How long should it take?

Another common question that we get is: “how long should it take to install ISIS in my car”? This is an important question to ask. You need to budget you time as you work through your project. Also, if a shop is going to install this for you, you need to get a feel for what the labor costs will be.

However, asking how long it will take to wire your car with ISIS is no different than asking how long it will take to swap an engine or how long will it take to do a paint job. There are three factors that will ultimately determine how long it will take to install ISIS:

1. How complicated is your job?

2. How well did you plan in advance?

3. Do you have the right tools and extra parts?

First, one of the most significant drivers for time to install is how complicated the job is. Just as the metal work involved chopping the top on a car is much more than just patching a little rust, the more things that you want ISIS to control will take longer to install. We always tell our customers that wiring your car with ISIS can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. The simplest is just opening the 3-Cell Kit box, and following the standard front-engine configuration line by line. At the same time, if you want your project car to behave like your late-model daily driver with a lot of custom functions, we can do that. It just takes more time.

Another thing to consider related to the job being simple or complicated is how you are connecting your MASTERCELL inputs and your POWERCELL outputs to your switches and accessories. The simplest and quickest way is just to splice our wires into pig-tail connectors. The more involved way is to put proper connectors on the inputs and outputs. This is the more reliable way. It will take you more time, but it will save you tons of time in the future when you need to maintain your system.

Second, proper planning up front will save you tons of time as you wire your car. The first thing we always tell guys to do is to read the manual. Do this before you dig any deeper into the box. There is a lot of basic information there. You can download a copy of it here at this link.

Familiarize yourself with the terminology, the different connectors and the way that the inputs work. Twenty minutes invested in reading the manual up front will pay dividends as you work through the process.

Also, spend a few minutes roaming through our Reference Library on the website. We are continuously adding new content here based on customer questions and feedback. You can get to the reference library at this link.

Lastly, take a good long look at the configuration sheet that came with your kit. We have spent a lot of time laying out all of the basic functions in the car. Things like the headlights, turn-signals, ignition, starter and one-button start functions are already laid out in the configuration installed on your MASTERCELL. Everything is tied back to the input and output wire colors. This link will take you to the standard front-engine configuration. This is the road map to installing ISIS in your car. Sit down with a list of the different switched functions that you want to have in the car. Mark up your configuration sheet to make sure that you have the capacity on the cells to do the job that you want. It is better to figure out that you need to add another POWERCELL before you start than after you have things mounted and wire routed through the car.

Once you familiarize yourself with the manual, the reference library and the configuration sheet, spend some time mocking up the system in your car. Figure out how you want to run your input wires, your output wires, your power feeds from the battery and your CAN cable. Good planning and thought during this step will save tons of headaches later. Think about serviceability and troubleshooting when you layout the locations for mounting your cells. The best time to mock things up is before you finish your metal work, before paint. That way you can fab whatever mounts that you need for the cells while the car is in metal.

Lastly, make sure that you have the right tools to do the job. This includes everything that you need to mount the cells and make whatever holes are necessary to route harnesses. It also includes wire strippers and crimp tools to make solid, reliable electrical connections. Investing in a few simple, quality tools will save you time in the process and dramatically increase the reliability of your car over time. Give our technical support team a call if you want recommendations on which tools you need and where you can get them.

In addition to tools, do you have the right extra parts that you will need for your project? These could include extra terminals and connectors, looming for your finished harnesses, grommets for where harnesses pass through metal holes, heat-shrink tubing to protect splices and anchors to stabilize runs of wire. Thinking through all of the nuts and bolts of the install and getting them in advance will keep the process smooth. One of our favorite places for these kinds of parts is Waytek. They have all of the little wiring accessories that you would need to complete your job. This link will take you to their website. Likewise, call our technical support guys if you need additional recommendations.

The time that it takes to do any job on your car is tough to predict. Understanding the scope of the job, doing your homework and making sure that you have the right tools will make the job of installing your ISIS Intelligent Multiplex System simpler and smoother.

Now I know that a lot of guys are going to read this post and say that this is all common sense. You didn’t really answer the question. Let me give you an example from an install that I helped with last week. We’re working with the technical editor of a major magazine to help him install a standard 3-Cell Kit into his car. The car is painted and the drive train is installed. The dash is on the bench and the interior is out. This was the perfect state to be in to wire the car.

Between the two of us, we had everything wired after about 10 hours. This includes mounting the cells, running the CAN cables, the primary power feeds, connecting the inputs to the switches and the outputs to the loads. A significant amount of the time that it took involved putting Delphi Weatherpack terminals and connectors on all of the output harnesses. For example, the owner can undo one connector and remove each tail light assembly. This took several hours up front, but will save him tons of time if he ever needs to remove these in the future.

In these 10 hours, we spent more time than we should have mentally routing things through the car. We also anguished over things like locations for ground lugs and fuse holder locations. The owner of the car wanted the cleanest install as possible. We also had to make two trips down the road to the car parts store to pick up supplies.

We did have the advantage of having the car on a lift. This made running wires and accessing the bottom much easier if it was only on the ground.

The next day involved a few hours of looming the harnesses to make them look clean. After that it was about an hour to power the system up, test the input and outputs. That was it.