Hey guys!
ChrisFix here, and today I'm going to show how to install a hidden kill switch in
your car or your truck.
And the whole point of this kill switch is to prevent somebody from stealing your car.
Even if they have your keys, if the kill switch is activated, they won't be able to start the car.
They can try to hotwire the car, they can try to jumpstart your car, push start it.
This kill switch is going to prevent the car from starting no matter what.
The only way to steal your car is going to be to tow it!
And the best part is this is an inexpensive thing to install.
It's going to cost less than $10, and it's going to take less than an hour.
It's super simple, it works on most vehicles.
Even if you already have an alarm system, this can work along with it.
And it's unfortunate that I even have to make this video.
I live in a pretty nice development.
It's pretty quiet here, everybody's pretty friendly.
But recently, we've been having a lot of break-ins.
People are getting into cars broken into, they're getting stuff stolen out of them,
There's a few cars that have been stolen from neighborhoods nearby.
My buddy saved up for a long time to get one of his favorite cars,
a Honda S2000 in pristine condition,
only to have it stolen and parted out a few days later.
Not only was he heartbroken about his car getting stolen,
but that feeling of helplessness and getting taken advantage of by a criminal was
horrible!
So that is exactly why I'm going to be showing all of you guys how to install a kill
switch, so you don't have to feel that way.
You don't have to lose your car.
Also, a lot of people are stealing stuff from garages (don't look at that garage, it's a
mess), so I'm also going to be installing a SimpliSafe security system.
I've got a camera, I've got a bunch of sensors, all that good stuff, so the garage
is gonna be protected and the cars are gonna be protected.
And here's all the tools that you need, it's super basic.
We have a switch, we have crimp connectors, we have 16-gauge wiring.
You need a multimeter, crimpers, wire strippers, heat gun,
and, as always, when you're working on a car, make sure you wear your safety
glasses.
So enough talking, let me go show you how to install a kill switch.
And to start, you're gonna want to know the basics on how this is gonna work.
So the kill switch that we're going to install is gonna cut the power to the fuel pump relay.
So this right here is the car battery.
It supplies the 12V through the relay into the fuel pump.
So our fuel pump is pumping fuel into the engine and the engine will run.
Think of this relay as an on/off switch.
When you put your key in the ignition and turn it to the RUN position to start your car,
the computer is telling the fuel pump relay to turn on,
and that is supplying power to the fuel pump.
So what we're gonna do is we're gonna splice in our kill switch
right here.
That way, when our kill switch is activated, it cuts the circuit.
The computer cannot send a signal to this relay, and this relay will not send power to
the fuel pump.
Therefore, the car won't start.
It's really simple.
All you need to do is find the fuel pump relay, and I'll show you how to do that right
now.
Now the fuel pump relay is located in different spots for different vehicles.
It'll be different in this Honda compared to this truck, and so on and so forth.
To find your fuel pump relay, just check your owner's manual, check the service
manual, do a quick online search, "1993 Honda Del Sol fuel pump relay location", or
whatever your vehicle is.
In this case, it is right under the dash, let me show you right down here.
You can see right here is our fuse box.
A lot of the times, the relay's in the fuse box.
But in this case, Honda puts their relays back here.
Here are all the different relays.
And this gray relay right here is the fuel pump relay for this Honda.
Now if you're not 100% sure if this is the correct relay, one thing that you can do to
test, is to put your fingers on it.
And when we turn the key to the RUN position, the relay should click on.
[click]
You'll hear the fuel pump run for a couple seconds,
and then it'll click off because the fuel pump is primed.
I can feel it, and I can hear it, so I know for sure this is the correct relay.
Now to disconnect the wiring harness, you just press in this tab right here with your
fingers, and wiggle this back and forth.
Like that, and pull it out.
Never pull from the wires, always pull from the connector so we don't damage anything.
And as you can tell, there's a ton of wires here, so how do we know which one we
need to tap into with our kill switch?
Well, it's pretty easy to figure out.
Let me go show you how to do that now.
So grab a multimeter.
I'm gonna set it down right here.
And we'll start by connecting the black probe to a ground.
So we need to find a bare metal surface, like this.
And right here, you can see a nice bare metal surface which is holding our hood
release in.
So grab your ground wire and connect it right to that chassis ground.
And now our multimeter is grounded.
