Altima 5speed Remote Start

Hey Everyone.

I am getting ready to do some work to my 04 Altima 2.5, It has the 5 speed manual transmission and I want a remote starter...In the past with my older cars I used to Jury-rig a neutral safety switch so the car wouldn't start if it was in gear. Not the prettiest rig but it worked..

Now I want to put the RS in my Altima, and a while back I came across a website that claimed there was a wire in a stickshift altima that went to ground when the car was in neutral and visa versa...

Does anyone know which wire this is?

Thanks!!!

If you install a R/S that is designed for a manual trans....you won't have any problems. You won't need this elusive wire

compustar, AST, astroflex

-------------

The factory built-in neutral position switch can be tapped at pin #102 on the ECU. Wire color is GREEN / WHITE.

This neutral wire will ALLOW the the vehicle to bypass the clutch.....but it WILL NOT prevent the vehicle from starting in gear....be smart!

-------------

KarTuneMan wrote:

---

This neutral wire will ALLOW the the vehicle to bypass the clutch.....but it WILL NOT prevent the vehicle from starting in gear....be smart!

---

Actually, it will. It has nothing do do with the clutch. Its a wire that tells the ECU if its in neutral or in gear.

OK then....get er done!

-------------

The real trick is to use the output of the OE neutral switch as the ground supply of the coil of the relay that will be used to bypass the clutch.

KarTuneMan, you know that no matter what you say and how right you are, these kids are STILL gonna put it in! Best to arm them with info that will make it as safe as possible.

bobk....thanks again for the perfect post.................

-------------

bobk, not to keep fueling the manual RS debate, but I will state two facts that are undeniable:

1) The wire I indicated for a '05 Nissan Altima will ALWAYS output ground when the tranmission is in neutral. There is never a case when it doesn't. Don't believe me? Look up DTC P1706 in the Nissan factory service manual in section EC.
2) Additonally, if it fails, the vehicle owner will get a check engine light. It is statistically just as prone to failing as a PNP switch in auto vehicles.


For the original poster (iman). Here's exactly how to do what you want to do using one standard automotive relay:

1) At the clutch interlock switch you'll find two wires. One is ground of course, and the other goes to the IPDM module (GREEN/ red wire). This GREEN/ red wire needs to see ground in order for the car to start. Tap into the GREEN/ red and connect it to pin 87 on the relay.
2) Connect pin 30 on your relay to the neutral switch wire (pin 102 GREEN / WHITE at ECU).
3) Relay pin 85 goes to +12V and relay pin 86 goes to the "ground output while starting" wire of your remote start unit.

When the alarm sends out the ground output while starting, it'll feed the IPDM with the ground from the neutral switch and allow the car to start. If the car isn't in neutral, the IPDM will never see ground and thus won't allow the car to start.

I'll agree that I don't agree with remote starts in MT cars with remote start units designed for AT cars when they're not done properly. And the reality is that 99% of them aren't done right no matter how jerry-rigged they are. But using the OE switch in this manner is the 1% that I'll disagree with the "dis-agreers".

Chat amoungst yourselves if need be. I'm out.

cosmoworks, do you know what the neutral wire reads in gear? Is it an open circuit or +12v? If it is +12v, I can see one possible problem with your relay setup:
1. Car is in neutral, customer remote starts the car.
2. Customer gets in car, puts key in and turns it on. They push the clutch all the way in and put it in gear.
3. At this point the GREEN/ red at the clutch switch will be at ground, and the GREEN / WHITE at the ECU will be +12v. Those two wires will be connected thru the relay and you now have a short. The GREEN / WHITE neutral circuit will probably blow a fuse or burn out. If the customer inserts the key and steps on the brake before shifting, everything would work fine.

I would wire it a different way. On a DEI unit or other units that have a wire that needs to be grounded for the remote start to work:
Connect the GREEN / WHITE neutral wire to the BLACK/ white neutral input on the remote start. If the car is in neutral, the BLACK/ white wire will see ground and will allow it to remote start. If its in gear....no ground. Remote start does not work. I have done it this way on a handful of 2005+ Subarus that have a neutral wire that function this way.
You would then connect the ground when running to the clutch wire to simulate the clutch being in.

Another method....can be used on units that don't have a wire that needs to be grounded for remote start to function. Connect car's neutral wire to brake input on remote start. You will need to split the brake input wire on the remote start with diodes so the neutral wire and brake wire don't feed into each other. I did this on my 2005 Subaru WRX STI. I then connected the parking brake wire to the neutral wire on the remote start. If the parking brake isn't engaged or its in gear it won't start.

Not many standard transmission vehicles have neutral wires. Subarus and Nissans are some of the few. If it was something that all cars had, the info would be more widely known.

JWorm,

On a M/T Altima, the PNP switch will read out about +5V when in gear, and ground when out of gear. Input to pin 102 on the ECU is high resistance. Leaving the car in gear and then bringing #102 to ground will not short anything - in fact that's it's design (to pull the voltage to ground).

Another point... the relay I mentioned that is used to do the clutch cancel operation should only be hot during startup (thus I mentioned pin 85 is connected to the remote start's "ground only on startup" output or to the alarm's pulsed output that triggers the remote start), so your scenario would never happen if wired up that way. Even if it did, no ill affects would incur as mentioned above.

But the method you posed would also work!! Since a relay should always be used to simulate the clutch being pressed in, I just supplied an example using that relay. I tend to reserve the wire on the remote start that needs to be grounded for the parking brake ground input. If no wire exists on the remote start unit then I wire in a second relay to the clutch relay method so that the parking brake needs to be up as well.

But your methods certainly work as well!