How-To: Engine grounding kit (DIY)

[Craz1000]

And its so worthless an idea...whay is it that the Subes show not only voltage gains...but actual hp gains from this process? Im not sayin th neon will show hp gains....but the concept remains.

WRONG!!!!


Voltage is pre determined by the alt and the voltage regulator. Thats why its there. You will not increase voltage you will increase amperage. Think of it as a water pipe. Voltage is pressure amperage is flow.

oh really guess what smart ass you just contradicted yourself.

and i said you MIGHT increase voltage, no guarantees you will.

and i quote straight from wiki (search for voltage regulator)
"More modern designs now use solid state technology (transistors) to perform the same function that the relays perform in electromechanical regulators."

which (and wiki says this further down also) are accomplished by the diodes in the alternator, so i say again, its pointless to do this unless you intend to increase electron flow (by changing to a high output alternator which also changes the voltage regulator).

as far as you telling me to go back to school about automotive electrical, your the dumb ass that just said the elecrons flow from + to -

read a book and speak when you know what your talking about... NEXT

[MoparNeonMan]

Your right I did mis speak. Point well taken.

changing to a bigger guage at that short of a run is pointless if you dont intend on increasing electron flow (amperage) So your telling me if I have a water pipe that is the size of a dime....and a pipe that is 5 ft wide...that Im NOT gonna get more flow? I dont understand your view on that as your still pushing the same psi. also, the stock guage can handle the demand if not little more than the stock alt/battery combo. yea you might increase voltage How? Again the voltage is set by the voltage regulator. its is set solid at 14.7. I dont care if you get a hi output alt its still 14.7 v. Your changing the flow (amps) not the pressure (voltage)but guess what, current flow (amperage) stays the same. see abovethe only time a voltage increase will help is if your trying to increase the wattage of lets say an amp, what the fuck? Huh? Im so ass backwards lost on that. Who (besides you) said anything about increase of voltage??? so lets say you do change the wire, yea you will most likely increase voltage now whos contradicting themselves? resulting in increased power output of your amp but guess what, that only makes the 'dimming headlight' problem WORSE!

And as for wiki....Ill go there in a min and add that "Craz1000 Loves the cock" and I guess its correct huh? I mean it IS on wiki afterall.



http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/electron.htm



"By the time the electron was discovered the idea of electricity flowing from + to - (conventional current) was firmly established. Luckily it is not a problem to think of electricity in this way because positive charge flowing forwards is equivalent to negative charge flowing backwards.

To prevent confusion you should always use conventional current when trying to understand how circuits work, imagine positively charged particles flowing from + to -. "[/b]

[Craz1000]

So your telling me if I have a water pipe that is the size of a dime....and a pipe that is 5 ft wide...that Im NOT gonna get more flow?

as far as the water pipe analogy, yea its a great way to describe electricity but there are a few rare cases and this is one of them that using the analogy wont fit, increasing the 'electrical pipe' lets say dosent increase flow unless you increase voltage and/or current demand, if you keep all variables constant as far as voltage and current you arent doing anything by increasing the size of the wire. in essence bigger wire dosent equal more flow, what it dose equal is the bigger capacity for flow. for example run 50 amps on a 22awg wire and run the same on 4awg and see what happens, because i have, that shit cooks

How? Again the voltage is set by the voltage regulator. its is set solid at 14.7. I dont care if you get a hi output alt its still 14.7 v. Your changing the flow (amps) not the pressure (voltage)

idk you tell me, that was based on the assumtion that you saw an increase in voltage from a 'Big 3' upgrade, however the idea of it increasing voltage COULD work because again if you increase the electrical pipe you thereby increase the potential, which some people on the12volt have witnessed, mostly from hondas that have small ground lines. and hi-output alternators output 24v, ive installed some for competition vehicles and it dose wonders

what the f***? Huh? Im so ass backwards lost on that. Who (besides you) said anything about increase of voltage?

it was an example based on that if this upgrade did in fact increase voltage, if you kept on reading youll see that theres an achillies heel to doing this upgrade, which ive agued about for years on the12volt about this, alot of people said it helps with voltage there, and yea lets say it dose, that only makes your problem worse not better as far as 'dimming headlights'

now whos contradicting themselves?

