push button ignition

67Dart273 said
Ya know there's something I forgot to mention, and that is SAFETY.

Ever have a throttle stick? Return spring come off? One time I had one of those old "pizza pie" air cleaners, and the very short stud came loose, vibrated out of the nut, AND the carb, and fell down into the throttle bores

Sometimes it's just pretty damn handy to be able to reach up there an turn that key and know that a split second later, that engine is going to STOP

This is exactly why people died driving toyota products a few years back. Early in 2010 the news media beat the horse bloody with stories of "unintended acceleration" from various toyota products. The culprit ended up being the fact that owners are dumb and have multiple/extra thick floor mats and the gas pedal would catch the edge of the mat and not be able to return to idle. Here comes the dangerous part. Smart key equipped (meaning keyless start) toyotas will NOT turn off their engine in drive while moving unless you hold the start button in for about 5 seconds. So the basic equation was vehicle at full throttle, panic stricken owner, and no quick easy off switch. Remember at full throttle you have no vacuum for brakes, so unless you only apply the brakes once and absolutely stand on the pedal you have no chance of stopping a run away engine because the second time you push the brake pedal you won't have assist.

I deal with the smart key systems as part of my job and I don't like them. The extra complexity is not worth it in my opinion. Is it really that hard to insert and rotate. No question at all I would mount a dash keyed switch or install a proper key column. No toggles, no push buttons, no add on smart key systems(they are available). The honda s2000 and the dodge ram srt10 both had a push button start from the factory. They were both ignorant setups because on both you had to insert an ignition key and rotate it to run and then push the button. It is so much simpler to just rotate the switch another 10 degrees and release when it runs.