I'm trying to do a DIY earthing system. I've read many debates about which is better:

- daisy chaining valve cover, alternator, etc. and grounding them to one point

- grounding everything to the neg. battery terminal

- or ground each component seperately to the chassis


Also, which bolts should I ground on the intake manifold, alternator, head, etc.

ophdeheezy

 

daisy chaining is a BAD idea! there is a lot more chance for you to get a bad connection. the best (electronically speaking) would be to ground each wire to a seperate location on the chassis . make sure you remove all paint before attaching the wires.

 

anyone else have any input?

 

I would just ground them at one spot or to the neg battery terminal. My grounding kit came with an adapter to hook up to the neg battery terminal.

 

what does grounding benefit?

 

Don't go overboard. Using the factory grounding points os more than sufficient for most applications. The best thing you can do-if you really want to spend the money-is invest in heavier (lower gauge number) wire. Your main Ground point is the Negative battery terminal and the chassis point closest to there. There is an old electronics rule tht says to make a star pattern radiating out to the various locations you want to ground.
A variation here would be to run wiring from the first chassis point to each of the locations such as those on the engine. Then again do not use any additional leads to create points ON the cassis-it is already a ground plane. The only thing I can think of that makes this project useful is to insure good paths across various welded and bolted panels-but that actaully makes little sense.

If anyone out there has actual before and after dyno plots-please post them. Remember that the battery and alternator, if stock, have the cables sized correctly. If you have some sort of huge audio system and a high output alternator-then bigger wires will help with load distribution.

 

a tad bit more horsepower and a good ammount of torque. there are ads showing gains of 2 HP and 10 lbft tq. (not done on a lude though)


[Modified by shakes, 5:30 PM 4/2/2003]

 

what points are you grounding exactly? I was thinking of doing this my self.

 

your *BEST* option would be to ground to the battery. This gives each "component" it's best path. If you link everything to the chassis with say 8 guage, and you only use 8 guage for the battery to chassis... then what's the point? All those 8 guage "upgrades" would be limited by the single 8 guage path to the battery

 

less distance to ground. he isnt saying he's not going to upgrade the ground. im tired. and lost.


[Modified by shakes, 11:50 PM 4/2/2003]