factory alarm arm, wait to start, etc.... 90% of the vehicles out there will NOT use this harness, so I will not go into much detail about it. But, if your vehicle does have a theft system that stays armed even while unlocked, you may need to use this wire to disarm it during unlock. Otherwise, your factory alarm may go nuts on you randomly.

The other small harness is a blue and green wire harness. This is used for a basic lock and unlock wiring. For this vehicle, I did not use this, and for most vehicles I don't. I do try to use the 451m Door Lock relay pack more than most, as this gives a higher current for the locks. The small harness seen here will work fine, but there are times where you may need more current, and the 451m is much more reliable. If you don't plan on using these harness, don't plug them in. Simple as that, and it eliminates more wires and creates less confusion.

 

So... I move onto the 451m relay pack. Coming off of the relay is a ribbon harness that will be plugged into the lock/unlock plug on the brain. There are 5 additional wires coming out of the relay pack.

 

 

Purple- Depending on your lock/unlock triggers, this could be a + or - wire. For this vehicle in particular, both the lock and unlock triggers are +, so this will be connected to the 12v line.

Blue- Generally used for the unlock output.

Geen- Generally used for the lock output.

White and Brown- These are not used often at all. You will see them used in vehicles for like 5 wire locks, higher end foreign vehicles, and vehicles equipped with aftermarket door lock actuators. Most of the time though, just SNIP these wires.

 

Go ahead and tape up this harness a bit to make it look pretty.

 

Lastly in the box, you will have the led light, a push button programming button, a valet switch, an antenna with the black antenna cord, and the hood pin switch. Unless specially requested, the valet switch is not used. On remote start/keyless entry systems, I do not mount the led light, because this IS NOT a security system. Yes, it does have starter kill, flashing parking lights, and a horn honk, but this system is not meant for security. The led light is only used for programming.

 

 

Ok, now you have the relay that you need for the second accessory. The wiring for this go's:

 

 

86- 12v constant

87- 12v constant (can tie 86 and 87 together to eliminate a wire, be sure to put the smaller wire into the larger wire, only makes sense to do this)

85- This you connect to the little orange wire on top of the relay pack. This is your accessory trigger input.

30- This will be the wire that you connect to the vehicles 2nd accessory line in the ignition harness.

87a- Not needed, so SNIP this wire.

 

The next thing to do is prep the harness's even more. Your probably thinking that you got it good enough, well you can actually eliminate even more wires.

 

Coming off of the brain, off of the 451m, and off of the relay for the 2nd Accessory line, you have a bunch of 12v constant lines. Those can be connected into the Remote Starters relay pack heavier guage wire. There you just eliminated three wires to be hooked up in the vehicle. The black/white neutral safety switch line can be tied into the brains ground(and, if your vehicle had negative triggered locks, you could tie the purple line off of the 451m into this wire, then butt connect a larger wire onto this for a single ground as well).

 

 

After you have everything tied in together, you can go ahead and put everything together. I generally mount the brain and all the relays and modules together. Then, I have the harness's come down by each other into one main harness, then branch off into smaller harness's that go to different places in the vehicle. This makes for a much cleaner installation. In some vehicles, there is not enough room for a bunch of modules to be grouped together, so you can skip this step. But, it is up to you to determine if you have the available room to do this. Now, I do not have the bypass module for this vehicle wired up yet, mainly because I will have to find the PK2 wires, and a few other things, so I do that seperately from the brain itself, then finally tie it all it.

 

 

As far as branching off the wires is concerned, I know that the horn honk, the parking lights, and the lock/unlock wires all need to be gotten at the BCM, according to my wiring diagram. So.. I can branch these together. I also know that all of the heavy guage wires to to the ignition harness, and these wires are almost ALWAYS together in the ignition harness, so I branch these together. The brake shutdown wire and the tach wire generally head in the same direction- towards the firewall, so I branch these together. Doing this again, cleans up the installation.

 

 

Now... the first thing you do once you actually get into the vehicle is mount the antenna. It is recommended to mount the actually little antenna near the center of your windshield. It looks ugly there, so I mount it at the top of the windshield near the passenger side a-pillar. I then tuck the wire along the top of the roof liner. You want to keep as much of the antenna line across the top of the liner as possible, as this increases reception. Then, drop the wire down the drivers a-pillar, and under your dash.

 

The rest of the installation is up to you. You will have to find the wires listed in your vehicles wiring diagram, and then connect these wires into it. Be sure to test each wire before connection so you are sure of what you are doing, and so you don't fry any valuable electronics. Also, it is good practice to do the ground connection first. I generally use a ring terminal on the end of the ground wire, and using a self tapping screw, make a hole in a piece of metal that is connected to the chassis of the vehicle. Try to scrap off the paint in the area for a better connection.

 

Sorry that the end of this diy is vague, I don't actually do the installation of this system until Sunday. But.. I plan on updating with pictures of a during the installation process. I will also show how to clean up your installation once your done to make it look much better.

 

If you are planning on doing this, and need any tips, wiring diagrams, etc... Let me know. I'll try to assist as much as possible. You can also use me as sort of a "Tech Line" to call if your in the middle of an install and can't figure something out.

[Nick1234]

Mad props to you bud. I will be going through this tonight.

 

Nick

[slick]

If you need anything, lemme know. In the last 4 months, I've probably done between 20-30 different makes and models.

[Dirty Rockstar]

Ive done a couple..

