Python 4105P Remote Start, 1995 Subaru Impreza

Hello everyone,
New to the forum. Thanks for having me. I just installed a python 4105P remote start/keyless entry on my 95 Impreza LX wagon. Because of the car's age (95), it's a pretty simple installation. Anyway, once everything was all wired, I started the car with the remote. It worked as it should. But when I got in the car the other day and put the key in the ignition to power up my accessories (not starting it), white smoke starting coming from the control unit. I'm pretty certain that it's wired correctly. Any insight you can give is much appreciated!

If smoke came out of the control module, it is most certainly NOT "wired correctly".

I'd begin by looking at the all the wires' insulation for bubbling or damage caused by a short to ground, caused by an incorrect connection. If you find a couple of damaged/burned wires, trace them to the car's wiring, and ascertain the wire's function for both the car and the module. You should be able to figure out where the mistake was made, and correct it before installing a replacement module.

Thank you DaveP. Good advice. I was re-thinking my install and do remember that when I was splicing in the brake stop wire into the brake switch wire, the brake switch wire touched metal and sparked for a few seconds before I was able to grab it and move it away. Definitely a brain fart on my part b/c I had the battery disconnected the entire time except for this part of the install. I don't think this is the cause of my problem here, but I'm not an expert wither. I will check the wires to see if there is any damage.

Update: I bought another control unit yesterday at one of the local dealers. I couldn't pass it up for $15.00. I didn't connect the new unit yet. I removed the old unit and took the cover off to look at the electronics. I didn't see anything that would indicate a bad or incorrect wiring. Nothing was burned, resistors and capacitors were normal....no bulging or burn marks. All the wires going into the ECU had no indication of burning or faulty wiring. Two things are very odd however. The horn fuse blew during the initial install process. It doesn't appear that the horn and brake lights are on the same circuit. If so, that would make sense, as I did short out the brake wire for a few seconds when trying to wire that in. I do not have the horn wire even connected. The other odd thing is that the left side headlight comes on full bright, and the right side very dim with key on and the light switch off. When I disconnect the 9-pin connector, the headlights work as normal. This issue seems to point to the 9-pin harness. But I am only using one wire from that 9-pin harness. It's the white wire with the 10A fuse that's labeled "light flash output." I have that wired to the parking light wire and that actually works. When I use the unlock/lock on the keyless entry the park lights flash. Another point to note here is that when I hooked up the original control unit the second time and with the key on, I did notice once again white vapors rising up from the unit. It is not doing it anymore, and the car starts with the remote as it should. The keyless entry works as it should. The only thing I did different was I installed the little parking light jumper. Before doing that, I was not getting the park lights to flash when locking/unlocking the doors. Could not having the park light jumper installed have caused the smoke and burning smell? If so, it makes sense. But I still can't figure out the headlight dilemma. I don't want to hook up the new control unit until I solve this one. Your insight is much appreciated.

I did confirm that the horn and brake lights are on the same fuse. So at least the horn fuse blowing dilemma is solved.

Update 2: I hooked up the new remote start control unit and the same thing happened. White smoke was coming out of it. I seemed to have narrowed it down to the heavy gauge purple wire. I disconnected it, and powered everything up. There wasn't any more smoke. The heavy gauge purple starter wire is going to the correct wire on the ignition harness. That's why it works as should. I just can't figure out why the white smoke for the life of me. Also, with the purple wire disconnected, the funky headlight dilemma goes away. I'm really stumped.

I'm in agreement with DaveP on this one. Having installed a bunch of 4105's (Avital and Viper) over the years, white smoke is something I've never encountered. I really doubt you got two bad units. You are correct in that the 1995 Imprezza is very straight forward to add a R/S to, no bypass module and only 3 ignition wires. Power locks are a bit of a chore.

Rather than buying a few dozen 4105 controllers, perhaps a very thorough review of the actual wiring would be the best course of action right now. Below is a text of the 4105 harnesses. If you fill that in, the forum members might be able to see an issue and save you further cost in parts and possible damage to your car.

