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Well, basically, today I finished the instalation of the solenoid and it DOES work pretty well.

I will try to post as many details as I can.

My alarm is an Alpine SEC-100S. It has several(3) "EXT" outputs that can be used to interface the alarm with a variety of devices (ie. the solenoid used to remotely open the trunk).

This EXT outputs a 1 second, 200mA (-) pulse.
I used a DMM (digital multi-meter) to see what's going on while I press the EXT-1 button on my alarm's remote, and basically the EXT-1 output connects to "ground" when the button gets pressed. I verified this by hooking up the positive probe (red) of my DMM to the EXT-1 wire that comes out of the alarm, and the negative probe (black) of the DMM to ground (in my case a bolt on the door). At that moment I had the DMM set to measure resistance, and the display was showing a huge amount of it (about 4 mega ohms). then I pressed the button on the remote and the resistance became about 2 ohms - this means that the circuit was closed and current could flow fairly unrestricted (2 ohms is a very low resistance).

My next step was to re-draw my wiring diagram, since I used another example to come up with the original (the one above), but it turned out that those were two totally different applications and the one I looked at could not be applied here.

Basically, the relay works like that -- you activate a coil that then acts as a magnet to pull a "lever" and close the "high current" circuit in the relay. Those two circuits are electrically separated - meaning that the current flowing through the coil cannot get to the other part of the relay and vice versa.

The relay I have (standard automotive relay) works like this:
You supply current to terminals 85 and 86 (positive and negative) and when current flows the coil is activated. Then the relay acts like a switch - when the coil is active there is a connection between terminals 30 and 87 (normally open). When the coil is not active there is a connection between terminals 30 and 87a (normally closed). I will not cover the applications of this second case (coil not active) because I don't want to confuse anyone. ;)

Now the REAL wiring diagram comes to light:
(I'm gonna draw it really quick in MS Paint)

http://www.pixelmaths.com/martin/pro...lay_wiring.jpg

... and VOILA!! It worked! And here's what it actually looks like (sorry for the blurry picture. I should have used the macro adapter for my digicam... duh!).

http://www.pixelmaths.com/martin/pro...ase/rtr_00.jpg

The fuse came with the solenoid.

Here's one more:

http://www.pixelmaths.com/martin/pro...ase/rtr_01.jpg

And another one:
http://www.pixelmaths.com/martin/pro...ase/rtr_02.jpg

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The next step was to lift the carpet so that I could route the long green wire to the trunk. I used zip-ties to secure my wire to the one that was already there (under the carpet, along the chassis).

Here's a "random" pic. :)

http://www.pixelmaths.com/martin/pro...ase/rtr_03.jpg

http://www.pixelmaths.com/martin/pro...ase/rtr_04.jpg

When I got to the trunk (trunk lid) I used the wire holder or whatever it's called and hid my wire inside.

http://www.pixelmaths.com/martin/pro...ase/rtr_06.jpg

http://www.pixelmaths.com/martin/pro...ase/rtr_05.jpg

When I was done with the wire, I secured the plastic cover back to the plastic pins with the help of some electrical tape - just like it was before I touched it.

When I finished working with the 12V wire (green) I had to find a place to connect the "ground" wire for the solenoid. I found a nice bolt inside the trunk lid. I tested it with the DMM to see if it is connected to ground and bolted the solenoid's ground wire to it.

http://www.pixelmaths.com/martin/pro...ase/rtr_07.jpg

Here's a close-up:

http://www.pixelmaths.com/martin/pro...ase/rtr_08.jpg

This concluded the electrical part of the project.
Now for some mechanical "fun".

It was quite easy to find a place for the solenoid and mount it. The difficult part was hooking up the wire to the hook that was there. At first I just wrapped the wire around the stock hook and tied it with a bolt - just to test the solenoid and see if it will pop the trunk.

http://www.pixelmaths.com/martin/pro...ase/rtr_09.jpg

It worked! Now I had to use the hook that came with the kit and hook it up to the hook of the trunk (too many hooks, eh?). It was tricky adjusting the pulling wire to the right lenght... After that I just had to put it in the wire holder clamp on the hook (that came with the kit) and tie the nut to secure everything in place.

After that I just had to tweak everything just a little bit and that was it! Now I have a remote trunk release in my 1997 Protege!

The most difficult part was connecting my wires to the ones in the car. I had to get under the dash... I am 6'1", so that wasn't very easy for me. The rest of the stuff was a piece of cake compared to that.

I don't have a good picture of the final product, because I couldn't get very close with my camera. If someone wants to see such a picture, I could use my macro adapter and take a few more pictures from up-close so you can see "the hook" and all that other stuff that's used to hook up the solenoid to the hook of the trunk. But that's only if someone rises a hand or a leg and says that they want to see it... :cool:

I hope that this was helpful/inspirational. :)

See you around!

Martin