 

The last one was a 95 Ciera.. It was cake casue there was no factory anti-theft system installed.. (PassLock).. Thank the good lord for that..

 

I want it on my 94.. Bad..

 

Great work Chris!!

[AWeb80]

you da bomb chris

[terryk2003]

great write-up chris!

[slick]

Finished the install today, but the only camera I had available was my cell phone's camera, so the picture quality isn't the best, but it does get the point across.

 

Will be updated soon.

[rockfangd]

very good write up. I do Car starters but i barely have the patience to put them in but to post a forum on how to do one. Screw that lol

[slick]

Yeah, it took forever.

 

Anyways, heres some stuff to look out for, if you attempt to do it yourself:

 

There will be times, were say, it says to go to the passenger kick for a light blue wire. You get there, and there are 6 light blue wires. Your probably thinking "Oh boy, now what??". Well, thats why you test the wire. You will ALWAYS have a voltage flux when your testing something. For example, if your searching for a power unlock wire that is positive triggered, when you hook your meter to it, it will read 0, or very minimal. When you hit the Unlock button, the voltage should shoot up. Sometimes you may have to hold this button, but it should shoot up. Also, you need to think to yourself about which wires you wanna test first. Is it a door lock, a dome light, trunk pop, etc...? Generally(there are exceptions, see next paragraph), door lock wires are heavier guage than dome light, door triggers, trunk pop, etc... because they carry more voltage and more current. Use some common sense here when searching for your wires. Obviously if your searching for a red ignition wire for a constant for the starter relay pack, it's not gonna be the 20 guage wire running up the column, it's gonna be that 12 guage wire running up the column.

 

Now, this may not apply to GM vehicles, but the newer Fords/Mazda's/ and other stuff are using a low voltage/high current system(Multiplex). This allows them to use 18 or 20 guage wires instead of the standard 12-16 guage wires, and they are able to send double the info through one wire. Now, say your testing a door lock that is this, the voltage at rest may only be like 1.2 volts, and while pressing lock, it may only jump to 4.5 or something. Use it. There will not be much of a voltage flux because of this.

 

Any other questions, lemme know.

[1990lumina]

Props man!!

 

And here's that post you wanted in here:

 

Did Rachel's dad's remote start/keyless today in his 02 Z71. By far, one of the easiest vehicles to do, but I gotta remember- Power the second ignition, or it will throw codes for the tranny. Anyways, a quick erase from the scantool, and all is good.

 

Cool...I wonder if the installer fucked up on my sister's Taurus??? When it's remote started the ABS light is on constantly..but turns off once the key is inserted in the ignition and turned to the run position...not really a big deal, but still...

 

And I was wondering something else...in most installations, when the car is remote started, does the audio system usually come on??

I ask because in the installs I've seen all the audio systems turn on when remote started...but in my Lumina the cd player doesn't turn on unless I put the key in and turn it to the run position...IMO I like how my Lumina is set up...so the car isn't sitting there by itself going BOOM BOOM from the subs in the trunk like my friend's car does...

 

anyway!

 

Sounds like he may not have triggered the 2nd Accessory in the Taurus, which is an easy fix. I know on the F150's, you have to trigger all the accy's and ignitions to avoid the ABS light, so I'm sure its the same thing here.

 

If all of the accessories or ignition wires are not used, certain things may or may not come on during remote start. Like, on some vehicles that have 2 or 3 accessory wires, you can get away with just doing 1 or 2 of them if the heater and everything else works. Besides, who's gonna listen to the radio when the vehicle is just warming up.

 

[19Cutlass94]

Thats an awesome write up!!!!!!

 

 

 

However I think Im gonna be a man and brave the cold!

[jeremy]

+1 for Chris and a great write up

[slick]

Damnit, that reminds me. I need to finish this. I might do it tomorrow since Rachel is up and she has some HW to catch up on.

[5speedz34]

Your soooo amazing.

[rockfangd]

can anyone tell me whatwire and where it is for the domelight supervision on my 94 cutty. My car starter has the feature but i do not know where to hook it up on the car. thanks

[slick]

Tap it into the door trigger wire.

 

Door Trigger blue - headlight switch. Also found low in the drivers kick panel.

 

[Justin]

About the only thing I ever use a multimeter for when I do installs is if I'm looking at resistance values for chip keys. Otherwise it's 100 times easier to use a computer safe powered test light. It'll tell you power, ground, and show you if the power is switching when you hit buttons, like horn, locks, trunk. A multimeter is too bulky to use for everything.

[slick]

About the only thing I ever use a multimeter for when I do installs is if I'm looking at resistance values for chip keys. Otherwise it's 100 times easier to use a computer safe powered test light. It'll tell you power, ground, and show you if the power is switching when you hit buttons, like horn, locks, trunk. A multimeter is too bulky to use for everything.

 

Yeah, I can't count the number of times I have to untangle my multimeter from where I'm at, then try to find a spot to rest it so I can read the value while doing an install.

 

BTW, where did you get your computer safe test light at?

[Justin]

I got mine from Mac, but I know you can get them through jobbers as well, carquest should have them or be able to get them. The one I saw was in a circular and had a cig lighter adapter and another adapter to hook directly up to the battery. Red light means power, green means ground.

 

Like so:

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Equus-3420-Smart-Test-Light_W0QQitemZ270091418673QQihZ017QQcategoryZ43989QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

That's roughly the price it was at carquest I believe, might print the page out and have them check that tool # though in case they can beat it.