Remote kill switches

[drhyne]

I just saw a picture in one of my racing magazines of a pro Mazda car with a blue cage. On both sides of the car they had a small plate attached to the main hoop with what appeared to be a fire extinguisher pull and a remote kill switch. What a great idea! It's located where anyone from the driver to a safety worker can get to it. That brings up the question of how and are we allowed. The kill switch appeared to be just a standard toggle with the flip-up safety cap. That would have to be wired to some sort of remote relay or solenoid. I've always seen the mechanical switches on the hood or something. The only info I've been able to find on remote kill switches is for security on RV's.

Is a remote switch allowed? If so, where do you get them!?

D_.

[Rich Sweigart]

Dan,


First, Showroom Stock and Touring cars are not required to have a kill switch and I would assume that Street Mod and Street Prepared are also not required to have one.
Otherwise, if you do put one in your car, it must be done as per the GCR section 17.27. In a closed car, the GCR requires that the kill switch be mounted in the follow places; front cowl or top of fender near the windshield, or mounted to a welded bracket to the rollcage or bolted to the dash(I like the passenger side because it is out of the drivers way in a crash due to harness stretch and body movement.).
Most kill switches are wired to break the circuit between the battery and the car. On most modern cars with electronics, you might want to run a hot wire to the computer; so, you don't have to reboot the CPU everytime you switch the kill switch to the off position, because sometimes the reboot kills the CPU. A kill switch requires the lightning bolt sticker.
A fire system requires a E sticker near the activation spot(pull chord or push button), if you are running a fire bottle it might be a good idea to put a E sticker near the point where one would grab the fire bottle from your car.

Rich Sweigart

[Matt Green]

if you are running a fire bottle it might be a good idea to put a E sticker near the point where one would grab the fire bottle from your car.

Richie,

We were just discussing this at the RoundTable, and the DA of Tech confirmed that the E sticker is NOT to be used with a fire bottle, only a fire system. This may just be semantics, but I figured I'd throw that out here for those who might be prepping something for ClubRacing where a system is not required.

[Rich Sweigart]

Matt,

Yeah, I can see his point. The real intent of the E sticker is to locate the activation point of the system.

Rich

[drhyne]

I realize that a kill switch is not REQUIRED in any of the classes I currently run ... BUT ... After watching Fabio's famous crash video I think it would be WISE to install one. The locations suggested are good if you are expecting only a corner worker to use them. I liked the idea of having one in the rear of BOTH window openings so that if needed I could hit the kill while still strapped in. Your quote from the GCR is also open to interpretation.

Let me put it a different way... Would I be allowed to use a remote kill switch? I really don't want to run 35 feet of 2 guage through the car!

D_.

[drhyne]

Here's one!

http://www.painlessperformance.com/webc ... attacc.htm

D_.

[Joe Foering]

Dan, the placement of the kill switch in a vehicle as described in the GCR is necessary to meet the criteria for passing the safety and tech inspection required of all competition vehicles. J. W. Orrs is the Chief Scrutineer for Time Trials in this area and Rich Sweigart is one of the scrutineers (among others). It would be advisable to check with J. W., Richard, or one of the other scrutineers so as to avoid any problems with your vehicle at "tech." Final interpretation of the rules rests with the Chief Scrutineer, not the competitor.

[drhyne]

Can you send me JW's contact info.

Thanx.

D_.

[Rich Sweigart]

Dan,

I do not think you full understand the purpose of a kill switch. A kill switch is for the corner workers to use in case of a crash(stuck throttle) or fire(fuel pump) to kill all the electrical circuits. On most cars, you would still need your ignition switch or key to start and run the car.
As far as a remote kill switch is ok and is usually hooked up to a pull cable that usually sticks up out the rear corner of the hood(still needs a lighning bolt sticker).
see http://www.behrents.com Part no. mor74105 and mor74101
http://www.racerpartswholesale.com Part no. Lar-45790

Rich

[drhyne]

REALLY.... Hmm, I thought I could just flip the switch and take out my x-wife!

D_.

[Matt Green]

I do not think you full understand the purpose of a kill switch. A kill switch is for the corner workers to use in case of a crash(stuck throttle) or fire(fuel pump) to kill all the electrical circuits.

Actually, not even ALL the electrical circuits, just the ones that make the motor run and the fuel get pumped. There's NO way that a "kill" switch can prevent all electrical flow in the engine compartment (or anywhere else for that matter), so don't think it's for trying to prevent things from sparking.

Other than that one little thing, Richie nailed it dead on. It's not for you, it's for the workers.

