Better ground equals better power

[d_m_kolb]

Not sure if this works but it makes sense. I'm not saying this works but this is something you can do yourself.The manufacturer is http://www.sunautomobile.comThey claim, more power, better mileage, better throttle response, reduced emmisions and brighter headlights. They also claim different grounding points will gain more power and more modifications will gain more power.This is the do it yourself step by step instructions

[baltimore17]

As with all snake oil, this has a gram of truth, but the effect of the installation will be undetectable on vehicle operation. Probably won't hurt anything but your wallet, and you will be able to point out the cool copper cables underhood to all your envious friends. Understand that if GM/Toyota could get significantly more engine power with two dollars (wholesale) worth of cables, they wouldn't be fooling around with variable valve timing and lift.

[d_m_kolb]

I personally feel this has some credibility but I would never buy a kit to do this. On my crappy 2001 Kia Spectra you can feel the drag on the engine when you turn the headlights on. The car also loses some of it's low end grunt.I didn't run any more grounds from anywhere else but did disconnect the ground they used from the factory that runs to the negitive side of the battery and attached it to the steal front frame that the engine is mounted to. It seems to have made a difference. It might help more if I ran other grounds from other well ground locations but I haven't played with that yet.

[baltimore17]

The drag on the engine is the alternator powering a couple of 55W headlights (not to mention a whole lot of other low wattage bulbs). There is very little voltage drop on the ground return path; it's nearly all in the bulbs themselves. That's the gram of truth that these guys are exploiting.When I sent my reply yesterday, I had not yet seen the prices they were charging for these cables. They've got to be kidding! Go to Home Depot and get some heavy, multistrand, insulated wire. Go to Radio Shack and get some crimp on lugs. Make your own cables. String them all over your engine compartment. It still won't make any significant performance difference, but at least you won't be out half a month's car payment.

[d_m_kolb]

Here's a better explaination of this.quote:Okay guys... there's no need to find all these weird parts and such.......Here's what I did.... You basically only need 2 grounding points(will get to why later)...One on the frame and one on the engine block/head/valve cover whatever you want to call it. Tools needed.. 1/4 inch socket or wrench(ratchet if you're using a socket)10mm socket for the bolts on RELAY Fuse box and Aluminum valve coverParts required..2- 24inch 4gauge "Switch to Starter" battery cable acquired from walmart ($3.XX each)1- 1/4 inch package(dont sell em single) Hex bolt with nut acquired at walmart ($.83 each) which should look like in the picture below.. you don't need the washer though. Installation..1. Follow the Steps for the battery terminal in the "ASHINGU Link", but don't worry about the parts since you have that covered already. DON'T follow the grounding points though.Should look like this but with only 3 wires, original battery cable, and 2 grounding cables. Also one facing the going off to the front of the car and one going off to the firewall. 2. Grouding points are.. -under RELAY fuse box; just unscrew with 10mm socket, place ring or hole on the bolt and retighten.-aluminum engine valve cover; just stretch the 4gauge wire to see which 10mm bolt it fits on. It should be the one closest to the battery, yet still on the header side of the valve cover.Like this, but just one more bolt nearer to the battery. Total cost.. about 6 dollarsI'll try and get pictures of my setup later on when I can get a hold of my digital... meanwhile read this.... it's why you only need 2 large gauge wires and not 4 or 5 crowdin up the engine bay.I don't know if this will help or not but consider all of the electrical connections to your lights, turns, radio, dash gagues, dome lights, electric seats, etc require two connections. One to Battery + and the other to Battery - (minus). In many cases, Battery - (minus) is run through the chassis of the car. The negitive post of the battery is run to the frame providing the Battery - (minus) to any point that is metal. The starter motor of the engine is no exception. Notice there is only one terminal on the starter. As several hundred amps may be drawn from the battery during starting conditions it is important that a very solid connection be obtained between the engine block and the chassis. Motor mounts may not provide a good enough electrical connection between the block and frame. If any electrical resistance is present in a high current circuit, a reduction in voltage is developed at the device drawing the current from the battery. A simple explaination is found in Ohm's law where it is stated that one volt of electromotive force will cause one amp of current to flow through one ohm of electrical resistance. In algerbraic terms, E (for electromotive force or volts) is equal to I (for current in amps) times R (for resistance in ohms) or E=IXR If you look at the formula you can see that if R goes up, E will also go up. If you have resistance in your starter circuit, the amount of voltage will increase across this resistance robbing you of the voltage needed at your starter terminal. The remaining voltage would be all that is left at your starting terminal. The bigger the wires or cables to the chassis or starter, the less resistance and the more current available to operate the starter motor. The voltage lost (dropped) across the resistance in line with your starter circuit times the current in amps will give you the disapation of power in watts because W or Watts is equal to the voltage times the current. The disapation in watts is in the form of heat. I hope this makes sense. It's why you use large thick wires to your starter motor or even to some of your stereo speakers. The thicker the wire, the less resistance in the circuit, the more power delivered to the device you are trying to operate......no ****!! LOL A grounding kit will make every electronic system under the hood operate just a little stronger. It definitely increases spark strength, and makes your engine run smoother. You really can't go wrong with more grounds. The really important lines would be any involving the ignition... in case you don't want to waste the money on a whole kit... you could just ground your head and your block and the ground to your ignition coils power transistor. I could suggest the shortest, biggest gauge jumper from the engine block to the frame. That will acomplish everything you want. I would also bet that if you looked carfully, you might well find one in place already. It might just be a big thick braided strap with huge lugs. Four small gauge wires to the different points on the engine will do nothing and will visually clutter your engine compartment. The idea for grounding is to reduce the negitive or Battery minus resistance paths to as near zero as you can. Only large gauge wire can do this. This was one of the ways the automotive folks saved weight. If you have ever worked on a 6 volt automotive system, you will notice that all the wires are of a much larger gauge than that of a 12v system. The higher the voltage the less current you have to draw to do the same work. As proof, Use the formula Watts= Volts X Amps 12 Volts X 1 Amp = 12 Watts or 6 Volts X 2 Amps = 12 Watts As you can see, you would need a larger gague wire with less resistance in the 6 volt system in order for full six volts to appear at the terminals of the device that is consuming 12 watts. On the other hand, you could get by with a less gauge wire (physically lighter) in a 12 volt system if you were only drawing 1 amp verses 2 amps. This is why your smaller gauge jumpers to ground won't do much. Remember, the only reason to install grounding straps from the engine to the frame and frame to the body is to make sure the full voltage is present at all of the devices consuming power. This is done by the lowering of resistance overall in the power supply circuit. One more example; If you had a starter motor that drew 200 amps during startup at 12 volts and you had a cable that measured .01 ohms of resistance feeding the starter, using the formula; Volts = amps X ohms or 200 amps X .01 ohms would be 2 volts. You would then have only 10 volts left at the starters terminal. If you added a grounding kit or increased the size of the battery cable so that there was only .001 ohms of resistance in the starter circuit then the starter motor would have 11.8 volts at the starters terminal. (during cranking)This is a quote from a Celica GTS owner that did this mod.quote:ok, i got the wires installed... my first impression is that my engine idles pretty smooth now... another thing i noticed at first is when i drove the car... usually after having taking the negative off the battery, the ecu resets and having a cai, your ecu takes time to recognize it and the car bogs a lot... but with the wires, i barely noticed anything... and after driving it around town, all i can say is the engine seems to run smoother... i really dont know if i even gain any hp preformance from this mod, but i just feel like the engine is less restrictive in a way... but other than that, a dyno is what really would prove anything... and btw, i paid $100 from my local motorsport for the wires, and their quality is not bad... I'm sure some of you guys could go out and buy the same size ground wire and do the same, but i think $100 is not a bad deal anyway... btw, it took me about 45mins to intall and i took pictures on the install, so
I'll have them posted at the end of the week for you guys wondering where to install the ground wires...

