GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

Well I gave in and bought a set of supposed TRD Ground Wire off Ebay for $44.00. After receiving them I can tell they are not TRD, but are made very nice and of high quality material, so I am happy. Now my question is this set has the disc that the ground wires are suppose to go to.Has anyone ran their ground wire set this way or is everyone still running them from one ground point to the next. If anyone has picture or instructions on how to wire it with the disc i would appreciate it. And is there any advance to running with the disc over the other way.

Yeah, mine are set up central grounded on the disk. Most people did theirs daisy chain style. I can't post pictures for a couple days since I'm getting my wisdom teeth out and will not really be all there mentally. In terms of advantages I have no idea although most race applications use central (or parallel, same thing) grounding.

Quote, originally posted by Smokin' Rubber »I can't post pictures for a couple days since I'm getting my wisdom teeth out and will not really be all there mentally. welcome to my world of pain pill induced stupors! it can be fun here.

Lol yeah we can start our own little clique for people who are cotton brained on pain killers

ha ha ha! ya.... unfortunately, once they kick in, my brain is pretty much mush. and thus why i was sent home today from work for being too loopy and glassy eyed.

Lol I just can't wait! 1 hr and counting left till my brain is mush too hehe

Smokin' Rubber Hey not to be a pain in your mouth . Just kidding. Do you have any pics of your ground wires, so I can see if I did them correct. Thanks.

Sure, I'll try to post them tonight. Off painkillers now but my mouth is still not healed prolly will be another couple days before I can eat crunchy stuff

This is how I did it. If you want more pictures just ask

Attached files

Thanks for the pics. Just wanted to make sure I did them right

Np no one else besides us did the grounds that way

that is interesting. so did you attach the metal plate right at the battery terminal itself?

Yeah it came with a mount part that attached to the terminal and then the disk just screwed into the mount

looks quite simple. did it take long?

not really, altho I was doing it at 11 at night so I needed to use a flash light which took a bit longerall the wires and stuff were already attached to the disk along with the 2 wires that run to the negative prong on the tranny and the actual battery ground (the two wires that look like they are sticking off more to the right). So basically after you get the ground under the battery bolted on and you mount the disk on the battery terminal you just attach the other wires to where you normally would in a daisy chain or as close to it as possible. Pretty easy and works well

honestly, did you notice a difference at all?

yeah 2 main things:low end tq (could chirp tires at 2,200 rpms pretty consistently) and a bit more pull in liftedit: meaning if I just drop the clutch at 2,200 rpms with no featheringidle stays constant, it used to bounce up like 800 rpms every once in a while. And higher rpm driving is more stable, meaning that if you are in first gear without ground wires and you are driving steady at 7,000 rpms the engine would vibrate a bit more than it does now (I don't normally drive like that but it was a test I did)

I also noticed a difference. I know it sounds strange,but when my car is cold in the morning it is easier to shift from 1st to 2nd without bogging. Before the wires in the morning shifting was never very smooth till the car warmed up.I think all GT owner know what I am talking about. And idle is alot smoother. I have since added motor mounts and seem to lost that smooth idle feel, but did notice idle being very smooth before mounts. To install took about 1 hour. I could of done it alittle faster,but wanted to make sure all the wires were hidden. Here is ground wires after install.

I wanted mine not to big hidden I thought it was cool engine dressup (granted it may look a bit all over the place) but I still think it looks cool. Good job with your install polaris You wired yours a little differently than I did (the 2 grounds) you have the one under the battery like I do but your second ground is on the strut tower wall. I was going to do that but I decided I wanted to have the grounds on seperate sides of the car, hence the wire attached to the left of the radiator on the chassis

We both actually did it the same. I have one that is connected to the other side of the car. What I did was run one wire to the engine block and then from there to the passenger side frame.This is the only daisy connected wire I did,because none of the wires were long enough to reach from passenger side to battery. I also had a extra wire so I ran one to the driver side headlight. All in all a great mod

Your ground wires look like the TRD set I saw on ebay. Why do you think they are not TRD? Was the set made for the Toyota Matrix? I'd like to do this Mod but not sure if I should make them myself or just buy a set.

