OK: Our cars are getting old. And so are our wires, and their connections.
The most odvious ones: battery ground and power. Since I’ve already run a ton of +12v wires from the battery as well as a 4 gauge all the way to the trunk for the amps I started to question the quality of the 4 guage ground that has remained untouched for years (espically since I’ve started to get a bit of a ground loop in the stereo that was driving me nuts).
So I did a little measuring … seems between a good ground on the body in the trunk and the negative battery terminal I had almost 2 ohms resistance!! Well this had to be fixed up! Instead of replacing the current ground why not just add on? It can only help … and why get rid of a ground that is (somewhat) currently working?
So: A quick and cheap way without buying power leads or worrying about connectors or protecting the cable:
$11 at Canadian Tire.
Find a suitable grounding location and remove paint (I chose strut tower)
Now screw everything back together. I used heavy duty rust check on the connection so it wouldn’t collect water, then painted the exposed metal still showing.
Finally, connect the other end to your negative battery post. I had to use some degreaser in the slot so it would make good contact.
PS: Turns out 51" is way too long for that distance. Oh well I folded it up neatly New reading? 0 ohms and that damn ground loop is fixed.
Kirkland is the brandname that cosco brands some of the stuff so they can sell it for cheaper (without hurting the sales of the regular branded stuff.) Kirkland batteries are acutally made by a well known battery company with a good rep. But I’ll leave the challange up to you guys and google to find out who
I took on a project of cleaning most of the underhood grounds, I did 6 grounding spots. Took quite a while, but between that and Magnecor plug wires, I saw a nice gain. No, really, I did! I kid you not!
However, the idle-dipping problem remains. :squint: Looks like IACV might be the next target.
Your running a 51" ground ? :S thats just plain stupid. Thats extra ohmage that is in that wire… the longer the wire the more resistance. If your going to do it right I wouldn’t use anything longer than 1 foot of wire. thatd be the best ground… unless i misunderstood what you were saying.
Actually there is never 0 Ohms of resistance ever, it is impossible… The tool you measured with was probably a regular multimeter which cannot measure very minute resistances. +When you plug it in you will get more impedence because im sure that extra wire isnt laid out in straight configuration. He probably coiled it up to be compact(this creates a magnetic field). and when you use an amp, its taking alot of current with a series pulses( everytime there is hard bass), the inductance(coiled wire creates inductance) from the coils will generate magnetic fields that will counteract each other and waste energy. Resistance and Inductance sum up to general Impedence…(This is the reason 8Ohm speakers will read less Ohms on a multimeter) which is why shorter straighter wire is better in these situations.You probably wont notice it much but the fact is that it does waste energy, not to mention those magnetic fields creat noise which can distort your sound quality. But thats for another day. why would you even want all that extra heavy,bulky wire in the car anyway? Its much neater with a simple short wire.
personally I’m all for ripping out the common ground from the engine harness and making a new common ground point like the grounding kits and run everything a direct ground as much as possible, barring that to the nearest body part, sand/grind it clean and attach…
a good trick to prevent your new grounds going bad prematurely is “cold galvanizing compound” spray available at brafasco… it’s like a gray primer but it’s actually full of zinc dust… after a while it becomes a hard crust (zinc oxidizes too) and stops any underlying metal corroding
btw that shit is great on exhaust clamps too, nice to be able to remove them without a sawzall
This is what i did:
Headed to the local audio shops asked if they had any extra wire from sound system installs.
Picked up 3 feet of 0guage stinger wire which is very flexible and well insulated
Installed it, noticed amazing results on my 01 honda
I only did two of the Big three grounds to note
Probably over kill but worked amazing
Go to home depot and buy a silicone spray and just spray it on the leads after everything is connected.
Second if you have crap amp, or deck… for 5 bucks you can build a filter that will give you amazing sound improvements. Just ask if you want more details on this, i can lead you in the right direction. Aka high and low pass filters are easiest thing to make in the world.
I replaced my hacked ground wire with a ground harness from a 98 Dodge Dakota. It has 3 progressively larger wires leading to the batery, so I hooked the largest to the stock grounding point, and the other 2 went to the block and rad support. The faulty ground was the only thing keeping my car from firing up.:rolleyes:
New reading? 0 ohms and that damn ground loop is fixed.