As far a doing a "remote" setup, that might be an interesting way to go. You could set up with a relay, and feed it 12v to make the system "hot". If anything broke the circuit, it all shuts down. Wouldn't be "legal" from a Club Racing point of view, but it would work for you since you're not required to have one. One thing though- I wouldn't do it on a street car. How'd you like to be cruising along and suddenly everything shuts off because a wire worked its way loose or something dumb... Just one more thing to go wrong.

[Tim Royer]

HI all,

Sorry but I have to throw in my 2 cents.

Matt’s statement:

Actually, not even ALL the electrical circuits, just the ones that make the motor run and the fuel get pumped. There's NO way that a "kill" switch can prevent all electrical flow in the engine compartment (or anywhere else for that matter), so don't think it's for trying to prevent things from sparking.

It must certainly will if it is done the right way. For some reason people have their own ideas about how to run or hook up a kill switch. If you don't have it hooked between the negative battery terminal and the ground your not doing it correctly. It must be there for many reasons. One is to kill the motor, fuel pump ECT and the other would be to kill the circuits in the whole car so there is less chance of a short happening.

Take for example Steve T's roll over at Pagoda. Fuel spewing everywhere with the car upside down. If there were any smashed wires or even cables it would have been ablaze after or during it being rolled over.

Now another thing is with the switch between negative and grounding point it will kill the motor. It will also kill the alternator circuit, which could and will keep the engine running.

Most Formula cars, GT, and others have no fuses or circuit breakers in the whole vehicle. (Which is nuts anyway) You must kill the circuits in the whole car because if you impact and short wires now there is nothing there to kill the circuit which could and would start a fire. Even after a fire system deploys you will still have an ignition source from the melting sparking wires.

The first person on the scene is always the driver. Make sure you can get to that switch in seconds. There is nothing saying you can't have 2 switches either. Ideally it would be best in a sedan if there were one switch on the right side outside the car at the rear corner of the hood or on the inboard side of the roll bar on the right side in the side window opening. Then a second one mounted within reach of where you are sitting.

I have found some drivers using their own rendition of a kill switch while teching cars. No names, but they are all done correctly now but I'm sure there's a few more.

Bottom line is if your not cutting the negative circuit out with that switch your wasting your time. Also in a vehicle that has an alternator I would highly recommend buying the kill switch with an alternator circuit kill.

[drhyne]

Thank you Tim!!!!

I have to apologize for my outbust at Rich. I felt insulted.

I did a considerable amount of research before posting the question. Remote kill switches are being installed in most pro drag cars and monster trucks are required to have one that can be triggered by a track official. The car I saw was from the current issue of Sports Car magazine. The fire pull and remote kill were attached to both door frames just infront of the main hoop. I contacted Tri-Point Motorsports to ask about the setup. A tech told me that they started using the remotes on both sides after a series of bad experiences. They lost several cars because the fire pull was between the seats and the kill switch was on the fender. The cars crashed in such a way that the kill switch was either inaccessable or damaged. The entire setup was inspected by SCCA National officals and has held up to their scrutiny.

My thinking behind the question is that we don't plan where we crash. Fabio didn't have a choice how his car was going to land. If he had a kill switch on the fender it would have been useless. My main concern is for the safety of my co-driver Trudy. She has already said that in a pinch she probably would not be able to get the 5lb fire extinguisher off the cage. Being strapped in with all the safety equipment she felt that having it in the car was a waste. That made me consider a remote pull Halon system. They're expensive and heavier but at least we could place the pull where she would use it. That got me thinking about the kill switch. I have been wanting to install one in the Talon for a while. I just wasn't happy with placement. Gordon's RX7 is probably the best standard switch I've seen but it's still only on ojne side. The idea of running 2 guage all over the car to both sides of the car is nuts. That stuff is .5 lbs a foot.

In the MR2 I wasn't really worried but now we have 2 DSM turbo cars. At Duryea the stock one will probably see 120 down by the ball field and the SM Talon has already done 140+ in there. At those speeds I could easily punch a big hole in the rock wall and end up very far from any corner worker. The DSM cars also have a weakness. Both fuel lines are attached to the brackets that hold the rear brake lines. That bracket hangs about a half inch below the body of the car. It's very easily damaged in a crash.

A couple years ago I assisted with a street car crash that involved a crushed car in a tree, a fire and a fuel leak. The fuel pump was runing full tilt, the occupant was out cold and the entire top of the car was crushed. We had NO WAY to stop the pump. It just kept feeding the fire. I know the kill switches are not required in my classes but that's not the point. I am just trying to make the car safer. Isn't that the goal!

