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Honda S2000 Starter Button Install
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 | 1 Genuine Honda S2000 starter button
| 1 SPDT relay at 30amps/12 volts
| 1 soldering iron with solder
| a good crimping tool and wire cutters
| a few colors of 12 gauge and 18 gauge copper core
wire
| some insulated 12 gauge spade or bullet style crimp
connectors of both sex (about 10 each)
| several 18 gauge vampire taps and insulated spade style
crimp connectors
| electrical tape
| Dremel tool with several small grinding
attachments
| other misc. tools | |
The Honda boys really outdid themselves with the S2000. Powerful, stylish, and you can start it with the press of a big red button marked "ENGINE START". Cool eh? I thought so. It turns out that the S2000 starter button is pretty cheap too at $45 from your local Honda dealer or about $35 shipped to your door from HandA-accessories.com.
So where are we gonna put that shiny red button? It seems to me that the lighter is the perfect spot for an engine start button. If you can't live without your lighter, you'll find a couple optional steps at the end of this document detailing how to relocate it. Mine lives inside my center console. Where you wanna put it is up to you. But first, the starter button project! Start by familiarizing yourself with your parts. You need the Button and the SPDT (single pole double throw) relay. You CAN NOT install the button without a relay. Not only is it unsafe (30 amps is way more than enough to stop your heart) but your shiny new button will also become trash after about 2 weeks of 30 amps flowing through it. Don't leave out the relay! You can find one at radioshack.com (make sure it's a 30 amp/12 volt relay) or possibly at a local car audio shop. Also, a dremel really helps this project along. The body of your S2000 button is about 1/4" larger than the hole left by your lighter. For me, the most time consuming part of this project was creating the hole. It would be possible with small hand files, but a dremel makes it much easier. I'd suggest a small round grinding wheel for enlarging the hole and a small plastic boring bit (donno if that's even the right name for it) for making the correct notches in the hole.
A quick examination of the work area would also be good.
Obviously, we're gonna be doing some work around
the lighter and the hole it leaves when you remove it. We're also gonna be doing
some work cutting and splicing some wires below the steering wheel. Take a peek
under there now and check out the wires going to your ignition switch. You're
interested in the IG2 wire (12 gauge black wire with a red stripe) and the ST
wire (12 gauge black wire with a blue stripe). Notice how one end of the wire
goes to your ignition switch and one end goes forward to the engine. We'll refer
to this as the "switch end" of the wire and the "harness end" of the wire (I'll
repeat this later). Finally, you'll do some work on a bench or table getting
leads soldered to your S2000 button and getting your relay all pre-wired for
easy installation. Now let's get to it.
| Step 1: Disconnect the negative
cable from your battery. Safety first here. If you're too lazy to disconnect
your battery, at least do all your work with no key in the ignition. :) It's
amazing the things you can forget...
| Step 2: Remove the metal knee
guard from under the steering wheel and place it out of the way. Only 4 screws
should be holding it in. Now scrunch down and start feeling around the
backside of your lighter. There will be two wires connected to the lighter
through one connector which you can easily remove by sliding towards the front
of the car. Get into as good an angle as possible and start pushing on the
back of the lighter towards the back of the car. With some work it will pop
out. Sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's not. Keep the lighter wires handy
and don't cut them off or anything. You use them in this install regardless of
whether or not you wanna keep your lighter.
| Step 3: Now that the lighter is
out of the way, it's a good time to enlarge the hole to fit your S2000 button.
When you're done, it'll look like a big O with an X through it kinda. There's
really no way for me to walk you through this step. Just take your time. Make
a small change, test fit your button, remove it, and then make another small
change. If you make the hole a little too big, you can always wrap a little
electrical tape around the button body to make the fit tight again. If you
make a mistake with the notching, that's a little harder to fix. Try to line
things up straight, notch a little, then test fit. Just take your time and
hold off on the beer till after you're done cutting up your dash. Once you're
done and your button is in place, give it a few victory presses. This is a
very important part. If your hole is slightly too tight for your button
housing, it'll cause the button to bind and not release right away after you
press it. This is bad. You want a tight fit, but not too tight.
| Step 4: |  Now remove your S2000 button from the newly cut hole and go to your
workbench. We have to cut off the plastic around the 5 prongs and solder leads
onto the 3 useful prongs. Cut that white plastic off now (a little cutting
disk and your Dremel will work great). Now hold the button so that the red end
is facing you and the words ENGINE START are right side up. We will refer to
the prong on the outside left as "prong 1", the prong next to that as "prong
2", and the middle prong as "prong 3". The other two prongs are not used and
should be bent out of the way. Now cut three 6" to 10" lengths of 18 gauge
wire - one for each prong, in three different colors. I'd suggest black for
ground, red for +12v, and green for output. Prong 1 is the output to your
relay, prong 2 will receive power, and prong 3 will be grounded. Solder
carefully and make sure you don't make a bridge across any of the prongs. When
you're done with the solder, isolate each connection with some electrical
tape. You might want to also extend the tape to wrap around the body of the
button a little to strengthen each lead. You don't want these breaking off.
