Aftermarket Electronics Installations
01-30-2012, 04:47 PM
#1
6th Gear Member
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Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: AR
Posts: 5,469
Aftermarket Electronics Installations
Anyone out there besides me have to deal with aftermarket wiring of alarms, door poppers, audio gear, etc.?
I am posting this thread as a WARNING to anyone who opts to have any kind of kind of electronics installed in their cars.
An installers job is to get their electronics installed and working in your car. They do this by taping some existing wires and interrupting (this means CUTTING) others like the start circuit, and rerouting these through the installed device.
The problem here is twofold, the first being that the wires are OFTEN tapped into are the WRONG wires, causing other seemingly unrelated issues. The second major issue is that many of these new devices that your car will now DEPEND ON to start and run, are crap, and won't last as long as the stock components.
My opinion is that ANY new electronic device be wired in totally SEPARATE from your cars existing wiring. "Home run" the wires all the way back to the battery for power wires and make a clean connection to switched wires as close to the ignition switch as possible. This allows two advantages, the first being that if there are wiring issues, you know right away whether the problem is with the CARS WIRING, or the devices wiring, and the second is that a failure of an aftermarket device won't leave you sitting in a parking lot.
Part of the beauty of classic cars is their udder simplicity, don't F it up by tying a bunch of crap into your electrical system.
A thought on alarms.... screw um.... nobody listens for them anyway. Put in a simple kill wire using a latching solenoid to cut off the juice instead.
I am posting this thread as a WARNING to anyone who opts to have any kind of kind of electronics installed in their cars.
An installers job is to get their electronics installed and working in your car. They do this by taping some existing wires and interrupting (this means CUTTING) others like the start circuit, and rerouting these through the installed device.
The problem here is twofold, the first being that the wires are OFTEN tapped into are the WRONG wires, causing other seemingly unrelated issues. The second major issue is that many of these new devices that your car will now DEPEND ON to start and run, are crap, and won't last as long as the stock components.
My opinion is that ANY new electronic device be wired in totally SEPARATE from your cars existing wiring. "Home run" the wires all the way back to the battery for power wires and make a clean connection to switched wires as close to the ignition switch as possible. This allows two advantages, the first being that if there are wiring issues, you know right away whether the problem is with the CARS WIRING, or the devices wiring, and the second is that a failure of an aftermarket device won't leave you sitting in a parking lot.
Part of the beauty of classic cars is their udder simplicity, don't F it up by tying a bunch of crap into your electrical system.
A thought on alarms.... screw um.... nobody listens for them anyway. Put in a simple kill wire using a latching solenoid to cut off the juice instead.
01-31-2012, 01:06 AM
#2
I take my coil plug wire off and toss it in the trunk if I park at a mall or movie theater.
Great advice though. I just bought some LED green lights at some fancy pro-ricer-type speed shop and the guy almost sold me on a GPS locator with an iphone app and alarm. I'm still thinking about the idea and when/if I do get this installed I will take your advice and tell them not to cut any of my "classic" wires. I will feed them a line on how it will depreciate the value or something, or if I want to revert it back to an original car I still have the option. Who knows, maybe I won't even do it. You, again, raise up some great points, thank you for posting this.
James
Great advice though. I just bought some LED green lights at some fancy pro-ricer-type speed shop and the guy almost sold me on a GPS locator with an iphone app and alarm. I'm still thinking about the idea and when/if I do get this installed I will take your advice and tell them not to cut any of my "classic" wires. I will feed them a line on how it will depreciate the value or something, or if I want to revert it back to an original car I still have the option. Who knows, maybe I won't even do it. You, again, raise up some great points, thank you for posting this.
James
01-31-2012, 10:53 AM
#5
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: nv.
Posts: 11
I am an installer of stereos alarms ect. I also have a 1965 mustang and 1966 impala.I also install in other peoples cars and I have never did any damage to anyones car because I know what I an doing. all you need to do is find a good installer.
01-31-2012, 12:12 PM
#6
6th Gear Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: AR
Posts: 5,469
I don't mean to paint with a broad brush, I am sure you are among the competent installers.
I had to work on an early 90s Navigator yesterday. The truck has shaved handles, and door poppers. It also has a now inoperative alarm system, an added on tv in the rear seat, etc.
The solenoid side of the door poppers was wired into the COMPUTER feed, which means that it blew the fuse for the computer, which is in a place I cant find it. In any case, this is not the first time this happened, the first time the owner took it to Ford where they promptly sold him a $1,600 computer the owner didn't need.
Also, the alarm was wired into the parking lights, the alarm stopped working, and as a result, the owner could not turn off the parking lights.
I have seen ****loads of stuff like this on different cars.
As an installer, do you think that a $130 alarm system that can operate everything from door and windows, provide remote start, etc. is even close to the dependability of OEM electronics? (Which are a PITA enough when they go south!)
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