And now we're gonna grab our multimeter and turn it on to DC volts.
You want to set it to 20 DC volts because 12 volts is the highest we're gonna see.
Now we're gonna take our red probe and what we're gonna do is we need to find
which of these wires is gonna be hot, is gonna be on providing 12V when the car is
in the RUN position only.
So when we turn the key, we get 12V.
That's the wire coming from the computer going to this, triggering that relay.
But before we turn the car to the RUN position, we just wanna check real quick
with the car off if any of these are 12V.
If we find one that's 12 volts, we can ignore that wire.
That one is hot all the time.
And that's what the relay's gonna connect to, to power the fuel pump.
So the top right corner is hot all the time, 12V all the time.
We don't have to worry about that one.
Now let's turn the car to the RUN position.
So now with the key in the RUN position, we're gonna probe each one of these
and just see which one is gonna be our trigger wire, our 12V.
There we go, so we have 12V with this one right here.
I just wanna check the others just to double-check and make sure.
Good, no voltage, and obviously, this one will be 12V, that's always hot.
So this one right here, I'm gonna probe, I'm gonna push this in.
That one is 12V with the key on.
If I shut the key,
it goes down to 0 volts.
When I turn the key on,
it goes back up to 12 volts.
So we wanna follow that probe into the wire, the probe's at the top here.
So it's this wire right here.
You can see that's the correct wire.
That is the wire that is coming from the computer and then triggering our relay to
turn it on to give power to the fuel pump.
So we need to splice into this wire right here.
Now before we go cutting any wires any time you work with the wiring harness,
we wanna go under the hood and remove the negative cable from the battery.
This will just prevent anything from shorting out or blowing any fuses.
And it's what you wanna do any time you work on an electrical system.
Now splicing into the factory harness is gonna be the part that most people are
apprehensive about.
They don't wanna do it because, well, what happens if you do something wrong?
But don't worry, this is really easy!
Here's a few quick tips.
First, you don't want to cut near the connector.
You also don't want to cut near the end here, you want to cut in the middle so you
have a lot of room on both sides to work and splice in a new wire.
So we're gonna cut right here.
Good.
So now grab your wire strippers.
These are automatic wire strippers that makes it nice and easy in these tight areas.
You just clamp down,
and it strips it right off.
So that's one side done.
Let me give you a closer look when we do the other side.
You just put the wire where you want it to get stripped.
And the automatic wire stripper does its job.
Beautiful!
So now that both of our ends are stripped, we can add our kill switch.
But we're not gonna wanna add the kill switch right here.
We wanna hide our kill switch which is not gonna be right next to this.
So when hiding your kill switch, there's two things you wanna think about.
The first thing, you wanna put it in a place that's easy to get to.
Somewhere, you don't have to reach all the way into the glove box every time and
fiddle around.
You're gonna be doing this every time you go to start your car.
So you wanna make it simple to get to.
Now with it being simple to get to, you don't wanna make it easy to find.
So you don't wanna just put it under the dash where the criminal's gonna look.
That's like the first place when they can't go to start the car, they're gonna feel for
switches down here.
So don't put it under the dash, you wanna find someplace hidden, someplace where,
you know, they're not likely to look.
The radio's actually not a good idea, because a lot of criminals when they can't
steal your car, they're gonna try to steal your radio.
But a lot of people like to put it underneath the seat, you have to reach somewhere.
It's harder to find.
It's easy to get to.
Another place is the glove box.
Again, if you have stuff in here, it's harder to find, but it's easy to get to.
Get creative, this is the part where you can have some fun!
So I'm gonna share with you my spot.
I'm gonna end up having to change it because millions of you are gonna see this.
But my spot, which I think is a really cool creative idea is in the shifter boot.
So underneath the shifter boot, we're gonna find a spot.
You can't see the switch, but you can easily feel it and turn it on and off.
So that's where we're gonna place our kill switch.
But again, be creative!
Have fun with this.
Place it somewhere unique.
So since I told you we're gonna put it right here, this is where we're gonna go and run
our wires from.
So let's take the center console apart.
Since the previous owner never put the screws back into the console, it lifts right out.
Same with the front part of the console.
Oh, we gotta unscrew the shift knob first.
Good.
Now the console will come out the rest of the way.
And check this out!
We have a flat surface down here,
and a flat surface up here to mount the switch into.
