What exactly is an Earthing kit?

As i understand it the idea is to improve the engine grounding by joining several points on the engine to the negative battery terminal. This may improve ignition quality and performance.

Now as i understand it 8AWG cabling is good enough to be used, and i have 6m of the stuff in my hands at the moment and alot of free time coming up so i'm trying to get some details:

1) What exactly is connected up during this? Is it things like the wire from the back of the intake manifold (attached to throttle cable) which goes to the chassis?

2) Are all the wires connected to each other and then to the negative terminal of the battery. Is the negative terminal connected to the chassis - thought this was dangerous but that was on one diagram that i saw?

3) fitment shouldnt be a problem but does anyone know which section this is under in the workshop manual... dont want another tranny fluid incident :S

4) has anyone fitted an earthing / grounding system and what did you find, what were the differences or noticeable affects, any negatives?

Edit: just found a thing called circle grounding kits kit (http://www.modacar.com/products/Acura/Integra/HCEGS/HKS+Circle+Eart.html) where all the individual wires join to a circle rather than just piling ontop of each other....is this important as i was thinking surely this could just ditribute charge around my enigebay as there could be current flow in any direction causing more problems than it saves.
Also i have problems with my audio, at mediocore bass hits my headlights, dash lights and internal lights all dim...even with the engine running the whole lots goes to the ****ters, it makes driving at night similar to having strobes and due to some medical conditions ( but mainly appauling genes) my night vision isnt the best anyway. can i solve this with the grounding kit

Ta Ross

bump,bump,bump,bump:drama:

In some caraudio/ICE circles there's been a fad for extra earthing, some go as crazy as
building an equivalent 'earth' wiring loom connecting all components.

Bit superfluous as your steel car body would be a great conductor anyways.


If you're getting earth loop hum, adding extra earth/grounds does not fix it.
You need to isolate the components instead.



Hehe, static electricity "grounding" straps... only in Australia. :P
Best cure if you're getting zapped all the time is to hold the doorframe
or any other metal part of car before putting your foot to the ground.
And avoid wearing nylon or synthetics, go for cotton.

extra earthing could possibly just be as much advantage as making sure your original earth to the chassis has a great connection, eg. re sand paint etc.

dont most electrical items "get" their power from their earth tho? so the stronger the earth the 'better' they will work?

obviously im using some terms lightly there but still.

And avoid wearing nylon or synthetics, go for cotton.
If only Mitsubishi followed your advice when they selected the interior carpet fabric of the TJs

extra earthing could possibly just be as much advantage as making sure your original earth to the chassis has a great connection, eg. re sand paint etc.

dont most electrical items "get" their power from their earth tho? so the stronger the earth the 'better' they will work?

obviously im using some terms lightly there but still.

Electrons flow from negative to positive, but the electrical charge travels in the opposite direction, I know it sounds odd, so I will try and show you how it works.

Go get 5 or 10 of any small objects, pens/pencils, coins work well to. Now put them all into a strait line, all about the same distance part, and move the first coin forward, see how you made a little gap? now move the next coin forward, and the next one, etc etc.

Now what you should have just witnessed is the electrons moving one way and the electricity, or the gap, moving in the opposite direction.

However back to the OP, so long as you have a good thick cable running from the engine to the negative terminal of your battery you should have no problems.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

i knew that already :)

i am teh smart:D

again another question about earthing. and again i will try remember to scan the thing i have one it where they did ti to a ralliart magna. it made better power when the earthing kit was on.

I heard that there are minimal increases in power but it also improves ignition timing, spark strength and gear changes on the auto gearbox. The info im after is a bit more precise tho pls guys, im looking at people who have an earthing or grounding kit on their cars, i need to know the points to which they connected the wires so i can do it too..


Bit superfluous as your steel car body would be a great conductor anyways.

