DIY ground wire

[DANZZT231]

Well, I was bored and founded my spare wires from my audio install was left to no good sitting on the carpet inside its plastic bag. Looks like the length of the wires are enough to do some grounding, and with my hands itching to work on the car, its time to dress up the engine bay.

Ok, 1st thing to do is to find out where about is a good grounding point. After a quick look on Pivot's ground kit installation guide, I am ready to install the wires. If you want to do it, I reccomended you do it with 4ag wires, not only its bigger but it looks nicer with its big fat size, plus, u get better current flowing though it in comparison to small azz 8ag.

In my case, since my 4ag is not enough, I have to use 8ag for 2 of the grounding point. I uses the 4ag for the alternator, 8ag for both the gear box and the heads. There is supposed to be a ground connected to the coil distributor, but our car uses coil pack and I have no idea where to stick in the ground wire. Another one is to the chassis, but not enough wire for me, besides, I do think the standard negative to chassis is good enough, it uses two chassis point anyway so leave that alone and from my previous audio install, I already have 4ag wire from negative to the amplifier grounding point anyway.

Enough about the install, lets get down to how the car "feels" after this grounding is done in the simplest way possible. The car starts quicker (not that it was slow before anyway), its seems to be much calmer during idle and smoother throttles respond. Oh, shutting off the engine is calmer too. The car uses to shake a little, but no more this time.

Ok, don't start throwing fire at me about this mods, some swears by it, some swears at it. I just do this out of my boredom and I realises there seems to be few people wanting to know how this thing work, but there goes my point of view about it. I am not sure if voltage stabilser will further improve this or not, but I'll get that thing anyway for fun later on down the path.

I'll post some pics later, but you can see the pic on my garage.

Edited July 26, 2005 by Danz

[mx83toy]

I think its a good idea these cars seriously suffer in the grounding department... man my light dim when i hit the breaks sometimes..... i'm doing this mod very soon....

[KT_haha]

Can you post the Pivot grounding Kit installation instructions?

[DANZZT231]

http://www.pivotusa.com/installation.htm

look for the earth kit install, that will tell u where u should ground it.

[DANZZT231]

This is where I hooked the ground for the alternator using 4ag size cable

This is where I hooked the new ground wire for the gearbox, to the gearbox grounding point located on the left hand side of the engine bay behind your airbox. Standard ground wire remains there.

This is where I hooked the new ground wire for the head, same deal with the gearbox, I just add new ground wire to the existing grounding point for the head. Again, the standard ground wire remains.

Routed back all of the new ground wires back to the negative.

There is a fourth ground wire there, brown 4ag wire, that is for my amplifier. Same like the other ground cables, I hooked up 4ag ground to where my amp is grounded and routed back to the negative.

You're supposed to have pure metal surface for grounding, not a single paint on it. That's what I did to my amplifier grounding point, but I didn't do it for the engine bay. There are other ways for grounding, but I decided to do it this way for easy job and theoratically work the same.

[SILVABULLIT]

Urban auto tek do a grounding wire kit consisting of 4 wires in a choice of colours for the wire as well as the terminals. All soldered joints and heat shrink covered ends that look great. Costs are $40 for gold terminals and $47 for the platinum terminals(chrome). Contact myself or Dave at Urban Auto Tek on 0421 639 152.

[DANZZT231]

I would buy silver is there is available, silver offers less resistance. I don't know about platinum. Well I use gold for mine, I can't find silver terminals on Jb Hi-Fi. And yes, soldered joint is a better thing to have rather than crimp terminals, be it for you speakers wires, RCA wires, or anything that uses terminals, soldered is better.

Edited July 26, 2005 by Danz

[KT_haha]

I would buy silver is there is available, silver offers less resistance. I don't know about platinum. Well I use gold for mine, I can't find silver terminals on Jb Hi-Fi. And yes, soldered joint is a better thing to have rather than crimp terminals, be it for you speakers wires, RCA wires, or anything that uses terminals, soldered is better.

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I thought gold is a better conductor than silver???

[DANZZT231]

Gold is better when it comes to conductor, but silver is better when it comes to lesser resistance. But about the terminal, yeah, maybe its better to use Gold. I was thinking about that wire made from silvers which gives you no resistance whatsoever, sorry my bad.

[mx83toy]

Gold is better when it comes to conductor, but silver is better when it comes to lesser resistance. But about the terminal, yeah, maybe its better to use Gold. I was thinking about that wire made from silvers which gives you no resistance whatsoever, sorry my bad.

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I was going to run a set to my head lights as well???

[DANZZT231]

what do u meant?

[Blackzze]

Gold is better when it comes to conductor, but silver is better when it comes to lesser resistance. But about the terminal, yeah, maybe its better to use Gold.

See chart.

Material Element/ (ohm-cmil/ft) (microohm-cm)

Platinum ----- Element -------------- 63.16 --------- 10.5

Iron --------- Element -------------- 57.81 --------- 9.61

Nickel ------- Element -------------- 41.69 --------- 6.93

Tungsten ----- Element -------------- 31.76 --------- 5.28

Aluminum ----- Element -------------- 15.94 --------- 2.650

Gold --------- Element -------------- 13.32 --------- 2.214

Copper ------- Element -------------- 10.09 --------- 1.678

Silver ------- Element -------------- 9.546 --------- 1.587

As you can see, silver is the best conductor of all WITH the least resistance.

And copper is better than GOLD!!

The reason Gold is the best in cars and home stereos is because it doesnt easily tarnish (look dirty). As silver and copper tarnish, there resistance increases........ and eventually you are left with gold having less resistance than copper or silver, thats why it is the 'best'.

And platinum is 10 times worse than gold, but if you like the silver look, it takes forever to tarnish.

My "useless fact of the day".

[DANZZT231]

Now that's usefull info. Well what do you know, silver is the most conducted and less resistance.

Edited July 26, 2005 by Danz

[Blackzze]

Now that's usefull info. Well what do you know, silver is the most conducted and less resistance.

Yeah, Conductance and Resistance are very much directly related, but opposite..... More conductance will mean less resistance.

I posted the chart cos' if you ask your mates 'is copper or gold better'? ....... and I thought gold was much better than copper myself until I found out.

ps mx83toy, the grounding wire may help a little with the headlights, but the power wires to the lights (carrying the +) are rubbish. I had a Pirhana Wiring Loom for the headlights in my last car. It was 14 gauge for power and earth, with 60amp good quality switching relays......... BIG difference!

[DANZZT231]

Yeah, but relays is not the problems here for the dimming lights. There has to be not enough electric flowing, so that's what's got to be fixed. Or maybe the puny battery need to go.

[Blackzze]

Yeah, but relays is not the problems here for the dimming lights. There has to be not enough electric flowing, so that's what's got to be fixed. Or maybe the puny battery need to go.

Battery will help little. But a bigger battery can NEVER hurt, when mine needs replacement I will put the biggest one I can fit in there.

The relays in our corolla are ok, but have a look at the size of the lighting cables, they are 18 or 20 gauge...... far too small for bright lights, unless you get HID, they take a lot less power and should be ok.

[DANZZT231]

so we need relay to make the most of it yes? Sweet, i would try this.

[Blackzze]

As I said, the relays in our corolla are fine for the headlights, but if you want to make a real improvement, try bigger wire to the headlights.

[mx83toy]

Yeah... I'm going to try extra earths to the front headlights and see if it helps but as soon as my battery dies i'm going the gel cell route.