Now we wanna unscrew the two screws holding in the shifter boot.
That's one.
And let's get the other.
Good.
And now the shifter boot comes right out just like that.
Next, let's grab the switch and match it up to see if it'll fit.
And that's looking pretty good right there.
So let's make a mark in the middle here.
Then grab a centerpunch and we want to indent the spot we just marked.
And what this does is it puts a little indentation.
That way, when we get our drill bit, the drill bit won't skip around, it falls right into that
indentation, and it won't move at all so it makes it a lot easier to drill.
So we're gonna start with this small drill bit,
and then we're gonna work our way up to this bigger one.
So on a slow speed and with some decent pressure, let's get the first hole drilled out.
Now with the bigger drill bit, let's drill the hole out to fit the switch.
Good.
Now we can test fit our switch.
Beautiful, now we can add our On/Off plate.
This is gonna act more like a washer since we're not actually gonna be able to see this.
Then I'm gonna add a little bit of thread locker on here just so our switch doesn't
come loose.
And then we have our locking nut which goes right on the end and we can tighten
this down.
And our switch works great, that's perfect!
The only thing that I'm concerned about is,
these wires right here against this metal surface.
Over time, they could chafe, and that can short out, we could break a wire, and then
we wouldn't be able to start our car.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get a little rubber wire protector, and I'm gonna
just slide this over the wires.
I'll slide that down,
And you can see, now it's protected so our wires won't chafe.
We'll add a little bit of black tape to hold that in place,
and that is good to go.
Now the last thing we need to do is we need to make a quick disconnect.
That way, if we ever need to remove this interior piece, we can easily just disconnect
this.
And to do that, we're gonna use these crimp-on spade connectors.
All they do is they slide right in, and there's a good connection there.
And then when you wanna separate it...
They come right apart.
So we're gonna put two of the male spade connectors on the end here.
But first, let's add some heat shrinking on each wire.
Then we can push on our spade connector.
Crimp it so there's a good connection, and so this doesn't come loose.
Move the heat shrink up over the connector.
Finally, use a heat gun to shrink the heat shrink.
And do the same exact thing to the other spade connector.
Push it on,
crimp it,
move the heat shrink up,
and use a heat gun to shrink the heat shrink.
And there we go, now we have two quick disconnects, spade connectors that are
properly crimped and heat shrinked on there.
Alright, so with our switch in, that works absolutely perfect.
That's so good.
Now we can go and install this back in the car.
And back in the car, we need to run some wire.
We're using 16-gauge wire.
And we need to run it from right about here
all the way under the dash to our fuel pump relay.
So I'm going to put the wire on the shifter since that's about where it's going to end up.
And it also makes it easier for us to run it all the way to the relay.
So make sure you have enough wire, then we can cut it.
And since we need 2 wires, use the wire you just cut to measure the second wire.
And we can cut it to the same length.
Now let's strip the ends of the wires.
Add heat shrink to both wires.
Then add the female spade connector and crimp it.
Then do the same for the other wire as well.
Finally, move the heat shrink over the entire connector
and use a heat gun to shrink the heat shrink.
Perfect, and I always like to run wires in a wire loom to protect it from chafing.
So just press the wires into the loom, and work it all the way to the end of the loom.
Good, now we can run our wires.
Let's snake this back behind the center console area
so it's hidden and out of the way.
Then we can connect our switch to each of the connectors.
Don't worry, the order you connect these in is not important.
Just make sure the connection is good and tight.
And I'm going to add some electrical tape to each connector to make sure it's extra
secure, and it's shielded so it doesn't ground out by mistake.
OK, so slide the loom all the way up to the back of the switch so the wires are protected.
Good.
And finally, we can snap our center console back into place and get the shift knob on.
And let's try out this switch...
Beautiful!
That is such a perfect spot for a kill switch!
OK, now let's finish running our wire to the relay so we can try this out.
Now when you're running your cable down here, you want to be very careful.
You don't want to get in the way of the clutch, the brake, or the accelerator pedal.
So you want to make sure this is up and out of the way.
So let's get it up and over that metal brace,
then up and over the steering column,
and finally, tuck it behind the fuse box back by the relay.
And now with the wiring harness up and out of the way,
so it won't get in the way of anything like the pedals,
we can connect our kill switch to the wires that go to the relay.
