So I bought the Longacre ignition flip switch and a push button starter button. Cut the factory key operated ignition switch out of my 81 and ready to hook up the longacre parts.

My question is, if the longacre ignition flip switch is rated at 40 amps, should I use a relay before the ignition switch? The switch would last longer with a relay. Ignition Switch would just activate the relay.

Reason I'm asking is, the stock ignition switch has 10 gauge white wire red stripe coming in from battery. It switches over three other 10 gauge wires in the ON position. And in the start position it switches over a fourth in order to send current to starter solenoid. That's a LOT of amperage going thru there.

Except for the bare minimal required wiring, I removed all the unnecessary wiring. Still use stock fuse box, battery cables, and up to last sunday stock ignition switch before I cut it out.

What amperage relay should I buy, and where can I buy one?

Thanks,

 

Don't know, I want to do this myself but I hate wiring Let us know how it goes though, I am interested in switching my starter to a toggle switch too, I just know I'm going to bust the key one of these days..

PaulC

 

I buy the "fog light" relay at my local electronic supply store. it can even be had with a nice plastic plug and pigtail. these are rated at 30A and are the square black relays seen in alot of cars. the cost is about $5-$7 for the relay and pigtail. for the ignition I usually don't use the relay, but for everything else I do. there are some really nice aircraft style circuit breakers and relays available at some aircraft supply stores for the extra heavy duty setup.

 

Any good guess how many amps go thru the ignition switch?

It is powering the entire fuse box. And the stock alternator is 55 amps.

Or should I just run all 5 10 gauge wires to the 40 amp ignition switch and see if it gets hot or smokes? (ouch!)

Thanks,

 

the entire electrical load of the car does not go through the ignition switch. the ignition switch will operate relays and energize the alternater but it won't switch the entire electrical load. a digital multimeter with an amperage shunt would help you to diagnose the load on each wire.

 

tims
im just wondering if you own a white suburban with pennyweb stickers. I saw the burb on glendale blvd heading to alvarado 2 days ago during am traffic.

mel

 

nope, that's Ben the owner of PennyWeb. he has the yellow second gen on our website. he lives in the La Crescenta area and has his offices on wilshire blvd in Korea town area. I have a F350 Super Duty Ford pick up that I drive. It has a small RealRide.com Racing sticker on it.

 

Thanks Tim!

 

Yea I wired up my 1st gen IT7 car with a push button starter from Summit and toggle switches for the other circuts and added switches as dedicated to fan, fuel pump, MSD (Mil spec switches I got from retired airliners at work). All works well. Your only pullin enough amperage to activate the solenoid, and its not for a long time either.

 

got it installed and working just fine!