True however 8AWG copper wiring from each component would work even better, increasing charge exchange due to decreased resistance.


only one earth strap from the cars battery to the chassis is required
in some cars this wire is continued onto the gearbox or a seperate earth wire is from a bolt from the gearbox to another point on the chassis

This is true, it is all that is required for normal working conditions, however if im doing work on my car and i drive it 'semi-vigourously' i want it to be as good as possible, especially on the gear changes, as far as i can see on my auto tj 3.0 there are two ground points going to the negative terminal, one to the gearbox and one to the chassis as you said, however my point is this, there are also another multitude of grounding wires going to the chassis meaning that when the car is running the single wire from the chassis to the battery is trying to take current from all the engine components along with the ground from my amp.


dont have your radio on when driving at night my guess is the radio has been connected to the lighing circuits and not to a seperate fuse and power wire
The amp is the problem and the fact that it is grounded to the car body. When it hits a bass spike that thing can be chucking out ridiculous amounts of charge ( its a 1500W amp) into the chassis, this combined with the engine output is trying to get to the battery through 1 little wire which decreases efficiency of the electrical system as it is not able to discharge well.

Thanks for the comments though guys, all i really need to know now is exactly what is connected to what? And also if running the ground wire from my amp straight to the negative terminal would be a good idea while im at it

Ta

OK...A quick bit of info...

Any grounding system should aim to have all system grounds connected at one point; this reduces noise in the system. That is why it is recommended that you ground an amp to the chassis, as close to the amp as possible. This helps minimise ground loops.
The cars chassis is an excellent conductor.

If you run a 4guage power cable to your amp then you could also add a short extra 4guage lead from the battery (-)ve terminal to the chassis to upgrade the current return path (ie. Beef up the factory connection).

The issue of headlights dimming can be a number of problems;

Usually if the problem only shows up when the car is running then it is the capacity of the alternator that you should be looking at. As the current drawn increases the alternator output voltage drops, when enough current is drawn to drop the alternator output voltage below what is needed to keep the regulated charge voltage you will see the lights dim with the current peaks (bass kicks), solution check all your connections are good, get a better alternator or bandaid fix is a big capacitor right at your amp.

When the car is not running, and the lights dim, then your problem is with the series resistance of the battery, this includes terminal, connections, etc. When the current spike comes, any resistance in the circuit will cause a voltage drop that increases when the current increases, hence your lights getting less voltage and less light output. Look at getting a good quality battery with a low ESR (equivalent series resistance), this pretty much means a high CCA rated battery (Cold Cranking Amps, ability to provide lots of power quickly), make sure terminal connections are top notch and that the ground lead to the chassis is in good nick, again a bandaid fix is a big capacitor right at your amp.

You can trace a problem like this using an CRO (oscilloscope) if you know someone that has one and knows how to use it/what to look for.

Cummins

i agree with what cummins has to say... that is all spot on

i had the head lights dimming even when the car wasn't running, then i did this

Batt -> Motor
Batt -> Chassis
Chssis -> motor

kinda like a triangle to keep potentials the same... tried to make the runs as small as possible and i used 4g.

and it solved a lot of problems.... my power windows go up quicker, the starter motor cranks over quicker, the motor also seems to run a bit better (ie. when my choke is on, the motor misfired (i guess due to too much petrol) but since the earth upgrade, it doesn't do it any more - only think i can think of is the earth for the sparkplugs and coil is much better that the spark is not weak), also there is no more alternator/ignition noise through my amps.

mind you, my existing earth was fairly crap... i'm running 4g to the boot for my amps and the return to the batt was only 8g with rusting terminals... kinda what you'd expect from a 20 year old car though...

now i have the headlights dim only while the car is running... and well my alternator is only a 65amp... so looking at upgrading it.

i did it only took me 6 months

they keep coming too small, it you want to read the gains by this stuff pm me

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j77/pmckewen/page3.jpg
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j77/pmckewen/page2.jpg
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j77/pmckewen/page1.jpg


http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j77/pmckewen/page3.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j77/pmckewen/page2.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j77/pmckewen/page1.jpg

Would be nice if we could read it lol.

Would be nice if we could read it lol.

thats why i said i would scan them again. when i can be bothered

sooooo is it worth it?

Can you email or tell us where we can get a copy to read?

Perhaps Barry would be able to shed some light on this?
I know he does a Body earthing Kit for the Magnas, one of which i am buying.
i'll pm him to post here.............

scanned copy would be very nice...or what mag/book is that? ill see if i can find one...

I have a scanned copy you can read, but when i upload it it gets stuffed up :doubt:

email lr2@jbn.net.au

edit: sorry, really shulda pm'd that.

Perhaps Barry would be able to shed some light on this?
I know he does a Body earthing Kit for the Magnas, one of which i am buying.
i'll pm him to post here.............

