Marc Schwager

Ok, first of all I hate alarm systems. The first thing I did when I got my car was remove about 5 miles of wire and the aftermarket alarm that the PO put in. I have the longer key, which led me to believe that my car had once had the factory alarm, but the PO had replaced it with the new improved system.

Wrong.

We were up at the Sonoma film festival this weekend and I was trying to recover gracefully from the fact that while driving on a bumpy road, the AC had become intermittent. (It will come on if I corner hard left, but that will be another thread :-). So we made it down to the plaza, and after a movie and a nice glass of wine, we walked back to the car to head off to the next movie. I unlocked the car and much to my surprise triggered the factory alarm! After realizing that it really does disable the engine, a crash course in how the alarm works ensued. I was able to disarm it by locking and unlocking the passengers side door.

The date is not impressed. I did at least manage to get the AC working (temporarily - the relays and plug J are in for some serious cleaning) and we drove off for the next movie.

While I'm sure I could adjust the drivers side momemtary ground switch, I am not interested in maintaning a system that will stop me from starting my car!

It is now time to permanently disable that sucker. Looking at the WSMs, it looks like I can pull plug Z and jumper terminals 1 and 6. If it is that easy, I will leave the module in place rather than pulling the glove box. All alarm info is conspicuously missing from the wiring diagrams. Is there anything else I should be concerned with? There is reference on the Nichol's site to bridging 30 and 87a at the module (on an 87 S4 though) which may accomplish the same thing.

H2

When you figure this out, let me know. My '85S has an amalgamation of some kind of both the factory alarm and an aftermarket unit. Electricals are not my thing and eventually I was able to pretty well disarm the dang thing but it still goes off occasionally at odd times, causing my wife's face to turn a great and wonderous Guards Red. Whoever did the aftermarket alarm wiring work had to have been a psuedo-Einstein on drugs.

Harvey

Normy

You can do what I did: Remove the door panels and simply unplug the connector that comes from the back of the lock cylinders. Now your car will never receive a lock signal. Do this to the hood and the hatch as well.

I've never been able to find "plug Z"- I guess it is behind the fuse panel. I wonder if pulling the fuse panel out of the way would create more problems than it solves....

N!
'85 S2 5 Speed

ViribusUnits

The "z" plug is in the middle of the dang pannel. The exact last place you would look for it.

Jim bailey - 928 International

remove the wooden lower panel two philips screws on the fuse relay panel and each plug is marked look near center at the big red wires the smaller plug should be Z . Unplug the plug and jumper the top right terminal on the board to the bottom left terminal where Z was attached and the alarm is by passed , leave plug unplugged .

User 4221

Plug Z is a metal strip that literally looks like a "Z".

I installed an aftermarket alarm and used this connection point for ignition kill.

Worked great.

Marc Schwager

The Alarm is incapacitated (thanks Jim) and the AC works again. Life is good.

With the factory alarm installed, Plug "Z" is actually a pretty ordinary 8 pin plug with one exception: All the connectors are female. This is the case with at least one other plug on the board, so in addition to the "standard equipment" fuel relay jumper with male plugs, I just made an extra jumper with female plugs just in case I meet one of you stranded on the road with a malfunctioning alarm :-).

wuman

Scott,
can you give me some detail on how you hook up the aftermarket alarm's ignition kill to the plug z? thanks.

Marc Schwager

Wuman

I'll let Scott fill you in, but the instructions Jim gave also point you in the direction. In order for the car to start, the upper right hand pin of the Z connector must be jumpered to the lower left. If you break that connection, the car won't start. The alarm system can use those pins for the ignition kill.

JEC_31

Lucky you. Mine looked to have been installed by color-blind crack-smoking monkeys. Duct taped t-splices, mid-wire color changes, redundant leads, all tied into the phone and fusebox in multiple places. It would go off in the middle of the night and cycle the door locks up and down until the battery went flat.