i said most likely, again this is based on the agument from the12volt, alot of cars (excluding the neons) have a small ground wire (my neon has 2, 5 or 6awg wires so this really isnt an issue in our cars) alot of people there have noticed some sort of increase with this upgrade, but im sure its only from making the charging system more efficient since its less restrained from thier small ground, but to use this upgrade to stop the dimming headlight problem if it works like its intended actually makes it worse, because the amp has an increased output, you only think its getting better because the charging system can recover faster. it makes it worse because now you have a stronger drain and a stronger spike going on. the best way for elimitating 'dimming headlights' is to stabalize voltage which is not done by this upgrade.


and no wiki is not my bible, its useful as a quick reference to help make a point, everything ive said and ague agenst is from textbook and mostly personal experience on the field, ive installed systems that you wouldnt believe on stock setups, and i didnt upgrade the ground wire from the battery and got no 'dimming headlights', and staying within limits of stock altornators

By the time the electron was discovered the idea of electricity flowing from + to - (conventional current) was firmly established. Luckily it is not a problem to think of electricity in this way because positive charge flowing forwards is equivalent to negative charge flowing backwards.

yes electron flow theroy is NEW but you missed my point about that, electricity flows form - to+, what is the shortest wire run off the battery and what terminal is it. now look up teh CEA wire guage standards. the size of the neons ground wire handle a well size system plus everything else already on its own, changing it to a bigger guage isnt going to help much, and like i said if it dose do anything itll only help make it worse, wether or not it increases voltage, it will however increase the rate on wich the system can recover, but thats not a good thing, because if your amp hits and drains the system, its not going to return to normal, its going to spike first, and since you now increased that capasity to recover the spike just got a whole lot bigger, if you do run into a car that doing this dose increase voltage, you make the drain more seviere which dosent help any either.

thats the point im trying to set across with this upgrade, people are using to eliminate the 'dimming headlight' problem. it dosent work as far as that application, it gives the illusion that it dose but if you really sit there and see whats really going on... its only either making your problem worse or its going to cause a whole buttload of bigger problems down the road

[MoparNeonMan]

ok....we can not change voltage. I cant understand why you cant grasp that. the charging sys puts out (on a stock vehicle) 14.7v. That is a static number. it MAY drop to 14 depending on load. But most often it is a solid unchanging number. As far as the water pipe....lets say you have a small grass fire. What will put out the fire faster? A drinking straw sized hose? Or a fire hose? Assuming that both hoses run a constant...oh lets say....10psi. If that variable is obtained...then the fire hose will as the volume is greater.



The possability of increased voltage does exist I agree. However It CAN NOT increase. It is set solid. There is no room for variation. It WILL NOT go over 14.7v. You incerase volts..so..you increase amp..so..you blow fuses.









So your gonna tell me that ALL the neonites that have had success with this.....have lost their minds? Are imagining things? For so may to be doing this...Im gonna go out on a limb and say it works. We (Neon owners for the most part) arent sheep. We dont drive hondas or mustangs. We dont ALL do something just because someone else did. We all have reasons for why we choose what we do to our cars....so Im sure they all diddnt do it just because.







Idea...lets cut the theoritical bs...EVERYTHING works in thoery. Not everything workin in real life. In real life we have defined limits. Things that you know will happen. The water isnt kinda running...either it is or it isnt. there is no middle ground. your alive...or your dead..

[Craz1000]

alternators only output 14.7 when thier BRAND new, after a while they drop to 13's and stay there pretty much untill they approach the end of thier life.