So here we're going to use crimp butt connectors.
And when using these, you want to make sure the copper goes all the way in.
You don't want any copper exposed like that.
If the copper sticks out into the clear area, cut it and make sure the copper goes all
the way in, just like that.
Then we can crimp that side of the connector.
And finally, give it a good tug.
Make sure this crimp is tight and the wire won't come out.
And that's in there good.
Now let's crimp the other side, and it's the same process.
Push the wire all the way in,
then crimp it,
and finally, we can heat shrink both sides with the heat gun.
So with that side done, now let's go do the other side.
We're going to follow the same exact process, get that crimp connector in there,
make sure there's no copper showing,
crimp down on it nice and tight,
and then double-check to make sure it's in there good, and that is not budging.
Now we can do the same thing to the wire back here.
And you can see right away the copper end is WAY too long, so let's trim it.
Then add the butt connector.
Perfect, crimp the connector nice and tight.
Then do the pull test, and that's not going anywhere!
So let's heat shrink it for a waterproof seal,
and the last thing I want to do is wrap the harness in electrical tape to make it neat.
Finally, we can push the connector into the relay, and make sure you hear a click.
Like that.
Also, don't forget to reconnect the negative cable of the battery so we can test out our
kill switch.
Alright, with that battery connected, I didn't install the center console because if there's
any issues, it makes it easier, we just have to pull this out
to make sure we can fix whatever the issue is.
I don't plan on there being any issues, but it's a good practice when you're working on
cars, don't put everything back together until you test it out.
And that's what we're about to do right now.
Moment of truth, we're in neutral.
I think the switch is deactivated, so it should be ready to start up.
[Engine starts]
Alright, it starts right up.
Foot off the clutch, and we're good to go.
Now I'm going to shut the car.
I'm going to flip our kill switch.
And I'm going to start her back up.
[Engine cranks]
Woo, baby!
Now that is what I'm talking about,
and a criminal is going to be like, "What the heck?!"
"Why won't it start?"
[Engine cranks]
Pumpin' the gas, nothing.
Flip that kill switch.
[Engine starts]
Starts right up!
Oh man, that is exciting!
So let's finish this install up by adding our last center console piece.
And there's a screw in here I'm going to tighten down to hold the console in.
Perfect, with the center console in, our kill switch is in.
Going to activate that so nobody can go and start my car.
We are done installing the kill switch, and there is one more thing to do.
And that is to install a home security system to protect my tools,
to protect my car, basically everything in my garage.
And it's actually pretty cool how I got this security system.
I posted on my Instagram asking you guys what do you do for security systems in
your car to prevent your car from getting stolen because of all these break-ins.
And SimpliSafe actually commented on my post and they sent me out this entire home
security system, so thank you SimpliSafe for supporting this video and sending me
out an entire security system.
So now let's get this installed real quick.
And the goal obviously is to protect the garage and the new vehicle that I'm going
to be putting in the garage, also the vehicles outside.
And this is very easy to set up.
If you can put a kill switch in your car, you can easily add another effective and
reliable layer of security.
Especially with these motion sensors and this glass break sensor.
And the feature that I've been wanting real bad is a security camera.
And I have it pointed to the most important part, my driveway, so I can keep an eye on
all my vehicles.
And I think you guys get the idea.
Now I'm going to install the rest of this off- camera so you don't have to watch me.
I did check online because this was sent to me.
I wanted to see how the pricing was and it was pretty fair, they also have no
contracts, and finally, I do have mine monitored by professionals.
So if somebody breaks in, they will call the cops and the cops will come, which is good.
So all my cars, my tools, all that stuff is protected.
Now we have all the cars, I need to put kill switches in the rest of them, but all of the
cars have kill switches in them and then I have a security system ready to go.
And the reason why besides people breaking in recently,
The reason why I did this...
...was because I ended up buying my dream car!
This mid-engine beast with AWD is something I've wanted since I was a little
kid, and I had to protect it.
[Series of engine revs]
And I will unveil my dream car in my next video, so stay tuned for that.
I think you guys are finally understanding why I've been getting so crazy with the
security stuff, with a home security system, installing kill switches in your
vehicle.
I hope this video helpful, I hope you learned how to install a simple kill switch.
Very cheap, very effective.
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And as always, all the tools and products I used in this video
are linked in the description.
Stay tuned!