How do You prep Your R/S Harness?

I'm having a dispute about this with a guy at work... when I first got hired there 3 years ago we would run ignition wires together for the remote starter main harness and tape up with 3m tape, but it looked like a candy cane. So after 6 months or a year we starter taping it up solid so no wires were exposed. We found "candy caning" the wiring would eventually slide out of the tape. Now I usually prep my harness by finding all the wires I need first then tape up one main harness that will branch off with wires such as locks, brakes, and parking lights going to the kick pannel (if necessary) and things like power and ignition going to the ignition harness each taped up in their respective harness... Is this good to do? the other guy complains cause every starter he puts in he preps all the harnesses the sameso it can be put into another vehicle he dosen't run all wiring together in 1 harness to the kick... am I wrong or is it just personal preference? he says his way is more professional... I've only been doing this for 3 years so what do I know???

I don't tape at all. I use cable ties evey 6" and then tie everything up afterwards. Remote starter only wires don't have to be hidden like alarm system wires. When we do alarm systems we wrap ALL wires compeletly with electrical tape and where required we use split tube looming. Jeff

Velocity Custom Home Theater

Mobile Audio/Video Specialist

Morden, Manitoba CANADA

Regardless I like making my install looking as clean as possible. First obviously research the vehicle just to understand a little before hand of maybe what to expect. Then from there disassemble vehicle, find wires, then prep the harness. Sometimes i'll switch it up how I want my install to look, whether it be zip ties or tape every 6" like Velocity, or if it's a starter/alarm combo, yea I am gonna tape a good portion of it to look like factory, and even use some loom and hockey tape here and there. Also what i like to do is if I am working on a vehicle that I am not familiar with I will somtimes even run out an extra constant power (fused with the fuse removed) and ground just in case something has to be added later in the install, so I don't have to go back into my harness and make it look like ass just because I forgot to run out extra wires I didn't know I needed at the time, this has saved me time and grief. Just a little thing I use to speed things up. Anyone else have little prepping or install related hints to speed up the install?

for me, it mostly depends on the vehicle, i usually wrap the main harnes or the R/S unit so it's solid with tape and put a loop where the fuses are so there easyer to get at if i ever need to change them. or if there happends to be alot of split loom from the factory i'll use zip ties and split loom to make it look like the rest of the factory wireing.Tri County KustomZ

certified installer