Wiring a Kill Switch as a Start Button

… and wire a Normally Closed circuit kill tether

Contributed by: Tom Hartley -Bare Performance Sponsored Rider

Okay, here’s how to remove the Black Blob from the left side of the handlebars, and install a dirtbike kill button as a quad start button, and install a Normally Closed circuit kill tether. Thankfully, Suzuki made the wiring colors the exact same on the LTR as the Z-400 and it’s clone-bikes, so many of us are familiar with this procedure. Doing it this way will ensure clean wiring of the entire setup.

There are only seven (7) wires going into the Blob. There’s a shortcut you can take, but I’ll explain that later. To wire the system the way I’m showing you, you first have to disable the Clutch Position Sensor (CPS). The two wires going into the CPS are the BLACK wire, and the BLACK/yellow wire. Connect them, and we’ll continue.
Okay, here we go. First thing you need to do is unbolt all the stuff on the left side of your bars. All the bolts that hold items onto the bars are 8mm (the parking brake, mounted to the clutch lever; the clutch lever; thumb throttle, front brake…). It’s easier to do these mods if you remove the clutch lever from the bars. When you take out the CPS, you can pop it right out if the lever is off the bars. The Black Blob is held on with two SS Phillips screws, and they go in from the bottom.

You’ll have to literally pull the idle-advance ring off the Blob before you can separate the two halves. Don’t be shy - force that ring right off there. Once you get it off, you can separate the Blob halves, remove the cable from the ring, and cut the ring off the bars with a Dremel. Zip-tie and secure that cable anywhere you want. If you remove the cable from the throttle body, make sure you use some RTV silicone to seal the hole.

After you have the Blob off the bars, cut the wiring harness just like this:

  
Disclaimer – only perform this step if you intend to bypass the CPS connection – this requires running additional wiring. If you don’t want to perform this step, continue on after the “Disclaimer Ends” tag.

Pay attention close, folks… If you want to totally bypass the wiring for the Clutch Position Sensor, you have to locate, and wire, the following wires exactly like this…
This will eliminate the need to connect the Clutch Position Sensor leads, and completely bypass that part in it’s entirety… I show the ORANGE/white wire as a direct connection (”U” shape), but it leads other places, too. Don’t directly wire it from the kill tether to the start button, and only that - it has to “Y” between the two switches!!!)

Disclaimer Ends

Unlike the Z, with it’s direct wiring of the Clutch Position Sensor (CPS), the LTR has a plug connection for this switch. Earlier in the process, when I was working on the bar wiring, I simply unplugged this connection, hoping the motor would fire. No Go. Instead of making the connection as short as I could, and eliminating the plugin connection, I decided to keep it, and connect the wires after the plugin (I left about 4″ of wire). I didn’t know if the CPS would have a play in the Yoshimura PIM wiring, so I wanted it around - hence the extra 4″ of wire.

At that time, I hadn’t ran the Yoshimura PIM wiring harness, so I didn’t know if it connected to the CPS as a part of the equation yet - here’s where I made the connection for the CPS:

I later finalized the wiring, and got everything cleaned up and soldered right.
Here’s the stock Clutch Position Sensor connection, about a foot down the wiring harness. Like I said, I originally saved it because I didn’t know if it tied into the Yoshimura PIM - it didn’t, so I removed it. I saved the plug, in case I want to use it on a two-wire connection later, like the start button.

You can see the pic above of what it looked like, and here’s the real deal, all chopped out and cleaned up:

Here’s a shot of the wiring connections, just like the wiring diagram posted above - these are the true wires. The BLUE and RED wires are the stock wires from the Pingel Kill Tether (Pingel Part # 640), connected into the ORANGE and ORANGE/white wires - doesn’t matter which one you connect to; it’ll kill the bike when pulled.

The others ones are for the dirtbike kill button for a starter button. Tap one into the BLACK, and the other one into the YELLOW/black - again, it doesn’t matter what goes to what; when they connect, the bike starts.

WHITE, YELLOW, and GRAY, are for the lights. Connect YELLOW and GRAY for high beams, or WHITE and GRAY for low beams. I permanently wired the high beams, and capped off the WHITE wire. When I want to toss my lights on for the dunes, all I do is hit the key, and the highs will always be on. Doesn’t really matter for me, because everybody you see in the dunes are running HIDs, which are incredibly bright. I don’t think anyone will complain to me about it…

Z-400/KFX/DVX people - you can wire your bikes exactly like this, because we have the same wiring harness colors in those, and the LTR. Sweet, eh? Enough of the delay - here’s the pic:

Here it is, all dressed up and taped/tied:

GO RIDE!

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