Kill switch wiring

[Greg Amy]

Don't overthink it; it's all about safety.

Think of it this way: what if you were upside down in a Miata and the damn thing caught on fire, still running thus the alternator still juicing, and it was porking out fuel from a ruptured fuel line; what would YOU think about "just a few seconds" of additional chassis electricity after hitting the kill switch?

After all, what's "just a few seconds" of ruptured fuel line between friends?

That's the kind of stuff I think of when I'm tech'ing a car. If I tested your kill switch and it continued to run "just a few seconds" after I hit the switch, I'm dingin' ya, plain and simple. You can argue all the technicalities you want - and you'd be right, from a purely technical standpoint - but when you hit the kill switch the engine should stop, right then and there, with no power to anything at all, no delay, no dwell time, and certainly not within a few seconds.

And that's really the way it should be.

And when it comes down to it, how is splicing into the alternator field circuit wire (or the ignition circuit wire) any more difficult than splicing into the fuel pump wire? Just do it "correctly" and everyone's happy, yes? - GA