Starting your car is something most of us take for granted, but whether you’re going to work or going to race the next round, having your car start is critical. Meziere Enterprises knows this and created its own line of high quality starters to ensure that your car turns over every time. What the company later realized is that having a powerful and capable starter motor is only as good as the wiring that supplies it with power, so the company created its solid state relay kit to ensure your starter has the power it needs to get cranking.

Meziere’s Solid State Relay Kit (P/N: WIK401 for side-mount; P/N: WIK402 for back cap mount) is designed to bolt right onto Meziere Enterprises 400- and 500-series starter motors and it solves most issues where the existing wiring is causing an issue with starter function and performance.

“Our starters are designed for hard-to-start applications, such as large cubic-inch engines, blower cars, and the like” says Meziere Enterprises’ Don Meziere. “Usually, our product is the best choice for those engines, however, a lot of the cars are not wired to support the elevated electrical demands. After final assembly, every single Meziere starter is load-tested—we know what the amp draw and spin speed is at a given load. We’re 99 percent sure when it gets in their hands, it’s a good product. But when they bolt it on and it doesn’t work, what do you do?”

Meziere realized that whether the car has factory wiring, DIY wiring, or sometimes even professionally installed wiring, it’s often not what the starter needs.

“When troubleshooting these issues, we commonly see main cables that are too light. Quite often we also see activation wire that is way too light,” Meziere explains. “People are trying to activate the solenoid with 14- or 16-gauge wire. Some of the professionals use that wire and some of the wiring kits come with that same size wire. There is as much as a 40-amp in-rush, and small wire isn’t going to carry that load.”

Surely, it’s disappointing when you buy a top-quality starter, bolt it on and it doesn’t solve your starting problem, but Meziere noted that this is usually down to the activation wire issue.

To resolve this on most any application, Meziere created its Solid State Relay Kit. The relay utilizes the existing, heavy gauge main power cable to power the 40-amp relay, and then uses a 10-gauge activation wire to give the starter plenty of current. The relay is self-grounded through starter, and as stated on the relay’s product page, the activation wire goes to the relay and no longer has to carry the full load of the start solenoid, only the load of milli-amps from the relay.

With regard to the use of the solid state-style of relay, Meziere had this to say.

“A lot of our customers have the most extreme applications, which may be prone to tire shake. The solid state relay isn’t as susceptible to failure when subjected to those types of vibrations. We’ve seen some crazy things with mechanical relays, especially with the way they may be mounted and how they can activate at launch.”

The Meziere Solid State Relay Kit (PN WIK401) has a retail price of $171.85 and is available in two mounting configurations to fit numerous applications where narrow framerails and header clearance may dictate the location. Meziere also said that even if you have a starting issue, but not a Meziere starter, the relay kit could solve the issue. You’ll just need to fabricate your own mounting solution.