To improve our cars, sometimes getting an alarm/remote start/key less entry makes all the difference. With a click of a button you could open and close the car, start her from far away, find her in a busy parking lot, and protect her from bad people. The installation is time consuming, may take more that 4 hrs to do, but it is straight forward.

Decision

First, decide on what you want from the system. In our case, all we wanted was to remotely start the car with key-less entry. We want to be able to get in without using the key, with key-less entry, we can do that. We could start the car with preset climate control while approaching her. When we get in, it’s all warm for winter, or cold for summer. With the engine running for a little bit, we can drive right away.

Once we decided what we want, we can pick the unit that can do all those functions. Preferably we want to buy a brand new control unit. It would come with all the wiring and instructions. We picked the Avital 4103 unit, since it’s simple to use and it’s cheap. Since there is electrical work to be done, we need a nice wire stripper, preferably the self adjusting type. We also need some generic electric tape, silicon tape if you’re hard core. And some zip ties, to secure all the stuff nicely. We went the extra step and actually soldered all the splices, this way it’s 100% good. This is an extra step and is not required for the installation to work.

Prep

To make installation easier, we need to get wiring diagram of whatever car we are working on. There are many online sources available, we used Commando car alarms (http://www.commandocaralarms.com/wiringsearch.asp). There are many more available, just search for “alarm wiring diagrams” and you will get a lot of information.

http://www.commandocaralarms.com/wiring/1988-1994/Audi/90/83.html we found our Audi 90 1995’s wiring diagram there. In our car, the power door lock is special, and would require a special add on to make it work. Don’t panic, it’s all simple and easy to follow. In our case, the door looks are vacuum actuated. On the same website we found http://www.commandocaralarms.com/vacuumdoorlocks.asp from this we can see that we need 2 relays, 5 terminal type. We went to electronics part supply store and bought 2 relays http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062482&filterName=Type&filterValue=SPDT , this is overkill for most people, and standard relay would work out more easily. Those can be bought at any auto parts store. We followed the diagram to the letter, and it works nicely every time.

In the installation manual, instead of memorizing where goes what, we highlighted all the wires and options we would like to utilize. These are remote start, key less entry, parking lights, brake pedal shut down, remote start disable and antenna.

Installation

Once complete with the preparation, we can now move forward with the installation. Everything is methodical and repetitive, so it’s all very easy and boring.

First, let’s wire up the key-less entry. We found it is easier to go into the door it self and wire there, instead of trying to figure out the mess of wires under the kick panel. In general, you would need to remove the door handle and some screws. Once that’s done, we could remove the door panel and get access to the door lock. We found a plug on the door, and from the website we knew that gray/black or gray/red was our wire, and there was one there already.

From our prep, we left the wires from the relays long enough, and was able to squeeze the wires together with the rest of them. Once, inside the door, we found that our wires were not long enough, so we spliced it right there. We followed our wire and found it later on. Now, we just followed simple diagram and wired it in.

Onto splicing the remote start wires. Remove all the fuzzes, so that the system would not be powered. In most cases, the thick wires are the ones you need to work with. We did one by one, first power red wires, use the wire stripper and strip the constant power wire, use something pointy to make a hole in the splice, now with your new wire, go through the hole and wrap around. By it self this is good, but we crazy, so we soldered all the wires.

It is a good practice to check which wire is which by using a volt meter. Plug one side of a meter into the hole you just made, another somewhere with good ground. Set volt meter to voltage, and see whats going on. Plug the key in, turn to acc, and then to ign. The idea is to check if the wire you are working on is the proper wire. Double checking did not hurt anyone, so go on , do it!

TL:DR: To summarise, find wire, strip the wire, pock a hole, put new wire in and wrap around, solder is optional, isolate with shrink wrap or electric tape, repeat as many wires needed and only one at time. It is also a good practice to disconnect the battery while working on the car, but if you are careful and lazy, might as well live dangerously and stupid.

After you’re done with the wiring, do the check for remote start, see if it works. Make sure car is in park, if not it may want to drive away. Might want to put all the fuses in. If car cranks, its working, let it start on its own the first time, important step. After that, key in hand, try key-less entry. If all works like it’s suppose too, it won’t be smoking black/blue smoke and nothing will be on fire. Put all the panels back in.

Job well done, pat on the back, beer in hand, great job, 3+hrs well spend.

Most cars now a day, you cannot remove the key unless the car is in Park. So in our case, likelihood of car being in Drive is low. It’s best to check that you can not start the car in anything else besides Park or Neutral. Before you check, see if brake shut down works. If it does, put car in Drive, with enough space ahead. With car off and in Drive and your foot hovering over brake pedal, try remote starting the car. If it does not, you are done.

Conclusion

Electrical work, especially wiring is boring and long. But with more practice, it just gets more boring but not as long. If done properly, what ever electrical work you’ve done will last a long time, and work like its supposed to.

Products:
Avital 4103 – http://www.avital.com/Products/Product.aspx?path=Remote%20Start%20System&id=5004
Wire stripper – http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_SPM2881165502P?prdNo=3&blockNo=3&blockType=G3