Hey, I did this mod last Fall but I made the wires myself. I was wondering though. You have one ground wire going to the front frame up on top of where the Radiator mounts (where the grill also mounts). Is there any benifit there? I assume there's no additional electrical grouding happening there. Also, I've heard it's good to ground near or to the Alternator. I have a spare length which I could either connect directly to the Battery or Daisy-Chain from the ground point under the battery to the Alternator area. Did the instructions mention this at all and if so, where's the place to connect? Seems there's no decent bolt to connect to there.Thanks for any input...Dave

Quote, originally posted by DavidPIL »Hey, I did this mod last Fall but I made the wires myself. I was wondering though. You have one ground wire going to the front frame up on top of where the Radiator mounts (where the grill also mounts). Is there any benifit there? I assume there's no additional electrical grouding happening there. Also, I've heard it's good to ground near or to the Alternator. I have a spare length which I could either connect directly to the Battery or Daisy-Chain from the ground point under the battery to the Alternator area. Did the instructions mention this at all and if so, where's the place to connect? Seems there's no decent bolt to connect to there.Thanks for any input...DaveAs for the ground on the metal radiator mount, its basically the same thing as the one right underneath the battery, it disperses the excess static (meaning the free circulating energy running thru the engine that disrupts the spark plugs etc.) energy into the chassis and away from the engine. I originally was going to attach it to the alternator as well but decided that there was not good place to put it so I decided to make it an extra discharge ground. The one thing I was wrestling with on the alternator thing as well was if it would actually draw energy from the alternator in essence robbing it of some energy the car would need. Which is the same reason I didn't attach the wires right next to the spark plugs and instead left a couple inches to make sure it wouldn't alter the electricity's natural path thru the engine cycle (besides getting rid of the extra that stays in the metal of the engine when its no longer needed)

why did both of you use the factory grounding spots ?? Is there a bennefit to grounding them in different locations ?

Used the factory spots plus additional around the engine and engine compartment. Was told that grounding throughout helps the positive flow from the battery. Also helps disipate the ground throughout... or something like that. I just tried it following a few diagrams and, though I still think what I noticed is more a placebo than real performance additions, I think it's smoother in acceleration. Lights still dim especially when the power windows bottom or top out. Noticed last night after putting in new Fog bulbs that my RPM drops about 250-300rpm when turning on the fogs vs turning them off. The RPM levels out though. I had since added a ground point from the Alternator to the beam where the Radiator connects then from that back to the battery. Maybe that caused that weird rpm drop. Never noticed it before.Doubled up on the factory ground points. Basically, I just didn't remove what was already existing then added the custom wires on top of em. I dunno... was a cheap mod since half the wire was free (4 gauge DC cable) Don't think it hurt anything and well, I talked about what I perceived as an improvement...Dave

Honistly is it a worth while investment ??

Hi...For me, yes. Cost about $20, gave me some quality time with the engine bay of my Vibe. Even if it's a placebo effect, perceived improvements are better than having nothing at all. $20 for a perceived smoothness in acceleration, an apparent increase in MPG(though very slight and could also be attributed to other factors), more steady idle... If ya have a little free-time and a few extra bucks, why not try it for yourself.Dave

why not just run some string around the engine to add color? sounds to me like a pointless mod, perpetrated by companies looking to suck money from us.

Quote, originally posted by drunkenvibe »why not just run some string around the engine to add color?or put colored pieces of vinyl over the badges or on the engine heat cover, or paint the calipers, or... well as I said, for me, it cost me $20 plus about an hour's worth of preping the wire and installing. No company sucked money from me and also, as I said, if this person had some "extra" money and some time, they can try it for themselves.Even if it's just cosmetic, it's still cheaper than the other cosmetic mods most people are doing, if done truly as a "do it yourself" project. And if, by chance, some of the dynos are right and what some people have noticed when doing this, mod is true, then it's much more of an effective improvement to the performance than anything else 4x the cost, including any other cosmetic change.So, as I said before, if he has $20 extra bucks for 12' of 4ga DC wire and 5 sets of copper connectors then why not try it. I would never buy these wires pre-made.Honestly, I don't have that kinda money to waste on something that might not do any good... even cosmetic changes just for looks like overlays... I don't have that kinda money to throw away, but for me it was something to do for a few hours while trying to forget about work for a while. It's relaxing to work on the car so... it was well worth the $9 cost of the connectors (because I had the wire already). Maybe it's not for you and that's cool.Silverstars = sucked money from a lot of us. This Mod = eh, at least you don't have to replace the wires every 6 months or so.Dave

What if any side effects would there be if you ran 0ga. wire instead of the 4ga.? Just wondering. Thanks