I have some extra cash left over from my mcdonalds job and was looking into the expsesive ground wire kit... 35 bucks on ebay. Is it worth it? Or is the hyperground kit actually worth 95? Who knows about this? Suggestions?

 

for $5 worth of wire?????

and it doesn't do a thing.

BLING! BLING!

 

having a good ground is important but i dont think spending 95 on that kit is gonna make any more of a difference than going out, getting some wire and making youre own for 10 bucks.

 

I can't remember the guys name (hangs out in the ITR forum), but he made his own ground wire kit and dynoed his ITR. Engine idled better, better throttle response and according to his dyno charts picked up about 2whp. I wouldn't ever pay $95 for a set, but if you can make them yourself, then go for it.

 

Oops too late, I already got the HKS circle earth ones for my EG :X

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by kommon_sense &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I can't remember the guys name (hangs out in the ITR forum), but he made his own ground wire kit and dynoed his ITR. Engine idled better, better throttle response and according to his dyno charts picked up about 2whp. I wouldn't ever pay $95 for a set, but if you can make them yourself, then go for it.</TD></TR></TABLE>

he must have had a bad ground to start with or something, i cannot see how having loads of heavy guage wires all over the place helps especially when the positive wire is left untouched, the voltage drop over the stock wires is negligable anyway, just make sure the connections are really good and if you really must, buy some thicker guage cable and replace the stock ones with that, don't go grounding the hell out of everything, it won't do anything.

 

make your own for $10

 

Grounding does help, I did it to my car and it idles better, and feels like it got a little more power.

It's like installing a amp, if you don't have a good ground, your amp either turns off, turns on and off, or have major engine noise because of it.

I work at circuit city, and used 4 gauge to ground my head, my distributor, my starter, and regrounded the fuse box in my EG.

 

i believe they do work but your best bet is on the dyno where you can experiment on where to place the grounds

 

Simply make your own out of Rockford Fosgate speaker amp cable(s), which is a nice gauge and works flawlessly.

As said above, a better ground does help, but it's merly a "good" thing to do. Don't expect anything out of it, other than probably smoother acceleration if that.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ekhybrd &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i believe they do work but your best bet is on the dyno where you can experiment on where to place the grounds</TD></TR></TABLE>

what! you don't need a dyno to test where to put a ground! that is almost the most ridiculous thing i've ever read on here. the idea is simply to reduce resistance, just replace anything with a poor ground connection. the error involved in measuring the power output on a dyno is much greater than any improvement you could see over a stock good condition ground, thats if you get any at all. exceptions are when you have loads of power hungary ice in which case you'll want to uprate your alternator as well.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by goodbyegti &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

he must have had a bad ground to start with or something, i cannot see how having loads of heavy guage wires all over the place helps especially when the positive wire is left untouched, the voltage drop over the stock wires is negligable anyway, just make sure the connections are really good and if you really must, buy some thicker guage cable and replace the stock ones with that, don't go grounding the hell out of everything, it won't do anything.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Aggreed, he probably had some bad/old wires to begin with. However most of us probably have 5-10yr old civs, so we are probably all in a similar boat. I don't think that the wires *made* power, but just gave him back some of what he had lost over the years.

 

thats more feasable but like i say on a dyno it is highly likely that the error in the final reading is greater than any improvement over a stock ground. like you say though if he had some poor connections before it would have made a difference although unless they were really bad it would still be very hard to measure the power increase.

 

so what your saying all those dyno charts they got on import tuner are propaganda?lol wouldnt be suprised....companies threating to pull advertisement and stuff or paying some peeps off........capitalism at its best ehhhh

 

I just made my own grounding kit with 4AWG OFC wire. I replaced the stock transmission, valve cover, and chasis grounds in my 2000 DX hatch. I don't buy all the BS about more HP etc... etc... However, the kit did take away a small portion of my alternator noise from my stereo, and made my lights dim less at near full volume. When I say less I mean went from easily noticeable dimming to barely noticeable when shining on a wall 10 ft in front of the car. The car does seem to idle smoother too. So for what it is worth, ground upgrades do something. If it's worth $10-$20 to you then do it.

 

that sounds more like it, you can explain that, you decreased the resistance of the ground wires which caused a lower voltage drop across the grounds so the terminal voltage of the battery was closer to that of the lights, radio etc....unless you are running an amp or a high power stereo it sounds like your old grounds weren't that great to start with, would haven been interesting to compare cleaning up your old contacts with your new wires to see if there was a difference..however with a stereo and certainly with an amp uprating the chassis ground will help especially at full volume

 

Well it's kinda mild in terms of stereos but it still does ~750W RMS. I used the same song at the same volume levels. Here are my results.

Praga Khan - Insanity. (After bass really starts hammering in 1st verse.)

Before:

volume 22 - Loud. Barely noticeable dimming.
volume 24 - Louder. Dimming pretty noticeable but not like high to low beam bad.

After:

volume 24 - Loud. Real Loud. Seems louder but without meter who can say? No dimming.
volume 28 - Insane. Hurts. Dimming barely noticeable on a cement wall 20 ft away. Really hafta watch hard to tell.


Anyway that's about as in detail as I can go. It honestly seems like the system in louder since my avg. listening volume before was 16 and now it is ~14 +-1.

 

not suprising that your headlights dim then, 750watt rms is around 50 amps , close to the stock output of the alternator @ 14.4v, if you recovered a 1 volt drop to your amp by replacing the old possibly corroded ground wires with new lower resistant wires (only makes a difference at high currents compared to stock) then at maximum power you could assume an extra 80 watts available to your amp which in real terms would mean it could play maybe 5% louder (as a rough estimate)...seems about right according to what you say..

 

run a 4 gauge wire from the negitive terminal on the battery to:
the trannny ground
the throttle cable bracket
the head
the chassis