zerocover

Ive finally gotten around to putting my hyper ground together. Should be 5 wires unless the pepboys gets new 4 awg ring terminals in, then more.

Im thinking from the battery to the strut tower where the stock grounding point is. Then from the battery to the head, head to the intake manifold, intake manifold to the other strut tower.
Err thats like four. The last one possible intake manifold to the firewall. Alot of grounding kits go to the tranny. Would that help at all, now I do drive auto so if its gonna help anyone it would be me.

Im not so much looking for the power gains, just wanna help with the whole headlights dimming on bass hits. Power would be nice though. I read this artical where import tuner pulled some nice power out of it.
http://www.importtuner.com/tech/0308it_pptalon/

Ive been looking over the stock grounding is it just these two 8awg wires. From battery to the strut tower and from there to I have no idea. Anyone know where the second wire from the strut tower goes off too?

alex_aha

Hmm, your diagram should have said where to hook it all up. But if it didnt: one to engine block, one to transmission, one to alternator, one to body of the car, one to intake manifold (thats the hard one), one to the top of the engine, and if you really want to you can hook one up to the exhaust header, which supposably kills static electricity within your exhaust for less resistance.... I hooked mine up to all but alternator and exhaust and now when my 2 12's hits the light does not dim as much & i got just a little better throttle responce....

macdaddyslomo

best thing to do would be to get a distribution block to come off the battery..then go to the strut tower, the head, the alternator, and the intake manifold

zerocover

I got around to starting this stuff.
here is what I have, so far. I had to use these particular bolts becuase they are just useless brackets and stuff. Its really hard to find a good bolt.

Its (counter clockwise) header -> Tranny -> bolt by fuse box -> battery -> wierd thing on fire wall -> intake manifold -> valve cover -> bolt under prower steering resoviour -> then maybe to the alternator. (I might t in elsewhere)


Im consirned about a few things. The header is gonna be really hot and maybe that heat will go back through the wire to the battery (bad!) or possibly just screw up the conductivity (heat bad). Same goes for the head.

And I really dont know what the thing on the firewall is. Its got 4 small tubes comming off it, and no other hool ups. Ill snap a pic in a bit.

And further more does anyone know how to use seamless ring terminals.

Im confused do I solder them? Or just crimp the **** out of them, I was gonna do both anyway.

goldstar

The method you chose to implement your ground system is a poor one. The best method is to employ a common ground system using either the batt neg terminal or the strut tower bar ground point as the common ground. From the common ground point, individual wires should be run to various parts of the car such as the head, block and intake manifold. This will insure the lowest possible resistance and lowest EMI between each grounded point and common ground.

If you daisy-chain the ground wires, each successive wire between the grounded point and common ground simply adds to the resistance, increases EMI and negates the effect you're trying to achieve. Daisy-chaining also creates ground loops where ground currents are circulating between different ground points-something you want to avoid. In many cases, a daisy chain ground system is worse than no additional ground system at all.

I don't know what gauge wire you're using but 4 gauge ought to be the minimum size. Ground systems give marginal results at best. If you don't optimize the installation, you probably won't see any benefit at all. In regard to the seamless terminals, they must be crimped to the ground wires with a heavy duty crimper. Failure to achieve a solid bond here will result in undesirable resistance between terminal and wire.

macdaddyslomo mentioned another way to achieve a common ground by using a distribution block connected to the batt neg terminal. That's another good way of doing this.

juddz

I have to imagine that goldstar is correct about the modest benefits of such a setup. Even in the Import Tuner article, there were references to an engine fire, which could have affected stock grounding in the project car. If the stock wires were heavily oxidized due to heat, I could imagine their resistance increasing dramatically. In such a case, any improvement in grounding could be a much more dramatic improvement than is commonly seen.

Still, it's one of those things. YOu don't know unless you try it. And seeing as how it is a cheap mod to do, there is no reason not to try it if curious.

zerocover

The dasy chaining is intentional and is used whenever any power was made. I also could not find a sutabe bolt that could hold more then 2 ring terminals. My orignal design called for 2 points that had 3 connections out of them. Just not happening.

