So after roughly 3 years I am back. I no longer own a camaro, yet a good friend of mine does and hes hoping I can help him. (And Im hoping you guys can help me lol) My buddy has a 3rd gen and unfortunatley lost his keys and of course his camaro is equipped with vats. I read a long time ago when I had the same problem that you can tap into the ignition harness and hardwire a resitior matching the ohm of the orignial in the key. Im hoping some one can a. help me figure out where the resistor needs to be wired in at and b. since he lost the key I obviously cant measure the resisntance in the chip. Any ideas?

 

http://www.thirdgen.org/vats


As for the correct resistance, there if I recall was only 10 different settings used on 3rd gens. I recall reading this when I was bypassing my vats. I think I am right but please don't hold me to that. (In reality it did not matter since my actual vats module was went.)

edit: Ok i lied. 15

http://www.thirdgen.org/vats_passkey_system

 

So since I dont have the original key sounds the only way to do this would to buy all 15 resistors and tap into the ignition lock and try each, one at a time, waiting 4 minutes between each for the system to reset?

 

Pretty much. The good news is that there's such a small number of them and resistors are incredibly cheap.

 

wow im glad i dont have vats i just keep hearing bad stuff about it it seems like its all just a pain

 

I find vats pointless in these cars.

Anyone that wants to can still steal a car without the key just by bringing 15 resistors.. Takes him a bit longer though and it will keep your average idiot from hotwiring.

My problem was that the module itself stopped sending the signal to the computer. A resistor doesn't help then as the module is dead. As such, I had to buy this 40 dollar bypass box and wire it in then bypass the ignition. (There are two places it needs to be bypassed.)

Bit of a pain and did not do it myself. Should have though. The idiot that did the work was terrible and raped my car in the meantime. (Bought it from the same dude perfectly fine, no oil leaks, strong clutch, etc. Got it back beaten up, clutch burnt, Oil leaks in 3 places (still havnt found the last one), and the internal wiring he did was garbage.)

Guy had offered to do it free of charge since it was his bad when he sold it to me. (he had put in the wrong computer to bypass the vats, but it wasnt the right one for the 89.) Long story cut short, he took my car for a month and screwed me by taking my parts and using them etc. I got no proof other than what I recall as looking new is now old and worn. But, ah well. I got it away from him and saved mah new baby. lol.