Hi Trev and all

I believe that the grounding article was in 'Performance Build-ups' about a year ago

8G cable is a little small - I found 6G was a good choice between size and performance and I solder all terminals as well as machine crimp

The commercial kits seem to be more suited to 4 Cyl engines, with 4 or 5 cables

A Magna V6 needs 10 cables, but some I make 2-into-1 to further improve efficiency

Cheers, Barry

anyone that wants it email to them, let me know in the next few hours and i will send an email out

as you know Barry ill be getting one of these from you ($95 right???), just wanna have a read of the article to see what they say about it.....

Barry what do you know about the voltage stablizer thing?

If Pete or anyone else emails it to me I can host it.

nickandalicia@aanet.com.au

If Pete or anyone else emails it to me I can host it.

nickandalicia@aanet.com.au

sent:D

sent:D

Downloading :cool:

sweet go to see you guys giving it out, it takes fricken ages to upload to email, there should be now 4 of us with it

Barry what do you know about the voltage stablizer thing?

Hi Nick
They are a good idea in principle, to suppress voltage surges and spikes
Some are a little expensive around $200+ but you still need a grounding kit because the Volt
Stab kit by itself cannot fix the problem in the V6 which is loss of synchronisation between front and rear cylinder heads

Once you fix that you will get improved low and mid-range torque, also some power gain

In the magazine article they record power gains from fitting the Volt Stab, but I believe that was mostly due to the grounding kit already fitted, and the computer was just re-tuning itself with every re-start

I will look at coming up with a practical Volt Stab when I get some free time

Cheers, Barry

Barry you may as well answered this,

but since this is a good thread about earthing i figured i would ask again. how much is your earthing kit and what is it made up of, and can anyone install it. do you know the best places to put the wire?

Barry you may as well answered this,

but since this is a good thread about earthing i figured i would ask again. how much is your earthing kit and what is it made up of, and can anyone install it. do you know the best places to put the wire?

http://web.aanet.com.au/naa/p1.jpg
http://web.aanet.com.au/naa/p2.jpg
http://web.aanet.com.au/naa/p3.jpg

Barry you may as well answered this,

but since this is a good thread about earthing i figured i would ask again. (1) how much is your earthing kit and (2) what is it made up of, and (3) can anyone install it. (4) do you know the best places to put the wire?


Hi Pete

(1) The earthing upgrade/grounding kit is $95 incl GST + $20 packing and registered postal delivery

(2) For the V6 it is made up of 7 by 6G black custom copper cables (equivalent of 10), crimped and soldered
Some use different core structures depending on their individual function
There is a concealed multi-adapter and other parts

(3) Well anyone could install it, given the right tools but help from someone who has mechanical experience would be useful - I do include detailed instructions and layout diagram
and all required hardware

(4) The kit connects battery -ve to chassis - chassis rail - bulkhead - cylinder heads - distributor - alternator - coolant, driver's side engine mount etc.

If you are doing this yourself, make sure you upgrade the existing earth bolt holes by scraping the paint from around them and I recommend treating them with CRC 226 or similar (WD40 - type products are not good enough for this purpose) Designated earthing bolts in the Magna are generally brass with an 'E' impressed on the head

I hope that answers your questions, I don't have pics but it is much neater looking than the work-in-progress in the magazine article

Cheers, Barry

Just a question about their article, any guys got any idea about what they mean by 'Air Turbo' ??

First Page, Last Paragraph

"Now hungry for power we pulled the standard air turbo from the intake..."

Barry, please tell me that you either soldered or crimped the lugs, not both...

I'm gonna have to get the cro out onto the car this weekend and see what kind of potentials are generated between these points. If it's noticeable iI might have to get me some cable.

Cummins.

Barry, please tell me that you either soldered or crimped the lugs, not both...

does that make a difference?


oh and barry can you get pics of your kit ? :D

You guys need a kit for this kind of thing?

Just get some battery wire and ends from Jaycar and uprade your earths.

Just a question about their article, any guys got any idea about what they mean by 'Air Turbo' ??

First Page, Last Paragraph

"Now hungry for power we pulled the standard air turbo from the intake..."