and as far as your fire hose analogy i tell you this sir

for this lets say PSI=voltage
and Gallons Per Hour=current

if you get a garden hose and a pipe thats 10 feet wide, your going to have a spray with the hose, but if you keep your flow rait at the same GPH guess what your pressure(voltage) exerted on that pipe is going to drop because there isnt going to be enough water to exert the 10PSI so guess what water is going to trickle out of that 10 foot wide pipe. when you think of electricity and using this analogy you cant think of only pressure(voltage) you also have to consider the amount of water(current) that flows, and BOTH stay constant in an electrical system, but dosent happen with water. thats why that analogy with water and electricity dosent work sometimes. bigger wire=bigger capacity for flow. your thinking of it like water, water flows by exerting pressure, electricity flows by creating what would be described in this case as suction. so when an amp needs power it sucks it from the battery, so lets say it lays down a demand for 15 gallons, its going to get it easier from the larger piple but once it gets those 15 gallons thats it it stops the demand, in either case 15 gallons flowed though both pipes. now if you use this upgrade v/s the stock wires its like comparing a 3in pipe and 3-1/4 in pipe and asking a demand of 15gal to power the whole car, both pipes will do the job just fine

im saying yea they are nuts if the do this do decrease dimming headlights, they think it works because it gives the illusion that it works because the headlights arent dimming as much, but the truth is they arent dimming as much because the charging system can recover faster because of teh larger wire, which means that its spiking worse. i never said it dose nothing, i said its pointless for solving this specific problem because it dose nothing to solve it, it only makes things worse

[MoparNeonMan]

So your gonna tell me that ALL the neonites that have had success with this.....have lost their minds? Are imagining things?

im saying yea they are nuts

News to me...Ok.....well thanks for clearing that up.

[Craz1000]

hey BTW use the whole line as a quote and not just a piece so you can make me look like an ass cause what you do is make yourself look like one

im saying yea they are nuts if the do this do decrease dimming headlights, they think it works because it gives the illusion that it works because the headlights arent dimming as much, but the truth is they arent dimming as much because the charging system can recover faster because of teh larger wire, which means that its spiking worse. i never said it dose nothing, i said its pointless for solving this specific problem because it dose nothing to solve it, it only makes things worse

thats how it should have been done, theres a BIG difference between what you quoted and what i actually said

[MoparNeonMan]

hey BTW use the whole line as a quote and not just a piece so you can make me look like an ass

dude...Im not gonna make you look like an ass. Thats not what I was tryin to do. If I wanted to I would. Ill let everyone else make you out as an ass. It doesnt matter what you say. this is the internet. People will not always read everything. They like to jump to conclusions.

Wether I put it as I did....or the whole thing...it doesnt matter. The fact remains you called us all crazy. Im not mad. I hold no grudge. In fact i thank you for this discussion. Its not often I get to go back and forth with an intelligent person. Im not callin myself supersmart as there is a lot I dont know. I appologise for calling you rookie. I have just seen WAY too many people who think they know what they are talkin about...come in and flap their gums and not say a damn thing.

[Craz1000]

if you see the principle behind what is really going on with this upgrade and what people are using it for.

this is a GREAT upgrade dont get me wrong, only if you use it for a 24v alt or something that requires a extreme drain from the battery/alt that is constant, not an amp that is intermittent. but to use it as a way to reduce dimming headlights from a system is what im pointing at. using that upgraid for that purpuse alone will cause the charging system to recover quickly which is nice, but a side effect of it is that your causing a spike once the amp is done draining the electrical system, that is not good.

as a matter of fact its teh same effect you get from a turbo when you suddenly let off the throttle, you get a surge in pressure, the bigger the turbo (the bigger the wire) the worse that surge becomes, see what im getting at

[anomalous0]

I'm not making any claims that it INCREASES the voltage. What I'm saying can be divided into a few points.

1.Yes, electricity flows from negative to positive (DC current)

2.Most of your accessories work off of a chassis ground

3.If your chassis is better connected to your negative battery terminal, those accessories will have less resistance when drawing electrons.

4.Less resistance means, for instance, brighter headlights.

5.Less resistance in your electrical system also means that your alternator has to work less to get the same thing accomplished

6. Increased grounding points are good if you have an underdrive pulley because:

7. An underdrive pulley means the alternator has to work harder to get the same thing done.

Anyone want to try to confuse the issue with technobabble that most of us (fairly educated) neon owners will immediately see through?

[MoparNeonMan]

alternators only output 14.7 when thier BRAND new, after a while they drop to 13's and stay there pretty much untill they approach the end of thier life.

