• eGuard system kit
• pliers
• scissors
• a copy of your bike's wiring diagram
• voltmeter
• small piece of wire to use as a jumper wire

background.
eGuard Systems recently sent me one of their kits to review for the Women on Wheels magazine. Since my review will focus mainly on the system's performance, and will only briefly mention installation, I wanted to do a separate installation review.

pre-procedure.
Decide where you want to attach the little unit. I decided to stick it underneath the main seat, towards the rear. Obviously, this required removing the seat.

You'll also want to raise the tank, so that you can get at the various wires that you'll need.

Since you'll be futzing with wiring, disconnect the motorcycle battery by removing the ground wire from the negative terminal.

procedure.

Mount the eGuard unit. It comes with a couple of pieces of Velcro; just stick one piece to the unit and one to the appropriate place on the bike.

There are four wires coming off of the eGuard unit: an orange and white battery wire, a green and white tachometer wire, a black and white ground wire, and a blue and white oil pressure switch wire. The first thing to do is figure out where to splice each of these wires into your bike's existing wiring system, and route all the wires to the appropriate places.

battery wire:
The eGuard instruction sheet suggesting splicing the orange and white battery wire to the switched battery wire on an ignition coil. The rear ignition coil on the SVS is nicely accessible with the tank up; the positive switched wire is the orange one on the coil's righthand side. Refer to your motorcycle's wiring diagram if you have any confusion or doubts.

Route eGuard's orange/white battery wire to this ignition coil and trim off any extra wire. Remember to err on the side of leaving too much wire as opposed to cutting off too much. You can always trim more wire later if necessary.

tachometer wire:
The eGuard instruction sheet suggests using the negative post on the ignition coil for this one, which seemed like a fine idea to me. This time, you'll be using the white wire on that rear ignition coil.

Route eGuard's green/white tachometer wire to this ignition coil and trim off any extra wire.

ground wire:
I found that the most accessible ground wire was the one that runs from the fuel level sensor underneath the tank. The fuel level sensor has three wires that run to a white locking connector: a green/white wire, a red wire, and a black/white wire. The latter is ground.

Route eGuard's black/white ground wire to this fuel level sensor and trim off any extra wire.

oil pressure sensor wire:
The SVS's oil pressure sensor is found on the front of the bike, right next to the oil filter.

Follow the oil pressure sensor wire up, and you'll see that it winds up at a small white locking connector next to the airbox.

This is where you're going to want to splice into the wire. Route eGuard's blue/white oil pressure wire to this locking connector and trim off any extra wire.

connecting the wires:
Now that you have all of your wires routed to the appropriate places, it's time to splice them to the existing wires.

eGuard's system includes four crimp-on connectors, also called T-Taps. They're really easy to use -- no cutting or soldering required. I'll use the oil pressure sensor wire to demonstrate how to use them; it's the same procedure for all four wires.

First, set the existing wire into the connector so that it fits all the way down in the slot. If the metal crimp prevents the wire from seating all the way, use a needlenosed pliers to pull it back a little.

Next, slide the new wire into the hole on the side of the connector. Make sure the wire goes past the metal crimp and hits the other side of the connector.

Use pliers to squeeze the metal crimp until it's flush with the plastic connector.

Snap the connector's cover closed. Usually this is pretty easy, though I did have to use the pliers again for a particularly stubborn one.

Repeat this procedure for the rest of the wires.

testing:
First, reconnect the motorcycle battery.

To test your wiring, simply turn on your bike's ignition. You should hear the eGuard unit report on the battery's state: even tones for "OK" and falling tones for "needs charging". If you don't hear anything, check to make sure your kill switch is on -- I forgot that one at first. If the ignition and kill switch are both on, and you still don't hear anything, bust out the voltmeter. Check the orange/white battery wiring on the ignition coil and the black/white ground wiring on the fuel level sensor.

Next, start the bike and let it idle. Make sure your oil pressure light goes out after a few seconds, as it's supposed to. To test the oil sensor wiring, use a jumper cable (or, as we did, the probes from the voltmeter) to short the oil sensor connector to ground. You should hear eGuard's system complaining about your oil pressure. It'll stop when you remove the jumper cable.