As I drink my morning coffee and get ready to go to the garage to continue working on simplifying, modifying and hopefully improving my Spider's electrical system, it occurred to me that we have collectively been using a term loosely here; "starter relay". There are a couple of good posts here about adding a relay to take the current the passes through the ignition switch when starting the car off that switch by adding a relay that the ignition switch simply triggers, a good thing to do, that are posted as "starter relay". That is fine, but I realized no one here has ever added a starter relay to there car as all Spider's came from the factory with one; its called a solenoid. What is being added is a starter solenoid relay; basically a relay to power a relay. You may not think of it in those terms but that is exactly what the solenoid is, a spring loaded open, electromagnetically closed plunger type relay.
To put it in perspective, a typical starter when loaded (cranking the engine) pulls somewhere between 160 to 250 amps. On the other hand the solenoid that is holding the contacts in that circuit closed draws between 10 and 30 amps. That is why the cable from the battery to the starter is such a large cable; it is carrying HUGE current during starting.
That said is it certainly still beneficial to get the 10 - 30 amps of solenoid current off the small ignition switch contacts by adding a conventional Bosch cube relay in that circuit. But is it a starter solenoid relay, not a starter relay.
There I feel better. I've ranted and most all of you are probably saying yeah, so what get a life.