[d_m_kolb]

I was at Walmart today and purchased two 6 gauge ground battery cables with the connectors all ready cripped on the ends. It's copper wire so should work well. They ran me around $3.00 each. I'll mess with my car tomorrow and report back here.

[d_m_kolb]

Ok I did this mod today. The main ground that the battery was using looks to be about 10 or 12 gauge wire. I bought 2 different lengths of 6 gauge wire. The 6 gauge wire is about twice as think as the ground wire that is used by the factory. The factory ground ends up being connected on top of the trany. I ran one 6 gauge wire to the head of the engine using a bolt that was all ready there, and I ran the other 6 gauge wire to the frame using a bolt that was in that location also.First thing I noticed is the car seems to idle smoother. Every once in a while you'd feel the engine vibrate just a little but that vibration is now gone. While parked I turned the fog lights and head lights on. Normally this would make the RPMs drop slightly then they'd return to normal. It didn't happen this time.While driving if you turned the head lights on you could feel the slight drag of the engine like the AC was turned on but not as drastic. I never felt the drag when I did this. The last test I did was when I would power brake the car (holding the brakes in and flooring the car) the RPMs would stop at 2,300 RPM. They would never go over this. The only way to get your RPMs up higher in the power band while power braking is either install a high performance torque converter or have the engine make more power which the torque converter will then allow the stall RPM to increase.I did this today and the RPMs were at 2,400. The last time I did it the RPMs were slighty over the 2,400 RPM mark. In this car I have never gotten the RPMs over 2,300 while doing this in the past.I feel this has helped the car. This mod is very cheap and seems to help the engine run smoother, with less drain on the engine from power items being on. I would also think this would help spark current which might be why the RPMs were high while power braking than ever before. I'm sure this will help gas mileage slighty also.Not real sure why it seems to help but it does and it only cost me 6 bucks and about 30 minutes of my time.