Tommy_Gunns

I have a very insensitive butt dyno for hp. I mean, I couldn't tell the difference between my stock exhaust manifold and my new header. But I got a pretty good sense of response and the car definitely improved in that area especially down low.

The best way for me to describe it is: you know how your car runs when it is cold, alot more responsive, every tap of the throttle makes you car surge...that's how my ITR feels all the time now. Also, my car starts up much easier, first try every time.

It cost me less than $50 USD for this mod...if you gain even 2 hp or 2 ft-lbs of torque then it is worth it (IMHO). It's not like a $500 header that only adds 5 hp...

Besides that it not the point of this post, some people IM'd me about my install and I posted a "how-to" to help them out.

Thank you for all the compliments...I'm always here to help fellow H-T members.



[Modified by Tommy_Gunns, 10:17 PM 6/22/2002]

tonyxcom

FTN = Fcku the NEWBIES

Thats my guess

Rob :190:

hehehe, DING DING DING!

Paul Walker

Ok guys, Here's the scoop. I went down and talked with Dave at Area 51. He tried to find the Dyno sheet but could not find it and they don't save the dyno runs on their computer after they do runs. That's perfectly ok though. Dave said that he would try to get a car on the dyno on monday and do a pull with the stock grounds then put on the "earthing system" and do another pull. Whether or not he does it we will see. If he does do it I will get the dyno sheet from him and post it up for you guys so you can see if it in fact really works. Till then

vtecvoodoo

If I was a mod, all newbies would have to **** a goat and get tar n feathered



Ryan

sil

I'd have to (sort of) agree with vactor.. it's best to have ground wires as short as possible, reducing resistance.. this would mean that the wire should be as short as possible and be connected right to the chassis.. in this way, the more grounding points to the chassis the better (this is assuming that your chassis is 0 V everywhere).. of course you probably do'nt want to be drilling holes everywhere for some ground points, so getting to a closer bolt would be better than routing everything to the battery negative terminal..

vactor: the battery ground IS chassis ground.. i don't know anything about car audio.. but my guess is that you don't ground things to the battery negative terminal because:
a) it can be a long ground path
b) large amounts of noise from the DC supply..

Tommy_Gunns

This site was forwarded to me recently,

http://www.sunautomobile.com/hypergr...em/hgs_pro.htm

Skeptic or not, it's a relatively cheap investment if you make your own.

PY2KITR1060

I remember there are more than four grounding point. I was trying to find AJ Pwr
post a while back about the type one earthing system which has all the connection point listed.

Can anybody find that thread anymore or saved it in their notepad?

tonyxcom

I think that what some of you are failing to realize is that the stock chassis grounds ARE NOT the shortest path to a REAL ground (the battery).

Especially considering all of the "connections" along the shortest physical path along the chassis.

With "earth grounding" there are only 2 "connections" between the part you want to ground and ground.

Now if someone could prove the benifits....

But it surely doesnt hurt.

vactor

what you fail torealize (PLEASE read a basic electricity text book) is that the battery is NOT ground, NOR is it even CLOSE to being a GOOD ground. period! as for disance, tat is not the issue. simply put, the battery is a load, you are connecting items to the load. everything has some impedance. therefor the more things you connect, the more impedance there will be, thus increasing the load. agan, the battery negative terminal is NOT THE GROUND! ask a physics professor, he/she will tell you the same thing. but if yu think the laws of physics somehow operate differently in a car, then be my guest. electrically speaking, this system, as described and installed, will NOT operate to decrease the pottential between the motor and the car -ground. period.

B18C5-EH2

Well then if the battery is not the best place to ground it all then, WHAT is?

