Hi,

F-Body's getting stolen around my area left and right. I was wondering if there was an easy way to tap into the bundle of wires underneath the steering wheel or passenger-side kick panel to wire a kill switch inline.

I have a 2000 Camaro, if this is a feasible idea could somebody tell me which wires?

Also heard about people wiring the kill switch into the traction control button. I don't have traction control on my car but i suppose maybe the fog light button?

Figured this would be just something simple as an additional deterrent because as we all know, if they want your car bad enough, they'll get it one way or another.

I also have the Racetronix hotwire harness on the car so not sure if that would provide an easy way to wire in a switch... however, i guess wiring the switch into the car will negate the simplicity.

 

Easiest way is to get a 40 amp toggle switch and hide it where its easy to get to, use this to interrupt the starter wire under the column, i belive its the thick yellow wire (it is on my 93) but double check with a test light to be sure.

 

Just buy a ASR button (traction control) and put it in like your car has traction control and wire the kill switch that way.

Easy to get to and others wouldn't think it was a kill switch, they would just assume it's for traction control.

 

The problem with that is that the ASR switch is a momentary switch. That will work fine if you want your kill to be the default condition and you have to push and hold the switch to enable the car (for example, the starter relay wired through the switch so the car won't start unless you're also holding the switch). If you want it to do something like disable the ignition or fuel pump then you'll need to add a latching relay so that a single press of the switch will activate something and keep it active. A useful device is the PAC TR-7 trigger output module. It can convert momentary switch pulses into different actions and costs less than $20.

 

I cut and tapped into the fuel pump relay wire and PCM ignition wire, which are both in that harness that runs along the passenger side of the engine bay. This means running 4 wires (in a cable) through the firewall, to a DPST switch. All low current wires. The starter will run, but engine obviously won't run.

 

perhaps another fog light switch? thats a on/off switch.

i dont have a manual for my car so im not sure what color wire i should tap into. if i remember correctly, the f-body wiring colors varied between years?

 

Yes, a fog light switch can be used as an on/off kill switch.

It's hard to say which wire color and location to use without knowing which circuit you want to interrupt. There are dozens of ways to kill a car electrically - starter relay, ignition control, fuel pump relay, PCM power, etc. Which method you want to use will determine wire color and location. And no, with few exceptions, the wiring colors didn't change between model years.

 

thank you.

i was thinking the kill switch would be for the fuel pump relay? unless there's a better circuit to interrupt in your opinion?

 

For fuel pump control you have several options...

The easiest wiring would be having your switch interrupt the fuel enable signal from the BCM to the PCM. This is the dark blue wire in position D8 of the blue 32-pin connector at the BUM (between a light blue wire and a white/black wire). That is the same wire used by the VATS system. If not connected, the PCM will not enable the fuel pump and the engine won't run. However, if you have a custom tune, the PCM may have been set to ignore that signal as part of an attempt to disable VATS.

Next, you could interrupt the fuel pump relay trigger wire that comes from the PCM. It is a dark green/white wire in position 9 of the red connector at the PCM. Be careful, there are several dark green/white wires in that connector - the one you want is between a white wire and a light blue/white wire. Alternatively, you can get the same wire under the fuel pump relay itself in the junction box on the left fenderwell. Either way, you're going to have to extend your switch wires through the firewall into the engine compartment.

Finally, you could directly interrupt the power going from the relay to the fuel pump. It is available at the large 48-pin instrument panel harness connector under the left side of the dash between the steering column and the kick panel. You want the grey wire in the top row position A8 between a black wire and a dark green wire. The problem here is that this circuit carries more current and I'm not sure a fog light switch could handle it. You might want to add your own relay there to be on the safe side.

 

I'd be curious about another angle on this. If f-body's are getting stolen frequently, then that probably means that they're getting towed or picked up by a flatbed. The chip in the key is actually a very robust system, that locks itself out if someone tries to tamper with it.

If that's the case, then even 40 kill switches won't help. You'd want a quality alarm with a bright security LED, LOJACK at the minimum so that police can track it back down, and if you feel like spending the money, one of the alarms with cellular service built in. These would allow you to track the vehicle yourself.

Maybe I'm not understanding this correctly, but that's my point of view on protecting your car from theft.

 

As a bit of a reality check, 4th generation f-bodies are not a common target of theft. Theft of 4th generation Firebirds averaged only 627 per year nationally since 2010. The 2001 Camaro is the most stolen 4th generation and it barely reaches half the thefts of such "desirable" vehicles as the Dodge Intrepid and Chevy Metro.