Then why during all the time that I have worked on diffrent cars do they all show damn near 14.7 on charging system checks? If YOUR seeing less Id look for an energy draw somewhere. A non fully charged battery will mess up CS outputs.

[Craz1000]

idk man that was on the book and every car ive tested and some suv's that had about 3 or 4 years on them and a high 13v to low 14v output, our tester we have in the shop uses 3 led's that are labled as 14.4v+ = new, 13v-14.3v, = good, anything less than 13v sets off the bad led. also my 01 neon's alt outputs less than my 05's and the only difference between them is age, infact my 05 should output less bacause i have tons of stuff hungry for power. ive maintained those two cars excessively and the old alt still looks like its brand new pretty much and im sure 6 years is a good age but not long enough for it to start dying.

if u have a udp yea this is more helpful, if you dont have one yea it may help, i never said it dosent, what ive been trying to say is that doing this will cause more problems later on if your doing it just to stop an amp from drawing so much current.

this is a GREAT upgrade dont get me wrong, only if you use it for a 24v alt or something that requires a extreme drain from the battery/alt that is constant, not an amp that is intermittent. but to use it as a way to reduce dimming headlights from a system is what im pointing at. using that upgraid for that purpuse alone will cause the charging system to recover quickly which is nice, but a side effect of it is that your causing a spike once the amp is done draining the electrical system, that is not good.

as a matter of fact its teh same effect you get from a turbo when you suddenly let off the throttle, you get a surge in pressure, the bigger the turbo (the bigger the wire) the worse that surge becomes, see what im getting at

with or without this upgraid the amp will still drain the same amount of power when it hits, your headlights wont dim as much because youve enabled the charging system to recover faster becasue of less resistance, but that increases the chances of a spike after it recovers, but your headlights still dim is the point, you dont notice as much because they get the power they request faster. to stop this problem COMPLETELY is what im saying, you have to stabalize voltage during the drain, and after and this upgraid dosent do that, it dose many other things, but alone its not enough to solve that specific issue

our existing ground wire is fine for a system, if it wasnt my headlights would dim..... and they DONT

[silentneon01]

I haven't really looked at all my grounds on my 01 neon but the grounds and neg(-) that I've seen are around an 8awg.

For those who don't know awg stand for american wire guage, Its a industry standard. The lower the number the thicker the wire. 0 being the biggest about the size of your thumb to 24 which is about the size of penical lead.

In a ealier post it was asked:

Also does it matter the size of the braids? Ive actually got in home electrical kinda wire and instead of hundreds of real small wires, mine have6 or so largeer wires.....that wont matter will it?

Either will work but here the difference. Both are the same gauge but there is more reisints(ohms) in the 6 stranded cable. In genearl eletric applataions when you get to that size a few ohms aren't going to matter cause your dealing with high voltage and amps.

Now the other cable that has lots of tiny strands will give less reisints because each strand has less ohms. Meaning most of your "power" is being delivered from one end to the other. An because they are bundled togethere they are able to hold large amounts of "power"

When it comes to cars more strands are better period.

The better the connection either be pos(+), neg(-) whatever. The better it will work the better it will function. Ever seen a late modle car with one bright headlight and one dimm headlight? Normally cause by a poor ground.

Now the only thing that I haven't been able to figure out is this spike that Craz1000 talks about.

using that upgraid for that purpuse alone will cause the charging system to recover quickly which is nice, but a side effect of it is that your causing a spike once the amp is done draining the electrical system, that is not good.

as a matter of fact its teh same effect you get from a turbo when you suddenly let off the throttle, you get a surge in pressure, the bigger the turbo (the bigger the wire) the worse that surge becomes, see what im getting at

I dont agree with it.

A spike after the increased load goes away? You can have a spike at the point of the increase but not after. As demand easies the "power" is used up. Like turning off a shower.

A turbo has to discharge cause the build up it there no matter if there is a load or not.

