saw these at A&J over the weekend. essentially it's a grounding system to reduce electrical noise. improves low end and smoothens power delivery. several of my friends put them on already and all noticed more low end pull

 

I think I will have bring one car to the dyno with it . We are just getting ppls driving impression and 100% of ppl who ran them said it makes a difference.
I don't mean it will make a 10 hp difference but for this part like $80-100 to get a few more HP at low-midranges , it's not a bad idea.

 

You should do a double blind test. Don't tell people whether it's installed or not and let them drive the car. Remove it or not (randomly) and let them drive again. Repeat at least 10 times.......

 

You know looking at the picture it looks like you could jmake one using some car stereo power cable and some ring connectors. All would be needed is the instructions on how to install it.

 

OkiSiRII on CSi paid $170 for the NGK grounding system while I made my own using 4-gauge stereo grounding, 8-gauge stereo grounding wire and a ground block with (1) 4-gauge inlet and (4) 8-gauge outlets

I have a total of 6 extra ground contact points. The ground block is mounted using the (2) bolt holes from the stock air box mounts. (1) of the 8-gauge wires from the block connects to the body while the other three are located at the wire harness ground point on the thermo housing, 10mm bolt for the wire loom on the starter and the 10m bolt for VTEC solenoid. The 4-gauge connects the ground block to the negative battery terminal. There are also (2) 8-gauge wires that connect the (-)battery terminal intake manifold and valve cover. The two stock grond cables were changed to 4-gauge a long time ago and my battery to body ground is a 0 gauge. I'll post pics after I buy a new camera since I lost my digi-cam on the Keiyo line to TAS '02...(= TAS pics from my friends camer should be up by this friday.


Results... car starts a lil faster and idle is smoother! I did this because I was having starter ground problems and because I had the extra stereo stuff lying around.

cost to replicate:
ground block $10
2 meters 4gauge $20
2 meters 8gauge $20
Terminal rings $10

 

80 bucks for some 8 gauge wire and some gold plated connections?? You guys got it made. Pretty soon you'll be selling Type One thrust converters.

 

Someone help me out - this Type One is confusing me a bit. I thought the Type One that we hear the most about on this board (headers, exhaust, now this) was a company up in B.C. and associated with A&J Racing - I thought they had nothing to do with the Type One in Japan that is associated with Spoon...

But looking at the photo I see the same Type One logo and decal of the Japanese company. So what is true...?

 

Type One is the Japanese company. A&J sells JDM parts.

 

For grounding.... the best would be all same guage wires. This because the circuit runs the best if all the grounding paths have the same resistance, it the guages of wire are diffrent the current will just go through the path of least resistance causing an imbalance. So by using all the same guage wire you offer the most optimal grounding situation.
-And I really do not think honda looked over something as important as grounding an engine properly...

-nate

 

as a matter of fact Honda did over look the grounding arrangement! The tranny side ground strap got screwed during one of my tranny swaps and caused some cranking problems. 4 gauge is used to the connect the ground distribution block to the battery terminal only.

I use 0 gauge for the battery to body ground because I have a 0 gauge power wire for my stereo that connect to a power distribution block near the rear strut tower bar.

 

There is one mistake that I saw a lot. Some people put the ground wire here:
In this case you are only grounding the valve cover!!!
It should be on the nut to the left.

 

hhmmm, but this ground wire is in stock place. I think so, cause when I got my ITR the ground wire was @ the valve cover.

 

ya...the grounding wire should be on the nut on the left on that pic.......that is suppose to be an empty hole where the wire is connected. I have asked many people what that hole is for.......but no one knows, any ideas??

 

That hole is for the throttle cable holder on RHD cars.

Austrian ITR- I mean the nut on the left ON the valve cover.....

 

I got them on my R 2 days ago, i personally think it made a big diff, it's really noticeible

 

From my recent trip to Asia, I noticed that the Japanese guys start to play with the electricals like the grounding system and multi discharge ignition system like the Ultra MDI.

The Ultra MDI is not cheap. It's about $800 to $900. With this installed, the plug wires would no longer be plugged into the distributor cap but into the MDI system instead. It controls each wire individually with extreme precision. This is not a new thing in the racing scene, but got brought into the public scene not too long ago with affordable price (well $900 is still "affordable" ). Those electrical tricks do make a big difference!

 

Sorry noSorry Nate, not exactly true. You can have a better path to ground but V=IR always. So if you are limited by one cable the better conducting cable won't be of value. The bottom line is some would need to install the cables and compare them to stock with very finite instrumentation, like a micro-Ohm meter.

So if you have 10 amps running through a .01 Ohm cable your 12V will actually be 11.9V realative to ground. If you have the identical cable for ground on a closed loop ckt, the volatage on the ground at the load will be .1V. So the difference is the actual voltage you get, which is 11.8V instead of 12V. So does this matter? Probably not IMO.

 

ahhh.....the voice of reason

 

We have tested both of these things. The ground cables giving a bit better low end power and throttle response with the MDI giving quite a difference on the high end. It's quite the combination!

Alan Chow
A&J Racing

 

I do admire your "engineering" skills. You are somewhat close. There are other mounting locations neccessary for the best grounding effect. You seem to have missed some. At least you are a believer that this stuff works!!

Alan Chow
A&J Racing

 

I suggest to try or ask people who have tried this. We have, all our employees have, many of our customers have. They all give me immediate feedback of the noticeable difference. We guarantee a difference but there are no numbers at the moment.

Alan Chow
A&J Racing

 

Haha, I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell us what the mounting points are...?

 

I understand that perfectly - but not long ago it was stated that the Type One headers and exhausts from A&J were not JDM or from Type One in Japan... so I see these ground wires and a Type One decal from A&J and I wonder, which Type One is it?

 

Alan,

Would you care to share your scientific report with us? Please include your dyno results and your exact setup. If you do not have that stuff, I suspect it is a psychological HP boost, tested by the "butt dyno".

So other questions for you:
Do they or your company garuntee a HP increase?
What is the engineering background of the people testing these?
Who tested these cables?
What is the mathematical or sceintific theroy that backs up the claims? (please include some math)
Who designed these cables?
What engineering (or marketing) degree if any do the makers posses?
What material (alloy content etc..) are they?
What is the resistivity/foot of the material used?
What is the resistivity/foot of the stock cable?
How much HP increase can I get?

So here is the question how many of you think you know better than a Honda engineer. Me personally I don't. Ground wires are cheap ($2 not $80), and if the stock ITR could get 2HP more out of some fancy cables I think Honda would have spent the cash.

I suspect this is smoke and mirrors to make a quick buck off some people that don't know any better; although, I hope I'm wrong. Please prove me wrong.

Jerold

 

As an Electrical Engineer I must say I am very sceptical.
The only purpose of extra grounding wire is to reduce the electrical resistance and increase the max. allowed current flowing. So if your stock ground cable is OK, you don't need it. If your stock cables are not good anymore replace them with a comparable cable. It is possible that the MSD increases the current so that you need extra ground cables. In that case just buy some cables at you local electronic shop and connect them to the chassis/engine and the battery (- connector).....