engine safety

hi guys just wanted to coment on how I love the site and all the usefull info. However I am in the middle of planning my project for my car. what I wanted to know was is there any safty features that I can adapt in some way to the remote started to monitor vital engin warnning signs. what I would love to see is the ability to tap into some of the warnning lights and cut the ignition off while doing a remote start. some of these would be the low coolant, low oil warnning lights. Or engin overheat etc... if there is no avalible souce for these monitors is there any method to monitor these with a couple of relays? the main reason is that as much as I like the idea of remote starts and my last truck had it. I always have this lingering fear in the back of my mind that a coolant line bust just after I shut it down or on the remote start that is going to cause alot of problems. could anyone give me any insight into this. thanx

okay but how would I get it to kill the ignition then? i'm a bit confused.

woops sorry no ignition its a diesel car. so how would I get this to kill it from running. What I don't understand is why dose't the ECU in the car do this for you anyhow. could you tie this into the break line and short that so it would kill the remote start? or is there a much better way. I would hate to have my brake lights stay on or never turn on being that it's a VW they already have light issues as is. thanx

Most of those 'warning lights' turn on when the engine starts. Therefore, they will turn on when the engine begins to remote start. So....as soon as the engine begins to remote start it will get shut down due to the 'safety feature' you added. I hope I don't sound like a d!ck, but you are too paranoid. Most remote starters will detect if the RPM's get too high and will shut down. The other things you are worried about, just aren't worth worrying about. You are more likely to damage the circuits you would be tying into from improper wiring or a short then for a problem to happen to your car on its own when remote started .

I do agree with JWorm about the likelihood of something going wrong. As professionals, we would surely hear about it from customers if it happened. Although, something like that did happen to me once, with my ex-girlfriend's car (of all the luck, AFTER we broke up)........I turned the steering wheel hard when parking the car, and when I turned the key off, it stayed in place. Later on, I remote started it, and power steering pumps don't like it when you hold the wheel all the way to one side for too long........black smoke all over the neighborhood, and a ruined PS pump. Oops. But it was an old car and easy to fix. But anyway, I think special and weird projects are cool, even if unnecessary. What kind of car do you have? --Shutting down the remote starter when the warning light comes on would be easy, at least if it's an older car where you can access the individual wires going to the warning lights. --You've already got the remote starter's hood and brake inputs.....trigger either one and the RS shuts down. You will need diodes to isolate things.......for example, you don't want the dash warning lights coming on every time you step on the brake. --As JWorm pointed out, the car's bulb-check feature means that all of those lights will come on with the ignition for a few seconds. You could use an adjustable pulse timer, connected to a relay, to now allow the RS to "see" those lights for a short time.

no you are not a dick just because you state your opinion.    I guess I am being parinoid. I was just thinking if there was an easy way to do this then I would do it. but by the look of it i'm in for more problems then it is worth. that is why I like this forum. i have lurked long enough but you guys at least tell it like it is. unlike other places that either tell you off or are full of idiots.

chris: the car is a 2000 beetle TDi its my work car and i'm desperate for a remote start in it. my last car had one and it was the best. also this diesel takes forever to get heat so I have to start driving it but in the dead of winter i dont' like to push a cold engin so at least a little warmming is better then nothing. and the less i have to wait for the oil to flow the better. as far as all these warnning lights go i think i'm just being parinoid. it will cause more trouble them its worth from what i've been looking at. still wish i could do it but not worth the time and effort. at least not for now. thanx for you help guys