1998 Chevrolet Prizm door locks

I am installing an Avital 3300 in a 1998 Chevy Prizm and my question is about the keyless entry.

The locks are powered when the key is used in the drivers or passengers key cylinder, also when you manually pull and push on the locks in the car however there is no rocker switch in the car to lock and unlock the doors.  I went in to find the colors for power locks (colors supplied by DEI) and I found a large relay with multiple wires coming out of each of the five connections and the wires ran to each door.  The power was tapped into the ignition harness so, I am guessing that it was done after the car left the factory.

Has anyone ran into this before?

I plan on opening the door to see what wires are triggering this relay and see if I can connect the keyless entry wires to those.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Sounds like your locking system is an aftermarket one.  Standard four or five wire.  If you can find the door lock control module, there should be a wire on the module that will lock the doors when constant ground is applied, and unlock the doors when the ground is removed.

You can interface the Avital in one of two ways.  (Not all that familiar with Avital, so bear with me.  If the alarm has a negative out when armed wire, such as a starter disable wire (orange on DEI product and many other Pac. Rim alarms) then that is all you need.  Tie that wire into the activation wire you have identified on the door lock module, and you should be good to go.  Note:  if the negative out when armed wire on the alarm is already in use with another function .. i.e. starter disable relay, then you will need to diode isolate the circuite to prevent backfeed.

If in fact, the alarm in use does not have this type of output, then you need to obtain a module that will duplicate this function, such as a latching relay.  In other words, you need a component that would take your pulsed lock output from the alarm and convert it to a constantly grounded circuit that is only broken when the alarm sends its unlock pulse.

Seems complicated, but it really is quite simple.

Good luck.

Reply if you need further help.

soundinstaller-

Avital is made by DEI and I do have the orange ground when armed connection used on the starter kill relay.  I am going to take the door apart and see if the lock is giving ground constant for locking and removing the ground for unlocking.  That seems to make sense.  The huge aftermarket relay in the dash has the standard five pins but below that is a ground sitting at one pin where another four morre pins could be for another relay.  I will probably mess with it this weekend some more and probably take a pic if I can't figure it out.  I will probably take a pic anyways so people can see what I am talking about.

Thanks for replying!

Right, forgot that DEI bought Clifford.

Sounds like that big relay is a latching (mechanical) relay.

You should find multiple smaller connections (two sets of 87,  87a & 30) and two larger connectors on the relay.

The two larger ones should be the activation terminals.  85 & 86 on a standard single pull single throw Bosch relay.  One terminal should have constant 12V and the other is your variable ground.  After you test and confirm, tie your orange into this connection.

Shouldn't need to pull the door.