What kind of alarms do you guys have or recomend? Are pager alarms worth it? Or should I just stick to the above average ones. Heres the one I was thinking of getting. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...category=14934

dei is pretty good. Are you installing it yourself?
It isnt too hard i just installed mine two weeks ago.
If you do install it yourself, dont put the brain of the alarm under the drivers side dash. Thats the most common place for a theif to rip into looking for the brain to disable your alarm quickly. Soilder and zip tie every wire also.

Yeah ive heard nothing but good things about dei. I will have the alarm installed at a shop, that way I get the warranty also. Plus I would probably go nuts looking at all thoose wires lol.

Which alarm did you get? how do you like it and how was the install?

viper, clifford, rattler, python, hornet, sidewinder, wasp are all made by directed (DEI) and are good quality products.

personally i have a firsttech compustar 2wfm and its excellent.

My alarm is made by dei , i installed it myself because the shop could'nt install it untill the next day and i was paraniod after catching two guys trying to pry my door locks out. It wasnt hard to install but then again im used to messing with a bunch of wires.
Its a VERY good alarm. Wont go off when someone with a loud system goes by but as soon as you pull on the door handle to see if its unlocked it gives a warning chirp. I've never had a flase alarm yet. But i did have to play with the dual sensors to get it this way.

I have nothing, so that is what I can recomend.
I like alarms, but I just havn't gotten arround to getting one.
I guess I should, cause i'm sure eventually somone will try to break in.

But I have always heard good stuff about Alpine alarms, I can tell you that. So if, and when I get one, it will probably be an alpine.

accel makes a great alarm for a good price, as soon i can afford to im going to grab one. a member at another forum i am part of is a distributor so if you want to check them out hit the link in my sig and talk to 'gankojiji'

like they said though DEI makes pretty solid equipment

Thanks for the site man. Do you have a link to something that has all the features for that alarm and stuff? Do you think its better than the alarm I posted above? I would definetly be down for the gp.

when i get home ill try to find the list of features i have. in the mean time you can ask "audiojunkie" over there how he thinks it compares...he knows alot when it comes to alarms

ok, i couldnt find specs on the accelle alarm so you'll probably have to pm gank for them

Where did you place your brain? I put mine under the driver's side dash because I couldn't find a suitable location besides there!

It depends on the car, sometimes I will put them under the driver seat and run the wires forward. I have also put them under the center console in our cars as well, you just want to stay clear of any shifter linkages and the like.

Inside the center consol, back underneath the power window switches. Then i zip tied all the wires tightly together and ran them down the inside of the consol away from the shifter.

wow, how the heck did you get the alarm to chirp with the door handle being simply pulled without actually opening the door? That's kinda neat.

My alarm unit is installed in the lower dash under the steering column. They squeezed the antenna in there for some reason as well... I didn't want to wait for them to move it (it only went about 50 ft!!!), so I moved it myself to the roofliner in front of my t-tops. Now it goes about 500 ft, if NOTHING is in the way..... keep in mind this is the top of the line viper alarm. If anything (car, tree, sign, building, window, or air) is in the way... it could easily be less than 50 ft.

The one thing I have not tested, is that even when the remote cannot transmit to the car, can the car transmit to the remote? the car should have a stronger transmitter, but maybe it needs to make a handshake or something with the remote for it to work.... and my siren is Pitiful! I wish I could wire in the horn with it as well.

The thing thats nice about DEI is I can get plenty of add-on's. I can get windows roll up/down... turn on radio, radar sensor, motion sensor, glass break sensor, tilt sensor, and others. I'm gonna get the radar cuz of the t-tops, and the windows up/down cuz, damn that's just cool, and its only 100 bucks installed.

Scrap maker, i have installed many dei alarms, there is a horn honk wire.. You will need a relay to use it though. If you like i could tell you how to hook it up..