[Tim Royer]

Hi,

The painless system looks good to me. Nothing bad comes out of doing something right.


http://www.painlessperformance.com/webc ... attacc.htm

[Matt Green]

It must certainly will if it is done the right way. For some reason people have their own ideas about how to run or hook up a kill switch. If you don't have it hooked between the negative battery terminal and the ground your not doing it correctly.

Now another thing is with the switch between negative and grounding point it will kill the motor. It will also kill the alternator circuit, which could and will keep the engine running.

Nope sorry. The alternator is still grounded in many cases via the case and mount. So long as the engine *keeps* running, the alternator will continue to provide power to that side of the circuit.

The first person on the scene is always the driver. Make sure you can get to that switch in seconds. There is nothing saying you can't have 2 switches either. Ideally it would be best in a sedan if there were one switch on the right side outside the car at the rear corner of the hood or on the inboard side of the roll bar on the right side in the side window opening. Then a second one mounted within reach of where you are sitting.

But again, now you have wires running around, with one side always "hot". And, if you do break the ground and the wire gets crushed, it gets grounded and you're back to square one. Don't forget, the negative side of the battery can cause sparks too...

If the driver is there, he/she can kill the offending circuits to the engine (ignition) and the pump.

As I said before, the kill switch is there for those that can't reach the normal way to shut the engine down.

[Matt Green]

A couple years ago I assisted with a street car crash that involved a crushed car in a tree, a fire and a fuel leak. The fuel pump was runing full tilt, the occupant was out cold and the entire top of the car was crushed. We had NO WAY to stop the pump. It just kept feeding the fire. I know the kill switches are not required in my classes but that's not the point. I am just trying to make the car safer. Isn't that the goal!

Thank you for making my point very clear.

[Matt Green]

Hi,

The painless system looks good to me. Nothing bad comes out of doing something right.


http://www.painlessperformance.com/webc ... attacc.htm

Wow, that looks exactly like what I suggested above!!

As far a doing a "remote" setup, that might be an interesting way to go. You could set up with a relay, and feed it 12v to make the system "hot". If anything broke the circuit, it all shuts down. Wouldn't be "legal" from a Club Racing point of view, but it would work for you since you're not required to have one.

Just don't forget Dan, if you install that fire system, make sure it's on the BATTERY side of the switch... Gee, a circuit in the car that HAS TO remain hot even with the kill switch off... Who'da thunk it?

[Matt Green]

Actually, not even ALL the electrical circuits, just the ones that make the motor run and the fuel get pumped. There's NO way that a "kill" switch can prevent all electrical flow in the engine compartment (or anywhere else for that matter), so don't think it's for trying to prevent things from sparking.

After responding to Tim and rereading, I realized that I may not have been clear here.

I'm not saying that the kill switch should ONLY kill the circuits mentioned above. I'm simply saying that those are the PRIMARY things to worry about. It should, as Tim and others have said, kill all circuits, but I was merely trying to say (for clarification) that it can never kill everything in the car.

Unfortunately, I tried to be too brief in the way I said it and it came out wrong.

The issue is this:
You can't ever prevent everything from sparking. You should try. I'm all for that. But the main purpose of that switch is to do as Dan mentioned in the situation he described- provide a means for some else to shut the car down if you (the driver) are incapacitated. Everything else is a secondary concern, albeit still an important one.

Just ask yourself, by trying to wire in this item, are you simply offering more electrical paths to be faulted? Are you really helping, or making things worse?

[Steve Tumolo]

Tim,

I understand what you are saying about hooking the Kill to the Negative side. But the one flaw with is that their are possable grounds all over a car. In a wreck when things get bent and squished you can pick up even more grounds through the body work. On the other hand the ONLY power source is the battery. If the Kill is hooked up rite the positive wire goes first to the Kill, then on to either a relay or whatever else you use to power your car. If the switch is flipped and breaks this circuit on the positive side where else would the power come from to run a fuel pump,,etc. ?

Yes killing a negative wire will shut down a car. But in a race car what happens if a car is wrecked pretty bad and the Positive wire somehow gets exposed and touches either bodywork ,roll cage..etc. Now you have an arc. This is why I think it is safer to hook it up on the positive side. Kill the power source.


Just my .2

[Richard Elliott]

Come on now! This is so simple, even a drag racer could do it. Place the cut off switch anywhere in the postive cable that fits the car. Then remove the large #10 wire from the alternator. Cut or tie it off out of harms way. NOW run a new #10 wire from the alternator directly to the postive side of the battery. Your done!!!! Now when you turn off the master switch, the juice from the battery will have no where to go except the battery. No blown diods and the ENTIRE electrical system will shut down ASAP. Told you it was simple. Try it! You'll like it! DICK