???

vactor

any point on the car where the potential between the ground of the alternator and the ground you select are lowest. generally, this means as close to the alternator ground as possible. but i simply cannot believe that anyone would think the battery is a good ground at all. it is all a matter of E=IR. where E is voltage, and is the important factor. since a multimeter will display resistance as zero between pretty much any 2 points on the chassis, one can be led to believe that any chassis point is a good gorund (and it is, up to a point) however, the car uses chassis grounds all over the place, and therefore there is voltage that flows over the chassis to operate electronic items. sice voltage flows, there cannot be zero impedance (see equation above). but, in all cases, the battery, by virtue of being charged by the alternator, has a LOT of voltage potential, as otherwise it would also not charge. so when you connect the ground to the negative battery terminal, there is additional potential (which can be read as impedance) at that point. if you want the best ground, the case of the alternator is usually best, or wherever the alternator grounds. in any case, i think ANY chassis ground will work just fine for your non-sensitive application, and you should just chose a robust and easy to accss and secure chassis ground location and tie everything to that point.

jond

Unless grounding to the frame causes the body to rust easier/quicker...

Anyone know if this will affect the rusting of our cars? I think rust is caused by the metal having a charge, not 100% on that though...

Tommy_Gunns

Jond...I'm not grounding to the chassis. And you are right, adding or removing electrical charge will change the rusting properties of metals.

Victor, if you are talking about "theoretical ground", you must know that the car is insulated from it by the tires and therefore the battery ground is the absolute ground on a vehicle (IMHO).

I used to work in the power industry. As part of the safety training, they tell you that if a power line drops on your vehicle, you should "jump" away and never touch the vehicle chassis and the "ground" at the same time or you will be come the least resistance between the car and the ground (the path that electricity wants to take).

C'mon, I know there are some electrical engineers in here that can either back me up or tell me I'm full of chit. Great, this thread turned into exactly what I didn't want it to.

sil

This is correct.. BUT.. the negative terminal IS connected to the chassis, therefore it has a ground reference (or actually the chassis voltage as a reference, which may not be ground)

sil

however it's probably not much to worry about as there are other natural elements that will cause rusting to occur much quicker.. regardless, this mod is cheap, has no ill side effects, and i don't see why it wouldn't work..

oz#227

I think that did it Tommy....

Still does your Butt Dyno tell you anything.

Tommy_Gunns

Ok...one more website for you guys to read.

http://www.jp-earthing.com/

Like I said before, I stand by the system for a few reasons:

1. It's fuggin cheap
2. Easy to install
3. No ill effects
4. Gets rid of the stock valve cover ground that I always forget to put back on when I take the valve cover off

Racebrewer

Hey Tommy,

This is a Great Thread!

I'm learning a LOT here!

It sounds like the best thing to do with an upgraded earthing system is to either ground stuff to the alternator or to the alternator ground. I may shift everything from the battery terminal to the alternator ground and see how it goes.

BTW, a mechanic friend of mine has always run a extra ground wire between his alternator and the negative terminal of his battery. Runs better and fewer electrical problems is his claim.........

I've put extra grounds on 4 Honda vehicles (2 of them were virtually new) and each one idled better. Less visible shake in the steering wheel.

John

spoonek4

Yeah man well said! U can spend sometime on it during a boring sunday afternoon.

speedymon

Now we need a list of things that should be grounded.

Def

But there is zero impedance in a DC circuit by definition. Impedance, usually written as 'Z', happens only in AC circuits due to voltages from the inductor, resistor and EMF being out of phase with each other.

Maybe you are refering to resistance, which would be encountered in this DC circuit...

Which in this case, the set of electrical DC circuits forms a closed loop. So it would seem that the negative terminal of the battery would be just a good a ground as any assuming the alternator is grounded to the battery as well. Both the alternator and will "increase" the potential when you go across their terminals, so their negative terminals should be considered equally "grounded."


<edit> get distracted and forget to put in the one word I was talking about.. </edit>


[Modified by Def, 10:06 PM 6/23/2002]

dustin

Why was this locked before?

Willard

The thread started to turn ugly...

Instead of reading what the post was about (install layout) posters aksed for dyno plots and told the creator that he was wasting his time and this mod was no good at all.

Will

N1-R

cause Tommy was nice enough to just post how-to's to doing this "earthing system" by not intentionally bringing the topic up again whether this setup works or not then a few others had to jump in to poke and scrutinize whether it works or not OR this place isn't a good ground blah blah blah.....

ignore the ignorants Tommy, it's a good cheap way to do an extra mod that I believe has benefits and wouldn't hurt to try it out at all.