When I used to own a DSM there were lots of debates about grounding kits and their benefits. The "grounding kits" consisted of thicker (usually 4ga) wires to replace the factory ground straps on older cars. Some cars with damaged wiring would see a major improvement over the stock grounds when upgrading to thicker wires. Ground kits can be made of ring ends and lengths of wire for next to nothing, usually around $20 to replace all the wires with 4ga.

Does anybody know where all of the factory grounding points are? Also has anyone ever replaced their ground straps with thicker wire?

 

Here's an example of what I'm talking about for further clarification:

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75889

 

im confused....what would the benefit of that be?

 

I'm on a local bulletin board for DSMs and they talk about grounding kits alot. But I don't believe the hype. A while back some company that makes grounding kits dynoed a Honda or some rice car and it picked up 5 hp at the wheels in an issue of Import Tuner Magazine. The way I see it, if you pick up power or your car runs better from a grounding kit, then you had a loose or corroded ground wire to begin with. Kinda like picking up power after an long overdue oil change or dirty airfilter.

Besides, most guys on here might not have heard of these kits because poor ground contacts is not a problem us LT1 guys suffer from. My opinion is save your 20$ and buy an extra tank of gas.

Waswa

 

If you think the factory supplied your car with optimum ground wires your kidding yourself. They gave you enough to just get the job done...

 

Like the other guy said... what's the benifit of having thicker ground wires? "Wee look my interior lights ar 5% brighter now?"
Last time I checked my Motor was Gas Powered not Electric... take this ebay Ground kit stiff back to Tyco where it belongs. Only time where the conductivity of a wire is an issue is if 1. The wire was faulty in the first place, 2. If the Wire was loose, or 3. If it was connected to a bad ground.

But here's a simple test... Get yourself one of those Electro Meter gizmo's from Radio shack and test your Ground wires and see if the these Rice kits are worth it. In reality... it's just another ploy for a Company to cheaply enter the market and make money off of people who want performance on a budget and will try anything that might work. For the most part the Electricly operated items in your car are not going to take more power than they need to operate. So if you used some super thick 12guage cable on a light bulb that only need 2volts to run guess what... it's going to take 2volts to run still.

 

Most don't matter...

It came from someone modifying the wire replacement for stereo purposes... probably someone, most like a "ricer" kid who was ignorant and who really didn't understand what the real purpose was, and it just got all twisted from there..

The "Big 3" as they are called in the car audio world... replacing the following 3 cables to assist the charging system with large stereo systems.

Battery to Alternator
Battery to Ground
Battery to Car electrical main block (red plastic terminal block on 4th gens)

Personally I have 00Ga wire run for all of my car audo purposes, and the "big 3" done... it's not a HP mod, but it did allow my alternator to charge my battery a little easier. (Less resistance with the 00 Vs the stock 8Ga, not to mention the 200A Alternator Vs a 140A Stocker)

 

I guess it's not worth it then. I thought for $15-20 it couldn't hurt to clean up and replace those rusty *** ratty ground straps.

 

No it won't hurt at all. You can never have too much ground. If you were to start adding electrical equipment/high powered car stereo, tvs, vcrs. all this other crap these kids nowadays do (tv's on in the back seat with no one back there) then of course your going to have to upgrade some parts of your electrical/charging system. (& wiring)

I think the guys here were talking about horsepower gains, I don't see any unless your wiring was screwed to begin with.

 

This was officially tested on a 3000GT, it has proven HP/T gains. With today's economy we can't afford NOT to have ground wires

Go for it man, you just gotta figure your own wiring diagram out for these cars

 

PS. I don't see anything "ricey" about replacing some rusty terminals and wiring.

Now if you go decorating your underhood with fancy glo-color wiring..that may be a lil ricey. who cares though, it's your car. You gotta live with it !

 

Yeah, calling a modifcation rice that has the possible effect of better gas milage, more power, and that can make the electronics in the car peform to thier capability is downright retarded . I'm not a ricer, my car is completely factory looking minus the ws6 hood which is functional and on a factory car to begin with. Besides, I asked a few questions, if you don't have any factual data to back up your claims or personal experience, please sit down.

I believe that this is more of a "maintenance" type modification and if there is any gain possible for the extremely low cost of making a kit like this I'll take it.

 

There probably is an advantage to this mode... your SES light will be twice as bright...

But on a side note just what on the F-bodies is that dependent on the ground that will free up all this HP?

Sounds like a "gimmic" classic ebay mode.

If your concerned about getting good power off your battery clean the terminals off with a wire brush if thier bad... or just by some good terminal connectors to hook up your electronics. Do the same for all the Chasis connection points.

 

Uhm....

If you all honestly believe that upgrading your wiring will increase your HP.... then uhm... I have a Tornado over here to sell you as well, or this cool magnet mod that clamps onto your fuel line as well....

There is almost NO way that this "mod" could increase your HP. The ONLY way I could see this even being a slight improvement (more like resotration than anything) would be if your old ones degraded enough where your coil wasn't getting enough voltage from the charging system.

Otherwise I'm calling a HUGE BS FLAG on the HP gains for this "mod"

 

I don't see in this guys original post where he says ANYTHING about horsepower,so I suppose it can be taken either way, all I can see is that he asked if their were any benefits of upgrading your ground wiring.(there was a lot of debate about it's benefits) You guys are the ones saying it has no horsepower gains. Horsepower was not even mentioned. F#@% no it has no horsepower gains.

For a stock car with the same stuff it had on it from the factory, with all the wiring in great shape. NO benefit (probably)

If you don't think that improving your vehicles wiring is BENEFICIAL after certain electrical addons or whatever (for this post I is, are ,am (take yer pic) specifically speaking of the ground wires here) then you all should go read some more on how things work in a cars electrical system. Or read some basic electricity.

Because there is no way in hell that a car with a pile of "crap" on it: CB, high power stereo, scanner, tvs, dvd's onboard cameras, navigational, fans for amps, neons everywhere, hydraulics. Etc. is going to get by on stock wiring.

So in answer to your question sir...yes there are benefits. Just not until your electrical system requires them.

But youll get no Hp gains, this is a no brainer.

The thing about gas mileage and all, I suppose the theory is that you will have a better spark, therefore burn more gas. I have no idea if this is true. I doubt it makes any difference.

PS. btw...who has ever seen a super thick 12 gauge "cable" (haha)

later