[Craz1000]

A spike after the increased load goes away? You can have a spike at the point of the increase but not after. As demand easies the "power" is used up. Like turning off a shower.

yes the spike is after the load goes away because its from the charging system recovering, goes a little over what the normal level is at, its hard to explain exactly why but it happens, and to put this to rest once and for all i tried an experiment at work today this is what i came up with

i disconected my caps and cranked up all 3 amps, had the overhead on and my power inverter. i hooked up my oscilloscope and my meter at the battery to measure whats going on at the battery and charging system at the same time

i played a track from BASS305 that had 5 huge bass drum hits within a matter of half a second. took the measurments at each hit and avaraged them out

NOTE: my main power wire is a 2awg fosgate with a 100amp ANL fuse

With stock ground wire:
AVG Drain: 90amps
AVG Recoverytime: 40ms
AVG Spike After Drain: 1.2amps

With 4awg ground:
AVG Drain: 95amps
AVG Recovery: 15ms
AVG spike: 1.3amps

With 0awg ground (was laying arrround)
AVG drain: 102amps (fuse felt it, element bent a little)
AVG Recovery: 5ms
AVG spike 1.8amps

With caps back on
AVG Drain @ Bat: 50amps (95amps at D-Block)
AVG Recovery: 12ms
Avg spike: .3amps

granted 1.8 amps is nothing, but if you look at it at the atomic level,

1 coulomb (1C) =6.022x10^23 of electrons
1amp = 1c of electrons flowing though a given point

so with a 1amp spike you are forceably shoving 1c worth of electrons down the line, now this is devided among everything connected the line, which ends up being almost nothing to 1 device, so lets say theres 1000 things connected to the line thats
6.022x10^19 worth of electrons which is something like .02 amps, maybe less? again its nothing at that time, but after a while that puts more wear and tear on the electrical components inside anything and eventually things will fail.

now i have a unnesisarily huge system to begin with and ive modified my MRD-M605's so i can get more juice out of them, with a "normal" system you will experience a fraction of these results, but its still extra wear and tear

thats some of the reason why in my '01 neon i had the system cranked up all the way and it would drain so much power the car would drop RPM's to the point that the car almost stalled (i didnt believe in caps at the time i thaught they were a waste of money), after 6 months of that nonstop punishment the ECU went

[BlackRoseRacing]

Now im going to piss people off and lock this topic right here.........
There is enough information here to help any one decide what they want to do as far as the grounding is conecerned and the discussion and bickering is now put to a stop....

FYI - The neon's engine is mainly grounded with a 10 or 12 gauge wire connected to the transmission side of the car to the drivers side fender area. Along side of that is a cheap flat high resistance braided ground. On the passenger side of the vehicle there is also a ground strap that is a coated flat wire that connects the pas side upper engine mount to the side of the head.
As for the grounding helping with the headlight dimming.......
The front headlight wiring is grounded to the front radiator core support with 14-16 gauge wiring, 2 of them as a matter of fact. If these 2 ground points loosen up or become corroded and/or rusted the ground circuit for the whole headlamp to dash harness will suffer.
If you dont believe me, loosen up the 2 10mm bolts that are on top of the radiator core support that have wires attached to them.


Now reach into the car and turn on your headlights, walk back to the car...wiggle those 2 grounds, see what happens to the headlights? Now clean up those grounding points and mount those grounds securely to help with the grounding of the front harness....
As for the big 3......
Keep this in mind:
The cylinder head is grounded through the head bolts or that little strap on the side....
The engine block is grounded through that 10-12 gauge wire thats on the drivers side. Note, this is the major engine grounding strap and your starter is going to use the hell out of it...
The exhaust header is grounded through its mounting studs, NOT the exhaust pipe itself....O2 sensors need a clean ground to work properly, thats why there is the extra wire in the harness for them since the exhaust does not act as a good ground....
As far as this discussion goes, use it for information purposes only since a few people have there own opinions on what is good and what is bad....

[occasional demons]

Since this is related, and already stickied, this as good a place as any.
Might save someone a lot of work.

A voltage reading above 0.300V can cause pinholes in the heater core in a short amount of
time.

http://www.carquest.com/common/download ... olysis.pdf

Just as a side note, old coolant can make it's own voltage, so a flush might be in order if fixing the grounds doesn't lower the voltage levels.