General Alarm Installs

i generally look to see where i can hide and mount the shock sensor its different on every car.. once thats done. i start to clip away the wires that i don't need in the harness. E.g. horn, domelight or whatever isn't needed.. Now i tape up the harness from the connector towards where the connections are gonna be made. splitting off wires if needed. once you hide the brain and use tape to keep things neet it shouldn't be so bad. my first install i didn't tape the harness and there was a maze of wires under the dash. relays are used to boost or change polarity.. i usually mount the shock and brain last. just find where to mount first. good idea is when the haress is taped up try run it along side an existing harness. and use tie wraps. keep it looking as oem as possible Why oh Why didn't i take the blue pill

Darren Power

I prep the alarm first, hooking up all resistors, diodes, and relays. I tape it up and put common location wires taped together. Then i mount the brain..... then start connecting wires and cut them to the length desired.

Fastlearner wrote: After reading a topic on here, I became curious as to how everyone generally installs alarms. As far as -Where to mount the brain. -where to mount the shock sensor. -HOW TO HIDE THE WIRES(loom, tape, or just leave). -Wire up first or mount first. -What you normally use relays for(horn, lights, trunk, secon accessory/ignition) Just curious as to how it is mostly done. Just looking for ways to improve my installs.

I don’t do any of the above first. I usually spend a few minutes reading to get a general understanding about the unit that I am about to install. Trust me in this you will save hour of frustration in the end. Read though the wiring diagram for your vehicle thoroughly. Understand what you will need to accomplish the task. (Is relays require for the doors, trunk, pin switch, parking lights…etc.?) Test and look for all the wiring in the car that will be needed to hook up to the alarm unit FIRST. If you have found all the require connection, you can neatly map all route of all the wire that has to be connected ahead of time. Many installers don’t follow this method, but the decision is yours to choose for what works best for you. However, experience has taught me to do so. If you test the wire ahead of time, you will save lots of time on your install. Occasionally, you will find out a head of time that something is not working properly rather than finding out at the end. This will save you to guessing that it could be an error on your part or that it might be the alarm unit that is defective. Other time you may find it very useful to know that a negative parking light wire is much easier to get access to or a brake wire is impossible to access to at the pedal, but a lot easier someplace else.   I hope this will emphasise my point. Now you can mount the brain, shock sensor and finally joint and solder and tape up all the connection point and you are done.Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it.