How To: DIY Ground Wire Kit

[ChopstickHero]

hard to see my wires cuz i have too much red in my engine compartment! anyways, you can see that the terminals are covered with yellow rubber boots. i used 8AWG wire.

 

[got wake?]

Are you measuring the shielding as well? I measured only the wire itself.

yeah. i figured that was what they wanted to know. i measured knukonceptz, street wires, and quest wires. all high quality fine strand cable with thick jackets

 

[Melvin P Nerdly]

Alright............ So.. Yesterday, I went out and bought all my grounding kit goodies and I started at it, I grounded everything I could think of.... Today I worked on the yard and thought I'd go out for a midnight snack and much to my surprise, my battery is dead! Any suggestions what I did wrong? I'm assuming its the wires and not some strange phenomenom that caused it. (by the way, my stereo is broken, but that's a different story) :_(

 

[got wake?]

post pics of each spot you grounded, and the battery. the only way for the grounding kit to cause your battery to go dead is if it's tapped into a hot wire, or the positive battery terminal

 

[SilverProtege5]

Just did my kit yesterday, immedietly I noticed it was idling smoother, and felt a little more punchy through the RPM's definatly a good mod.

 

[Melvin P Nerdly]

post pics of each spot you grounded, and the battery. the only way for the grounding kit to cause your battery to go dead is if it's tapped into a hot wire, or the positive battery terminal

Oops. You mean I'm not supposed to run it back into the positive terminal? hehe. Just kidding. I don't have a camera, but I'll double check my wiring. It might be my amp cable, I let it loose for a while and haven't bothered unplugging it.... Thanks for your help.

 

[p5sundevil]

hey this kit would work right? I wnated blue and this is an HKS style kit with the circle main plate that supposedly helps a little. Anyway it is 27 plus 11 shipping on ebay so 38 aint bad for a kit.

Of course I might be able to make it myself cheaper at home depot but the time it would take to find all the parts is worht the extra.

 

[MisterT]

I installed my own groundkit using 4 gauge wires and gold plated rings, and even got new battery posts. It didn't help the least bit with the lights dimming when the bass hits. I even rechecked things, added a couple more grounds and redid some things to insure a good ground. Every thing is sanded and bolted on good. I did it to help with the dimming problem, but it didn't do s*** but make the engine bay look nice. This is not to say that it doesn't do any thing, I just either did some thing wrong or it just didn't remedy the problem I was having.

MisterT

 

[fLyPiNoY7]

from chopstick's pic, i was wondering if this place on the transmission is suitable for mounting some grounding wires on it...i havent seen it get grounded in any other pics so im not sure about that...

 

[FrigginGLI]

Does that tiny oil breather help. People over at the Mazda 6 board are trying grounding everything to help throttle response.

 

[Coqui258]

from chopstick's pic, i was wondering if this place on the transmission is suitable for mounting some grounding wires on it...i havent seen it get grounded in any other pics so im not sure about that...

I grounded mine there... nice spot, directly on the tranny. I went from my cylinder head down to the tranny at that location.

My grounding setup...

Battery ----> Driver side stock ground
----> Cylinder head
------> tranny
------> Intake manifold
-------> Injectors
-------> Passenger chassis

 

[fLyPiNoY7]

well, i finished hooking it all up and it seems like my car has a little more pep in its step!

 

[sal002]

I used the stock battery terminal when I installed mine - does using a new battery terminal make a difference?

 

[fLyPiNoY7]

i used the stock terminal on mine too...it looks a little screwed up so i might end up changing that with a new terminal...

 

[MisterT]

I redid some things to my ground kit so that my aftermarket terminal is using all three grounds: one to the stock ground location, the other to the intake manifold, and the third is in a daisy chain throughout the engine. I also hammered a terminal ring since wires were loose on the ground wire that is grounded to chassis from the stiffening cap. I am praying that my lights won't dim as much. I don't have any expectations though. Every time I redo something, nothing works!

MisterT

 

[xxxcool21]

installed a 4gauge ground kit in my MSP and so far smoother idle, better throttle response....still have hesitation waiting for some numbers on gas mileage but i recomend it car runs much better

 

[MisterT]

I don't notice any difference in mine unless I did mine wrong, but from the looks of the pics of other people's engine bays, I did mine in the same locations. I used 4 gauge with gold plated terminal rings. I did not for smoother idle or extra hp (which I hear can give a 1 hp boost, although not Dyno'ed to my knowledge), but did in order to help with the dimming of headlights. My amps are pretty good sized amps, but no monster system. I have a 1.5 farad cap on top of that. (pics on SoundDomain). The problem is mainly using the Class A amps one (the sub amp) is in "high current" since I am pushing 2 DVC subs at 1 ohm load. I am thinking of pulling one sub out of the equation to help out. I tried running one VC per sub (2ohm load) and switched the amp in "high power" which not only draws less current, but puts out 200 less watts, and lights still dimmed almost as bad. This thing has become a huge pain in the ass.

I tried running one sub at 2 ohms and still dimming persists. I guess this is normal for every one with a 3rd Gen Pro. I talked to guy on SoundDomain who has only 180 watts going to a single 10 and it dims on his car. These cars suck as far as electrical systems are concerned.

MisterT:mad:

 

[MisterT]

Thanks to Got Wake, I have a big battery that juices up the system and put and end to the dim of my headlights. Now I don't feel like an idiot with his headlights dimming to the beat of the music.

MisterT

 

[INGREXCO]

from the standpoint of an electrical engineer, the number of strands has jackshit to do with the resistance of a wire..... because those strands in amp wire are alot thinner as aposed to those from homedepot the only difrence is easy of use. when you have a few thousand strands the wire is very flexable and easy to work with. the fewer the strands the harder it is to work with. resistance is the same

 

[MisterT]

When posting that response, I did so too soon. My lights are still dimming and am need of upgrading wires from battery to alternator. Mazda wiring sucks. I never had this sort of problem with any other vehicle with identical set ups.

MisterT