It seems that is their term for the snorkel - no wonder the air-fuel ratios improved

does that make a difference?


oh and barry can you get pics of your kit ? :D


Crimping is for strength, soldering is for good electrical conductivity

Don't solder it now and you'll wish you had, 6 months down the track when the terminations start to corrode

You will need a 150W iron to heat up those big cables - time to get friendly with your local auto-elec

A bit off topic, but Baz i jus noticed u hav th same birthday as me lol lol

A bit off topic, but Baz i jus noticed u hav th same birthday as me lol lol

Yes, same birthdate but I have a few more candles on my cake than you would :shhhh:

Cheers, Barry

(1) does that make a difference?


(2) oh and barry can you get pics of your kit ? :D


(1) IMO that is definitely the best way to ensure long-term peak performance


(2) I havn't offered Pics because the kit has a special multi-adapter that I use to increase the capacity of the system and I only get them as I make up each kit

It just means for DIY you will need to use a different battery terminal arrangement capable of connecting however many cables you decide to use

Cheers, Barry

i'm happy to post pix of mine once i have it installed. Will be a cpl of weeks still tho, waiting on oil leakage repairs etc :D

Crimping is for strength, soldering is for good electrical conductivity

Don't solder it now and you'll wish you had, 6 months down the track when the terminations start to corrode


Sounds reasonable that soldering could help the corrosion side of things. I’ve done lots of high current crimped cabling for furnaces (2000A+) and the interface between the lug and the surface it’s bolted to is the greatest generator of heat (highest resistance) so we use a special conductive lube, hence why u recommend cleaning and treating the surface properly.

I had a very quick play with a CRO on the car and found that there is a reasonable amount of noise at the battery that can be reduced with a few capacitors, hopefully a better/lower ESR battery would help this. I also found that there is very little noise between the different grounding points around the engine bay leading me to believe that the standard grounding system is pretty reasonable. I’ll take home a milli-ohmmeter when i get a chance and check the actual resistance between points.

Cummins.

sorry to bring up a old thread but does anyone have this earthing kit on their car?

sorry to bring up a old thread but does anyone have this earthing kit on their car?I second what he said.

I'm very interested in getting an earthing kit for my Verada. Does anyone have any pics of an installed earthing kit?

I duno barry but looking at those pics of the ralliart earthing kit it looks messy with all those cords and stuff.?

im not understanding

dont bolts have a good earth??

if i put a multi meter between the earth on battery and anyware on the motor theres no resistance? so how is this mod going help

I duno barry but looking at those pics of the ralliart earthing kit it looks messy with all those cords and stuff.?

Hi Kurt
I agree with you 100%
From post#31 in this same thread

I hope that answers your questions, I don't have pics but it is much neater looking than the work-in-progress in the magazine article

My only reason for refering members to the article was to show that a torque gain could be achieved by optimising the Magna's electrical and ignition circuits

It was one of my main objectives that my kit had to look in-keeping with the rest of the engine bay

Most of the cables are black, neat and mounted down at chassis level - that's why it is hard to get a meaningful pic that shows adequately the work involved

There are around 20 kits out there and no-one has said it is not neat :thumbsup:

cheers, Barry

I've just had one of these kits fitted to my VR-X here are before and after pic see if you can see the difference and please no coments on my messy half done engine bay.:redface:

BTW thanks again to barry this and the fuel rail kit are one of the best most noticable mods done so far...:thumbsup:



1. before 2. after

Barry's Kits are pretty much unnoticeable, all black cable where possible, looks OEM. Very neat and tidy. Very well made aswell.

Hey barry, will you be doing a kit for the 2nd Gen V6?

Earthing on a car is reasonable, but its not ideal. The main reason why items aren't earthed by wiring looms is because it would be more expensive and running more cables around the car from every earthing point is very impractical!. However, having extra grounding cables to important components can indeed help.

Its a good idea to have a good earth running from amplifiers etc back to the negative terminal on the battery! Most cars are negatively earthed so this is how you do it. Some very old cars are positively earthed (I know that sounds ridiculous) which effectively makes the whole car electrically alive. I don't know of any particular cars like this but look at jumper lead set instructions, particularly old ones! you have to connect them up differently.

Anyway, for current to flow you need a complete circuit, in this case from the battery to say, the headunit/amp and back to the battery. Some people put say use 8AWG to go from the positive terminal on the battery to their 4x50 watt headunit. This is an overkill! and even more so, to complete the circuit it uses the steel between the car and the earthing point!