Now crimp a female spade connector to each lead and put the button aside for
now.Step 5: |  First, a word on the schematic. The pictures
show non-insulated spade connectors. I'd not suggest using these. I used them
in the diagram because they clearly showed the sex of each connector. My
graphics of insulated spade connectors were nearly identical and really sucked
anyways. So use either insulated spade connectors or insulated bullet
connectors.Since you're at your bench, now would be a good time to make the wiring harness for your relay. For this, you're gonna use heavy 12 gauge wire. You need four leads, about 6" to 12" long. Three will splice into your ignition and one will be grounded to your steering column. Cut these four wires and crimp a female spade connector to one end of each. Now, referring to the relay schematic, connect the wires to your relay. Since 86 will be grounded, connect this wire and crimp a fork connector to the end of it for later connection to a bolt on your steering column. 30 connects to the switch side of the IG2 wire. Crimp a female spade connector to the end of this wire (there should be a female at both ends) and connect it to your relay. 87a connects to the other side of the IG2 wire, the harness side. Crimp a male spade connector crimped to the end of this wire and connect the other end (the female end) to your relay. Finally, 87 connects to the harness side of the ST wire. Crimp a female spade connector to the end of this wire and connect the other end to your relay. That leaves nothing but hacking up your factory wires and getting everything connected! Step 6: | Now take your pre-wired relay and button back to your car and get ready to scrunch down under the steering column. If not already done, remove the metal kneeguard from below the steering column. Search around the backside of your ignition switch for the white connector and the two 12 gauge black wires we're gonna be cutting. These should be closer to your steering column than to the ignition switch. Now before we continue, you must first understand something. There is at least two ways to splice a button into your ignition wiring: by cutting (which is what I'm gonna describe) or by removing the wires from the white factory connector. I chose to cut and use solderless spade connectors incase of relay failure. If my relay fails, I can easily remove it from the system, make two connections with the spade connectors, and start my car with the key as it was originally wired. If you'd rather modify the white factory connector, I'd suggest visiting Keith's Miata Page and checking out page 4 of his Big Red Button instructions. But if you don't mind cutting wires, let's continue.  Find the 12 gauge black wire with a red stripe (IG2) and the 12
gauge black wire with the blue stripe (ST) and try to pull a little slack from
the harness end (the end going towards your engine) from both wires. This will
give you room to cut and crimp on a few connectors. I highly recommend NOT
cutting close to the white factory harness connector. Try to cut a few inches
away from it. When you're ready, make the cut. Now, on the IG2 wire, crimp a
female spade connector to the harness end of the wire and a male spade
connector to the switch end of the wire. Also, with the ST wire, crimp a male
spade connector to the harness end of the wire, and a female spade connector
to the switch end of the wire. Notice how easily you can disconnect the relay
and reconnect the factory wiring in the event of a failure. Thinking ahead is
good when you remember to do it. Step 7: | Now, remove your center console. This is easily done by unscrewing your shift knob and removing the six screws holding it in (2 in front on either side, 2 under your ashtray, and 2 in the storage console). Pull it up and out of the way and carefully set it aside. Now find the single wire coming from your emergency brake. With a vampire tap, spice a long lead (two foot or more) of 18 gauge wire into the emergency brake wire. This is where your button is getting ground for its little light. Run the lead you spiced in along side and under the dashboard, toward the hole where your S2000 button will live. You may have a little extra wire. If so, cut it off. Crimp on a male spade connector. Now go back to the wires that used to connect to your lighter. There is a black and a non-black (probably green) wire. Using another vampire tap, splice a small 18 gauge lead into the non-black wire and crimp a male spade connector to the end of it. This is where your button is getting power from. Now wiggle your S2000 button into its hole and connect prong 2 to the power wire from the lighter circuit. Connect prong 3 to the ground wire from your e-brake. If you're not using insulated spade connectors (you should be!), you might want to put a little electrical tape around your spade connections. Finally, connect prong 1 to 85 on your relay. Step 8: | Now we're ready for the final connections. Connect the lead from 87 on the relay (female) to the harness end of the ST wire (male). Connect the lead from 87a (male) to the harness end of the IG2 wire (female). Connect the lead from 30 (female) to the switch end of the IG2 wire (male). Now, look up at your steering column and notice the large bolts (12mm if I remember right) on either side. Loosen one of those bolts, slide the fork connector from lead 86 under it, and tighten it back up. Make sure the fork makes a good connection to ground. At this point, everything should be connected correctly. Reconnect your battery, put the key in, and give it a try! Verify that the little light in your button works correctly (when your e-brake is up, the light will be on) and keep in mind that the light is pretty dim, so you won't be able to see it in a bright garage. If everything works, turn the engine off and start putting your car back together. If you're not using insulated spade connectors, you might want to protect your spade connections with a little black tape. Also, either zip-tie or tape your relay up and out of the way. There should be some room between your button and the steering column. Congratulations on your new S2000 starter button!!! Step 9 (optional): | If you want to keep your lighter around, you're not in for more than another 10 minutes worth of work. I chose to hide mine in my center storage console, so that's what I'll describe here. If you want a more convenient location, I'll leave you to figure that out, but the wiring would be the same. Take your center console (which should still be out of the car) and go back to your workbench. Using your dremel or a drill, make a hole for your lighter assembly. I put mine on the front toward the driver's side. As before with your button, be careful and make small changes. Then return the center console plus lighter to the car. Go back under your dash and find the wires which used to connect to your lighter. Using two vampire taps and two different colors of wire, splice into both and run the new wire toward your center storage console. Now splice your factory connector onto the end of your two new wires and reconnect your lighter. You might wanna test it out before you bolt your center console back in place. What did I tell you? Easy! |
If you have/had any problems, just email Adam Wolf.
