Hey folks, in a bit of a pinch here, so apologize for not extensively researching this before the post. At the moment my car is stuck in a parking lot. I drove it fine yesterday, and upon trying to restart the car to head home I couldn't turn it over. It's not a battery issue. Everything boots up, power FC boots up, etc, and I have plenty of voltage. When putting the key fully into start you hear what sounds like probably the fuel pump kicking in, and that's about it.

I think it's related to the OEM Theft Deterrent cutoff. I noticed before I left, though it has happened before, that when I opened the passenger's side door my alarm system kicked in. Odd because both doors were unlocked. I started getting the relay clicking on and off to flash the lights (horn and headlights did not sound or open and close though, weird). I went to the driver's door, put the key in to toggle locked / unlocked and that stopped it. I was able to start the car fine and leave my house.

Some known details. First, I don't think it's the clutch switch. Reason for this is because I actually have a remote starter on the car (yes on a manual), and tried that as well. This bypasses the clutch and key switch, but that also didn't turn the car over. It tried to do so 3 times and then stopped. It could be related to that, but I feel like that would be unlikely at this point, and I don't typically use this. Also, I don't often lock my car – rarely do I drive the car anywhere any leave, even at a show, where I locked it up. So if it is related so something in that part of the system, it is possible that it was just a time bomb waiting to happen. Completely bizarre that it waited until AFTER I drove the car somewhere and couldn't just do this in my garage!

I checked a couple of fuses the I could look up on the fly like the 15A that for the starter, but that was OK.

There was another post on the forum mentioned that you could bypass that Theft deterrent relay, but hoping to get some direction on how to do that safely and easily while on the ground in a parking lot. However, if anyone has any other thoughts, I'd be grateful!

 

I posted this in the other thread as well, but cross-posting it here for posterity:

I had this problem on mine. It was the starter relay.

Installing a starter booster like this one fixed it.

 

Thank you @TheWulf - appreciate that!

 

Quick update. I was able to start the car this AM after it sat overnight. One theory I have is that the oem alarm system fully re-armed overnight. While I was troubleshooting it I was not necessarily going through a full re-lock / arm / unlock, process to shake it loose. It's the only theory I have as to why it worked today. So, when I unlocked my driver's side door today I heard that familiar subtle "beep", which lead me to believe that maybe the Theft Deterrent cutoff relay may have properly triggered. The car turned over just fine. So, I think that for several reasons there is still probably something wrong with that relay, or at least the voltage getting to it. I'm going to try jumping it, as well as installing that Bonzai starter booster. From what I can tell that can't hurt!

I am also going to follow the suggestion for removing the rear clutch switch and giving it a really good contact clean (assuming that isn't a major pain to do so).

 

Just installing a bypass wire loop on the clutch switch would be an easy enough test. The need for a starter booster usually behaves as a click,click,click, start - but if you're turning the key to crank and getting no sounds whatsoever it seems more like a clutch bypass from a standard troubleshooting perspective. You can make those starter boosters yourself with (preferably) a waterproof 4 wire relay and some male/female spades and a ring terminal.

You could be onto it with the alarm but more often than not it's the more simple stuff.