Viper 4105 -------------------------------------------> 1995 Imprezza

Main 9 Pin
1 LIGHT GREEN/BLACK (-) FACTORY ALARM DISARM
2 GREEN/WHITE (-) FACTORY REARM
3 YELLOW (+) IGNITION OUT (TO ALARM)
4 WHITE/BLUE (-) ACTIVATION INPUT
5 ORANGE (-) GROUND WHEN LOCKED
6 BROWN (-) HORN OUTPUT
7 RED/WHITE (-) TRUNK RELEASE OUTPUT
8 BLACK GROUND
9 WHITE (+/-) LIGHT FLASH

R/S 5 Pin
1 BLACK/WHITE (-) NEUTRAL SAFETY SWITCH INPUT
2 VIOLET/WHITE (AC) TACHOMETER INPUT WIRE
3 BROWN (+) BRAKE SWITCH SHUTDOWN WIRE
4 GRAY (-) HOOD PINSWITCH SHUTDOWN WIRE
5 BLUE/WHITE (-) 200mA 2ND STATUS/REAR DEFOGGER OUTPUT

4-pin satellite harness diagram
1 BLUE (-) STATUS OUTPUT
2 ORANGE (-) ACCESSORY OUTPUT
3 PURPLE (-) STARTER OUTPUT
4 PINK (-) IGNITION OUTPUT

Heavy gauge 6 Pin
1 RED (+) (30A) HIGH CURRENT 12V INPUT
2 PINK/WHITE (+) PROGRAMMABLE OUTPUT FOR ACCESSORY OR IGNITION
3 RED (+) (30A) HIGH CURRENT 12 INPUT
4 ORANGE (+) (30 AMP) OUTPUT TO ACCESSORY CIRCUIT
5 PURPLE (+) (30 AMP) OUTPUT TO STARTER CIRCUIT
6 PINK (+) (30 AMP) OUTPUT TO IGNITION CIRCUIT

Door lock harness, 3-pin connector
1 BLUE (-) UNLOCK OUTPUT
2 EMPTY NOT USED
3 GREEN (-) LOCK OUTPUT

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Soldering is fun!

mjm4jc wrote:

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But I am only using one wire from that 9-pin harness.

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As per the information kreg357 posted, you should be using two wires from the 9-pin harness. The ground wire is important. Barring that being the issue it seems like there is backfeeding going on and listing your connections would allow others to help you better than just describing symptoms.

If the black GROUND wire in the 9-pin is not connected, that could be the entire problem. Really good catch, @catback

Thanks Kreg357. I found the problem. There was a yellow power wire coming from the fuse box under the hood through the fire wall into the the area where I was working. I guess through all the cutting, routing, banding, and confusion of wires, I somehow attached this wire to the yellow wire coming from the 9 pin harness. I must have done this in the very beginning of the install process, because I had all the wires folded and banded from that harness that were not being used. Anyway, it's sort of a mystery as to how I ended up attaching that yellow wire to the the yellow wire on the 9 pin harness (other than the matching colors). I knew from the beginning, that I only needed the two wires from that harness......white and black. But the bottom line is that the third control unit didn't smoke, and everything works as it should. I think the biggest lesson learned here for me is to work more neatly and keep unused wires folded and banded and out of the way from the start. I was blessed that the guys at the store about a hour from where I live gave me two control units for free the last time I went there. I am also blessed to have the wealth of knowledge from you and others on this forum. I have one more wire to run........the horn wire. I'm using a 4 pin relay. Hope to finish in a few and that there are no set-backs! Thanks again!

I'm assuming the brown horn wire does require a relay, correct?

While you could add a relay, it shouldn't be necessary. The vehicles' Horn wire (Horn Trigger     red/green (-)     @ steering column) needs a low current (-) signal from the 4105. A direct connection is all that is needed using the 4105 Brown wire.

If you wanted to verify the current draw, use a Digital Multi Meter set to DC Amp - 10 Amp range. Black test lead to Chassis Ground and Red to the vehicle Horn wire shown above. The horn will sound and the DMM will show the current draw. The 4105 can handle 0.5 Amp output and the DMM should show about 150 mA.



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Soldering is fun!

Excellent, thank you!

Assuming that the wire color is the same on both the female and male connectors, does it matter which side I splice into? . The steering column side is so much easier to get to, and the color is the same on the other side.

Ok there's seems to be an issue with wire coloring. I have two wiring schematics from two different sources for my 95 Impreza. One says that the horn wire is red/green at the ignition harness. The other says that the park light flash wire is red/green at ignition harness. All I can say is that if I leave the white wire from 9-pin connector connected to the red/green wire at ignition harness the way I had it, the park lights flash with door locks and remain on while the car is running with a remote start. So I'm assuming this is correct. So now I have to find the horn wire, as it appears that it is not the red/green wire. I did hook up the brown horn wire from remote start to the red/green wire at ignition harness just to see if it would work, and it did not. So now I'm in the hunt to find the horn wire. In the meantime, I will look at the previous year and the year after, to see if there may have been a mid-year wire color change. I welcome your thoughts.

Odd that some remote start wiring diagrams say "N/A" for horn.