4 awg is what im using, resistance is not an issue, it will conduct much better then the stock ground straps which I belive are 16 awg, most of the way through.

Ill try to work it so that it looks something like the first one here but with more wires.
http://www.sigmaautomotive.com/EGS/egs2.php
Concivably the alternator can be used to get quite a few points out of. So the longest chain would be a chain of 2. And Ive decided agaist grounding the header, way too much heat.

EDIT: I beleve the car was flood damaged by the previous owner, there is a disturbing amount of corrosion on the stock parts anyway.
And furthermore ground loops dont present a problem when dealing with dc currents. AC yeah I could see a problem, but you need to remember there are already quite a few ground loops in the engine bay due to all the metal being negitive.

goldstar

I have to strongly disagree with you here. I'm not trying to be argumentative but I thought other Forum members who are planning to use a ground system might find this information useful.

The DC voltage in auto electric systems is not pure DC but a pulsating type because its source is the rectified output of the alternator. There are three sources of EMI in these systems: the full-wave three phase rectification of the alternator stator, the integral solid-state voltage regulator which uses a power transistor to provide pulse-width modulated current to the alternator rotor (the rotating field), and the brush noise from the field slip rings used to deliver the voltage regulator field current to the rotating field windings. Because of the large number of microprocessors in modern cars, great effort is made to ensure that control systems and sensors are not susceptible to EMI sources.

The vehicle itself can be a source of EMI due to the widespread use of frame and engine ground connections that eliminate many of the ground return wires. This can give rise to ground loops that can produce EMI. Consider a situation in which different engine and frame ground points differ from each other and from the battery negative terminal in terms of electrical potential. In this case, a ground current will flow (ground loop) between points of differing potential possibly giving rise to noise and interference. This highlights the rationale for using a common ground rather than a daisy chain method in an auxiliary ground system.

For more information and a reference, check out:
www.clubprotege.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11785

zerocover

Thanks for the info. Good read by the way. You got me thinkin now.
Just one point on the alternator in our cars we have a very complicated power system that makes sure the alternator output is as stable as possible. This is why we cannot upgrade our stock alternator without the car freaking out. Check any point with a high end dmm or oscilloscope if you have one. Almost no power fluctuations. Ill be sure to check it afterwards to be sure there are no negitive effects. I would try a few diffrent ones but im lazy and would rather do something OK once then re do it.

After breaking out the old multimeter, I found slight differences in voltage around the engine bay from 12.6 around the battery to 12.5 further of, with the tranny being especially bad.
The slight emi that can be created around the alternator is why I might not be using it in the ground. If at all it would be at the end of a long chain so some resistance and capacitance of the wire could lp it out. Besides Im sure the devices that actually use power also would cause some emi now that they have several gounds.

Ill go on the look out for a nice beefy bolt that could hold a decent amount of ring terminal just in case, possibly 2. The motor mount bolts seem ideal but I would need to drill out the ring terminals those bolts are huge. The only other point would conceivably be on the tranny where they are some ridiculously huge 20mm bolts.

macdaddyslomo

umm again, why not just use a distribution block off the battery. that would solve the problem you are having

fiveseven

Maybe im an idiot here, or maybe its because I was a qualified electrians mate in the coast guard.

Grounding points seem to be good if you can get them into a place without alot of moisture and heat... correct? Well.. basically.. when I had to do grounding crap with the coast guard we used thick metal points onboard.

I'd say mount at the strut tower, clean with a metal brush, and cover with silicone. TRY to find a plastic or rubber cover to cover that too... moisture = bad.

Next mount, MAYBE just maybe the alty. Of course.. careful with the silicone. Im sure the frame would be good.. I mean.. why pick your nose if your not gonna eat the booger? basically.. thick metal, uniform or ambiant temperature and moisture = good grounding. Period. No more said. Make sure the area is clean and disinfected of thoes nasty paint chips and dirty dirty and oily oil.

I would say there probibly isnt a perfect way to install this.. its just all in experiment. Every car is going to need a different installation anyway, every car is using the electrical system differently.

Then again, I wasnt worried about Horsepower and all that silly nonsence.