Electricity will flow along the path of least resistance, so by adding earthing points using copper wire, which is a much better conductor, and connecting it to the battery will be a good help.

Now If your standard earthing point is bad, and you run high current devices, you may upset the earthing of other car components which could cause your headlights to dim...?

Ensure that any amps or upgraded headunits have the constant 12v wire connected directly to the battery! The car electrics aren't designed for high capacity devices.

Use a good battery! it may simply be your battery is either on its way out or isn't suitable. Maybe a 530CCA battery or something :D. Check the levels of the water in the battery, they should be to the bottom of the level indicator. Unless you have a really RS battery that doesn't have one! check the condition of the plates with the cells open! Oh, and some battery have a 2 plates that fits over 3 cells, these can be taken off and the battery checked as per usual!

Use Inox battery conditioner for a healthy battery. if its a brand new battery take a bit of water out of each cell and add the Inox so that the cells don't overflow! (likewise if the cells are full on older batteries). That stuff works great!

A voltage stabiliser should work great, but many of them are absolute crap. They may only have one capacitor in them which doesn't really do the job. The best one is the Raizin which can be bought off Ebay, but only get it from say here:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/GENUINE-PIVOT-RAIZIN-VOLT-STABILIZER-POWER-MADE-JAPAN_W0QQitemZ250046296813QQihZ015QQcategoryZ1025 68QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

as many of the ones from overseas are fakes! I'm pretty sure that one is a genuine one, you can tell as the genuine one you can see what looks like a K at the bottom of the capacitors whereas on the fake its a +.

I managed to get a genuine Red Raizin stabiliser off Ebay which instead of wires to the battery wires to the ignition wires under the dash (there's different types of red ones, but this is the universal one). I've only had it fitted for just over a week but its great! I had a faulty spark plug lead and I tested it a couple of times! without it there was a lot of ignition noise on the radio, with it connected... None!!!! :D

still, I'm going to replace the cable but yeah, thats all the proof I need to know that it was working. It wasn't obviously RF noise transmitted from the skin of the cable but rather a breakdown inside the lead itself that created an uneven current through the wire affecting other electrical components... well thats my explanation for it working! car runs better too!

Anyway, good luck!

Oh, there is a black raizin for audio but again, ensure its genuine. Not available on Ebay though. True Raizin's made by Pivot are made in Japan and are the renowned ones!

']Hey barry, will you be doing a kit for the 2nd Gen V6?

Hi Tuff

I had plans to do that - I need a car for 2 days to completely plan and test the design
I just havn't been able to get a 2G at a time to suit both parties - but I will get to it somehow... :think:

Barry

Hi Tuff

I had plans to do that - I need a car for 2 days to completely plan and test the design
I just havn't been able to get a 2G at a time to suit both parties - but I will get to it somehow... :think:

Barry

Yeah i understand its quite a job.
I was just going to go to supercheap and buy some off the shelf earthing cables and see how that goes, i tried it myself but i didnt solder the ring terminals on the end of the wire, great waste of $40 that was lol

So i might do that and get back to you on how that goes, atm im just using 1 earth cable cause the rest have fallen to bits on me, needles to say even my dash dims at night when i have the stereo going with some bass
-Paul

I've just had one of these kits fitted to my VR-X here are before and after pic see if you can see the difference and please no coments on my messy half done engine bay.:redface:

BTW thanks again to barry this and the fuel rail kit are one of the best most noticable mods done so far...:thumbsup:



1. before 2. after

Hi Likea...

Thanks for putting up the pics and comments - I hope it's OK if I use your post to answer some questions

There have been a few peeps who have wanted pics to show how the kit looks, and obviously it depends if you have an engine cover

So for interested members I can do even better - I can send you a sample pack containing (2) of the finished cables from the kit so you can see how it actually looks

Just PM me if you want more details

Cheers, Barry

Hi Likea...

Thanks for putting up the pics and comments - I hope it's OK if I use your post to answer some questions

There have been a few peeps who have wanted pics to show how the kit looks, and obviously it depends if you have an engine cover

So for interested members I can do even better - I can send you a sample pack containing (2) of the finished cables from the kit so you can see how it actually looks

Just PM me if you want more details

Cheers, Barry

Go for your life man no skin of my nose thanks again for the kits.:bowdown: :thumbsup: