Electrical gurus needed

Hello all,

Short story: Is there any way to make myself a timer circuit in which there must be input for a few seconds before there is an output? ie. some sort of reverse 555 timer that will not provide ground or power (no preference) until it has received an input (again, either + or -) for a few seconds?

Only has to handle signal to the low side of two relays.

Long story: I'm trying to install a remote start on my civic, which is equipped with a government-required immobilizer. The immobilizer cuts power to fuel pump, ECM and start signal. I've used two relays to bypass the immobilizer when the remote start is in operation (start signal is sent from remote). As you may know, remote starts on manual transmission vehicles require a brake pedal, ebrake and doorpins/domelight input. This is so that the vehicle can set itself into "reservation mode" where before shutting the car off you step on the brakes, pull the ebrake and remove your key from the ignition. The remote starter system keeps the car running until it sees you open the door and close it. When the door closes, the remote start shuts down the car, ensuring that it has not been left in gear. When the vehicle is in reservation mode, the car can be remote started. If someone opens the door or puts down the ebrake at anytime before the car is remote started, reservation mode is canceled. My problem is that the remote start brain pulses ground to my bypass relays when the key is turned on (without the immobilizer transponder present) when the ebrake is up. This is no good as it's bypassing the immobilizer when it should not. So I'm looking for something that will only allow my bypass relays to be grounded if they have received ground for longer than 1-1.5 seconds. Any ideas? I'm about ready to admit defeat

I have a friend who is a computer hardware engineer and could probably design what you need on the back of a napkin (he's a self-taught genius for this sort of thing)... Problem is, he just bought a house, so he'd need to get paid to do it... Not sure that's any help, but IMO, that's the sort of person you need.

Get a copy of The 555 Timer Cookbook. It has every type of 555 project you can think of in it and I'm sure one of them will do what you want.

You can also pick-up an AVR ATMega processor for about $3 and program it yourself (with about $12-$20 worth of parts)

If you can cookbook a 555 you can wire up an AVR with a 32k crystal and make it do all sorts of awesome things.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Ghetto-Programming:-Getting-started-with-AVR-micro/

A lot of install shops bypass the imobi system by cutting the head off of a programmed key and then fastening t he head inside the column,

So I wouldn't worry about keeping the system functional unless you have a pre-'00 civic