I'm just wondering if this is a good idea? to make a switch so that your ECM fuse would act as if it was blown

no fuse no starting? or am I wrong

 

are lots of different places that a kill switch could be spliced into the vehicles harness.

fuel injected thirdgens will not run without power to the ecm.

thirdgens with electronically controlled carberators will start up and be driveable without power to the ecm. car will run very rich though.

 

I always thought it'd be better to put a kill switch in the fuel pumps' power line. That way if someone did steal your car they would get a little ways away, then the car would just die. Odds are they would just want to get the hell out of there before someone stumbles upon them sitting in a dead car.

On the other hand, if you make it so they just can't get it started, the bad guys may get pissed and trash your interior just in spite. I know it MAY happen with the first scenario, but I think the chances are smaller.

Just my two cents,
Steve

 

i know my 84z8 with a carb will run without an ecm connected, cause i cant keep my fuse from blowing and its running rich and crappy, i wish i knew how to stop it from blowing. i tried it in my 91 z28, it ran real quiet, like it wasnt running. scauffiel right, dont **** of the thugs.

 

Wouldn't killing the power to the ECM also reset it everytime making it (the ECM) have to 'learn' (fine tune itself more or less) eash time you drive it ?

 

ya that's what I'm wondering

does no fuse = no power to the ecm?

having the ecm relearn everything isn't fun

 

I'm going to hook my starter kill switch of my keyless entry into my fuel injector fuse. Anyone know what color this wire is out of the fuse box? I know the 89's have a fues for the injectors its in the owners manual.

I figured if I ever see someone steeling my car or get carjacked I can hit the starter kill switch on the remote as they drive off and the car will die and cost to a stop.

I agree, when the bad guys can't get your car started they will trash it. I had it happen. I was in atlanta for school and It was finals week and I knew I would not be driving my car the entire week. It was parked in an insecure lot. I had gotten in the habbit of taken off my coil wire and putting one that had no connectors in the boots. The guys that tried to still my car knew what they were doing. You could see the evidence of a vats bypass hooked up, The steering lock busted and the rod that goes to the started switch in the floor was pulled out so all you had to do was push the rod to crank the car. Anyways, my battery was almost dead just above the red zone on the gauge when I descovered my car was broken into, they were nice enough to close my doors atleast so I know they had tried to crank it a few times because nothing in the car was on.

But when they didn't get my car to crank, they riped out my cd player, busting the radio pod and face plate. They busted the he** out of my console in the process. I had a wiring adapter so I didn't have to cut the wires in it, and instead of unpluging it they cut the wires off the car's connector. So I had to wire my next one in directly.

They also scraped my (1 mo old paint at the time) around the windshild, when they slimed jim my door open.

That week they were 5 cars stolen off campus.
2 newer corvetts
porsche new model
jaguar
BMW

3 other attempts

That next week I heard of three thirdgen firebirds and one camaro stolen, I guess the cars were on some lists for some reason.

Go figure, where was the campus police while all this happened.

Anyways this happened about 2 years ago, I fixed everying the next week. Excluding my Radio, $400 in damages to get it back like I had it.

The thing is all the police would do was file a report, I tried to get them to finger print the car, I know the key an lock arear they busted would only have two sets of prints theirs and mine. No dice they wouldn't even consider it, he just offered to call a tow truck, I said don't worry about it. Put the coil wire back in place and shorted the vats system with a resister the same value as my key and hotwired her to drive it to my parents house for repair. I think I shocked the cop, he didn't think I could get it to crank.

The point is if they want it and are truly good car thefts they will get your car, a kill switch will only throw a joyrider. But put one in an non normal place, or make it look like part of the car.

Sorry about the long post, I got going and couldn't stop :-)

 

I guess I came off lucky then

when my dad owned the car before me there were two attempts at getting the car started

luckily they could never get it, most likely they were scared off

the thing about it now though.. our cars even in the best shape are only worth 5k.. when there are so many damn civics 12k+ sitting right next to it

why do the theifs always try and go for our cars?

 

because they are fun to drive!!!!!!!

 

Just food for thought, but another good reason for doing it that way is that if the thief never moves the car (your kill switch succeeds), it (the damage) may only be considered vandalism by ye olde insurance company. If the thief manages to move the car a little ways, you'd still recover the car, yet the insurance would have to consider it stolen, which pays out a lot more than vandalism.

If you do interrupt the ECM fuse, be sure to interrupt the right one. The one in the fuse box is the switched power to the ECM which is what is needed to run the thing. Trying to run the car without power to there could hurt the ECM. The fuse by the battery is the constant power source, which is used for keeping the ECM's memory contents alive, and also feeds the fuel pump. That's the circuit you'd want to interrupt for a kill switch.

 

I dunno, Steve, suppose the car dies at the wrong moment? You could end up with your car junked even worse than if they trashed your interior if the thief ended up in an accident when the engine died.

Mathius

 

can anyone post a picture of the ECM fuse by the battery of a 1989 camaro

or if it's the same place in any other fbody post a picture aswell

 

True. However, I'll take the chance on that rather than having my interior trashed. I don't think my car would even make it near leaving my subdivision before running out of juice; which means it's probably not near any serious traffic. I dunno either.

S.

 

Like it has been said it would be better to move. One thing you could do is install a kill switch to the fuel pump, and when you get to a location where you might want it to work let the car run after you flip the switch. That way you use up some of the fuel there before they get into it.