Considering the newest is 15 years old, their value is relatively small and parts are plentiful, it's probably safe to assume that they aren't being targeted by professionals and most thefts are likely crimes of opportunity. For most people, locking the car and having a functional VATS system is probably sufficient to prevent those thefts but a kill switch could be that extra layer of protection that makes a thief move on to something else.

 

Thats ultimately the worse thing that can happen, fake tow truck/flatbed repo. Seems to be getting very popular around the greater Houston area. Good news is if the thief is smart he/she will drop it off some where remote out of site for a couple days to see if the police come, meaning the car has GPS on it and can be recovered. Bad news if it doesn't have GPS chances are you will never see it again.

I'm with you do everything possible to prevent it from being stolen, but if it does get fake repo'd (stolen) then you get an early start and you and the police can start tracking it immediately! If it happened to me the thief's better hope the police get to my camaro before I do…

 

thank you WhiteBird00! when i get around to it i will post up my results

theft around here for the F-Body is for the engine and T56 to swap into other cars. the cars are being driven off, i am not really sure how. one of my friends actually caught somebody in the process is disabling their alarm (reaching underneath the front of the car and opening the compartment by the turn signals to disconnect the horn).

The F-Body theft has actually calmed down some here in CA. They're going for the 5th gen camaros, C6 Z06, and C7s now with the better engines

 

The only way that I could see people driving off with these cars, would be if they had access to the keys at some point. If you knew the resistor value of the chip in the key, then it would be fairly simple to drive off with one. Otherwise, you would end up locking the system out while attempting to find the match. That is unless the thief was EXTREMELY lucky.

If you feel that someone has had access to your key, now you get into a situation where a kill switch could really help. I have done many kill switches for customers, and what you use as the switch is completely up to you. You have tons of options.

 

Phono/headphone jack is as stealthy as it gets. Hide it in plain sight and prospective thieves will never think it might actually be a circuit interrupter.

 

tell me more!

 

Heh the easiest one is the seat belt warning light. So if some one tries to steal the car they usually don't just hop in and put their seat belt on. Also works to make sure you buckLe up every time


Most fbodies that get stolen get taken on a flat bed or by a tow truck, and not by hotwiring

 

Bigsticksupra. Any report on results after your kill switch install? Trying to do one on my fbody as my previous was taken and never recovered. Don't want it to happen again with this one, so a fuel pump relay killswitch seems like the best bet for me.

 

unfortunately, no as I sold my F-body in 2018. however, 2024 is off to a great start and I am back in an F-body (2000 Camaro SS) and thought I'd revisit this thread as I never got to do what was discussed here and need to do it to my new car.

with that said, what is the best wire to interrupt with an on/off switch for a theft deterrent "kill switch"? VATS, fuel pump relay, etc.? I know there are many ways to go about doing this but I'd like to know what is the best/most effective. thanks, and PM me if necessary!

 

The best kill switch option will depend on what you want to accomplish and what modifications you have made to your car.

If you want to prevent a parked car from being started and it has the stock VATS or you have done a bypass without programming the PCM then the easiest and most effective option is to put a switch in one of the VATS key resistor wires connected near the BCM. This will disable the starter as well as the fuel enable signal to the PCM, so even if a thief gets it to start, it won't continue to run without fuel. This is the theory behind VATS. Putting a switch in that connection means that your ignition key (or bypass) won't be seen by VATS. Even if the thief is smart enough to have one of those VATS bypass modules in an attempt to steal a stock car, it won't work because the connection is cut off by your switch further "downstream". Yes, if they tow your car and have time to work on it somewhere else, they could get it to run, but that's not the purpose of a kill switch... you want them to give up and move on to an easier target.

Another option would be a switch in the clutch switch or neutral safety switch wiring (depending on transmission type) which will prevent starting. The clutch switch would be fairly easy, the neutral safety switch not so much.

A switch wired to the IGN fuse or the fuel pump relay under the hood would prevent the car from running but be a little more work to install. You'd have to run your wiring through the firewall to your switch and the IGN fuse is high current so you'd need heavy gauge wire, or better yet a relay. You'd also want to do a good job of disguising your wiring since, once a thief is in your car, it's no problem for them to pop the hood and have a look for add-on wiring.

The most important thing is to make sure your switch and wiring are well hidden. The best way is to use a factory switch. For example, in a Camaro, you can add a second fog light switch. In a Firebird you can add a convertible top or traction control switch with a latching relay (since they are momentary switches). If you don't ever use your manual dome light switch then you can use it as a kill switch. The dome light switch is triggered by turning the dimmer dial all the way up, but it's actually wired separately from the dash lights. You'll have to add a relay to reverse the polarity (i.e. you want it to turn off something when the switch is turned on and vice versa), but that's really quite easy. And no thief is going to suspect the dash dimmer is a kill switch.