Those older Subarus do have some conflicting wire info. It appears that you have the Parking Lights working but the info I have is Green/Red (+) (Green with Red stripe). If you have the 4105 Parking Light jumper set to (+) then that is the wire. There might be more than one harness at the steering column to look through for the Red/Green
horn wire.

I have two sources that say Red/Green. You can use your DMM to find and verify this wire. Set the DMM to 20 V DC. Connect the Red test lead to +12V constant. Connect the Black test lead to the suspect wire. The DMM should go to +12V when the horn button is depressed.

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Soldering is fun!

Ok thanks. Just need a bit of clarification. Are you saying that the park light flash wire should be green w/red or the horn? Are you also saying that the horn wire could also be red w/green, meaning that there may be another red w/green wire besides the one i am already using?

I am using the parking light jumper.

One source has this info on the Parking Lights :
   Parking Lamp (+)   GREEN/RED(+)        @ PASSENGER SIDE OF STEERING COLUMN
I can't find any wire info source that indicates a Red/Green Parking Light wire.

And as posted above, here is the info on the Horm :
   Horn Trigger     red/green (-)     @ steering column

Notice the different wire color and polarity for each.

You should use a DMM to test and verify any wire you plan to use.

The 4105 Parking Light jumper has two positions. With it you select either a (+) or a (-) Parking Light output signal on the 4105 White wire.

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Soldering is fun!

So I found the horn wire. I just disconnected a few other plugs until the horn didn't work and then looked to see if the corresponding wire was in that plug. Turns out that the horn wire is Green w/red. I believe you had mentioned above that one of your sources confirmed this. The red w/green is the park light flash even though most sources say that this wire is for the horn. The horn does chirp when I was trying to program the unit, as the instructions said it would. But I am confused as to why it doesn't chirp on start up? I thought the main reason for the horn is to give the driver an audible signal that the car is started and running? Please advise.

Perhaps I need to make sure that the virtual tach is programmed????

Take a look at the 4105 programming options. Menu 1 Feature 1 is for the Horn function. The Factory Default is OFF. I would change that setting to Option 2 (20 mSec) or 3 (30 mSec). This will give you the desired results.

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Soldering is fun!

Take a look at the 4105 programming options. Menu 1 Feature 1 is for the Horn function. The Factory Default is OFF. I would change that setting to Option 2 (20 mSec) or 3 (30 mSec). This will give you the desired results.

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Soldering is fun!

Yeah I thought I did that. It took me a while to get used to the programming. I will go through the horn programming again. Also, In menu 2, feature 2, I can program the engine run time. But then it also has a timer mode run time?????? It's in menu 2, feature 11. Not sure what that is. Anyway,I started it today with the remote, and it started on the 2nd try. But once it was running, I was not able to use the remote to unlock the doors. Didn't think this was normal. Is this a programming issue?

Timer Mode :
Selects the time in minutes that the system operates the engine until the system “times out” when the remote start activates in timer mode. The system may be shut down using a shutdown at any time. More Timer Mode info can be found on the bottom of Page 5 of this 4105V manual : https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/file.asp?ID=1307

Re: Unlock while engine is running
Which FOB are you referring to ( Factory RKE of 4105V ) ?

It's not unusual for the Factory FOB to be inop during engine run time. With the engine running after normal key start up do the Factory FOBs work? If you are referring to the 4105 remotes, do they lock and unlock the doors with the engine off? Did you add solenoid actuators in the doors?

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Soldering is fun!

mjm4jc wrote:

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But I am confused as to why it doesn't chirp on start up? I thought the main reason for the horn is to give the driver an audible signal that the car is started and running? Please advise.

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The horn doesn't sound during a remote start, the parking lights are the only indicators for the remote start signal received and remote start engine running. The horn will chirp (as well as the parking lights flash) to make you aware of lock and unlock commands. Aside from remote starts that trigger on 3x Lock, I'm not aware of any remote starts that make audible tone from the vehicle before or during a remote start.

Yeah I thought I did that. It took me a while to get used to the programming. I will go through the horn programming again. Also, In menu 2, feature 2, I can program the engine run time. But then it also has a timer mode run time?????? It's in menu 2, feature 11. Not sure what that is. Anyway,I started it today with the remote, and it started on the 2nd try. But once it was running, I was not able to use the remote to unlock the doors. Didn't think this was normal. Is this a programming issue?

Yeah I thought I did that. It took me a while to get used to the programming. I will go through the horn programming again. Also, In menu 2, feature 2, I can program the engine run time. But then it also has a timer mode run time?????? It's in menu 2, feature 11. Not sure what that is. Anyway,I started it today with the remote, and it started on the 2nd try. But once it was running, I was not able to use the remote to unlock the doors. Didn't think this was normal. Is this a programming issue?