BTW i have three alarms on differnet cars

Clifford 3.5x pager
Viper 550 esp
Avital 3300

All remote start

as per dei's instruction and my own personal experiance if you mount the alarm ant. in the windsheild verticaly next the the "A"
pillar you will get better reception. The ant. doesnt like to transmit through anything including carpet and especialy metal. It makes a significant differance in the range of the remote. Jered

Wow, I would appreciate it. Can you use a transistor instead?

Also, a question about the auxiliary outputs on the alarm. What are they doing electrically? I want to make aux2 turn on/off my stereo, but I don't know how aux works... I know for aux1 for the trunk, it simply pulses... so would I need a ratcheting relay for that? I guess that's still easy to do, but I don't like all those moving parts.

Do I run a separate wire to the horn with the relay, or just splice into the wires after they leave the steering column?

Also, will the horn simply honk with the chirp of the siren like when I lock and unlock?

Sorry for all the questions, I just never know anyone who knows their stuff about alarms.

The only reason I never installed my alarm myself was the remote start. Bypassing the ignition seemed like an annoying task, and plus they wouldn't let me buy it without installing.

Thanks man...

Hrm, I might screw around with that, but I really don't want to be looking at that damned antenna all the time... so maybe I will just put it on the windshield above the mirror...

BTW the range is not THAT bad when its in the roof liner, its significantly better than when they shoved it into my dash.

ok the aux. outputs on the alarm are designed to drive relays. You can change what the outputs do ie, pulse (pulses than stops like for the hatch release) latched (continues to supply a signal to the relay until you turn it off, like headlight activation) latched with ignition (same thing but resets when the ignition is turned on and then off). I have never heard of a "ratcheting" relay. As for the horn output the 790xv and 791xvr alarms as well as most DEI alarms have a horn honk output. Pulses the horn as well as the siren. You can also change the siren/horn output from pulsed to constant (constant is the defualt) The horn will sound constantly while the siren goes off through its pre set tones. As for the wire yes you will need to wire in a relay off the horn output wire from the alarm, set the relay up for a positive output on an f-body car. Some cars however use a negative trigger for the horn. Lastly for the radio turn on, run a positive output from the aux output on the alarm, set for latched to the acc. wire on the stereo's wire harness. Any more questions just ask. Jered

wow thanks, so you can change ANY of the outputs to be latching, ignition, or pulse? If I remember correctly, there are like 5 output channels. I'm already using locks, trunk, and remote start. And a ratcheting relay is one where a pulse basically rotates a metal disc inside that goes from "on" to "off" with each pulse, but I'd much rather just set up the outputs on the alarm.

Also, have you heard of the channel expander? adds like 6 more channels? Don't know if I would ever need that, but I am planning on getting the radar sensor, as well as the window unit.

Do you know how many inputs/outputs the 790XV has? The manual seems very vague in this area.


I really appreciate your help man.

I want to say three optional outputs. As far as the channel expander goes, my bet is if you ever get that much going off of the alarm either something is going to go wrong or you will forget what output something is on. I dont see any need for that much stuff, the cool factor wears off after a while. If you have any more questions drop a line I have been doing this stuff for almost five years as an occupation. Jered

how do you actually change an output to pulse/constant/ignition... do you program it through the remote, or is there a switch somewhere?

you can do it through the valet switch and the remote or the easy way is to use a bit writer programmer from dei, you might get everything the way you want it and call around to see how much a shop will charge to change the stuff you want, I would see it being more than 10-15 bucks. The programmer itself is like 90 bucks so its dumb to buy it unless you do a lot of them. Jered

read the owners manual to the alarm, it tells you.

hrm, I didn't see anything in there last time, I'll have to look again

anyone ever heard of the black widow systems?

i know of a REALLY effective alarm, 100% effectiveness gauranteed.

you hire a guy, such as myself, to stand by your car, for a meager 200$ per day.

When approached, i kindly instruct people to move along, except the person who pays me.

think of it like a bouncer for your car.


6'4" 300lbs, pleasant attitude.

I'd rather just hire a sniper... because everyone knows you don't break into my car already... this way they won't make the same mistake twice...

you wont find a sniper for 200$ a day.

maybe I could rent a sniper rifle for $200 a day, and I could watch the car myself