3 wire vs 4 wire ignition switches

Looking for a Small form fitting switch for my build, what I'm finding is 3, 4 and 6 wire switches. Most commonly seems to be 4, while my 550 came with a 3 wire switch. Can I use a 4 wire and just not utilize the 4th wire?

Looking for a cheap alternative, preferably on Amazon to burn up some gift cards. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

 

Should be able to. The 4th wire is typically for bikes that had a small headlight warning light (small 4W bulb inside the main headlight shell) on Euro models to meet some Euroland regs. The 4th wire is only hot when the key switch is set into the P(ark) position.

 

That was my reckoning as well, thanks for the reassurance. Seems my biggest concern would be handling the 20 amps..

 

ALL power from the battery goes thru the key switch (after it goes thru the main fuse), so that shouldn't be a problem, even some XJ models use a 30A main fuse and use the same basic key switch guts.

 

Great, got my ignition in.. new connectors are as followed. red - power in, brown - power out on, black - power out park.. Then theirs a brown with white stripe that is active between brown and brown with white when in the off positon. (Moot for my application I just use red, brown and black easy peezy to tap into old.) Anyways, What is interesting is that park, the key will NOT come out, while in on the keep will come out! Obviously, it doesn't fall out, but you can pull it out.

My thoughts are reverse the on and park when i wire it up, this is somewhat silly, but if im 'parking' my bike in (as per some countries) I'd want to bring my key with me, as no one to steal my bike! I really don't want to remove the key when the bike is running. The key will be light weight, ignition key, tank key, and a tag. Just found it to be odd and wanted to share my expereince.