Grounding kit

[Destiny03]

Where can i get good grounding kit?

 

any recommendation? on the model and location to buy?

[Gim_ong]

My friend,

 

How old is your car?

 

If your car is fairly new, you do not need a grounding cable.

 

Grounding is useful when you have ICE ( In car Entertainment)

 

If you look at your Engine Electrical wiring carefully , a stock vehicle is pretty much well grounded.

 

Without NEGATIVE ground at all, nothing in your car will work.

 

Try to take out your negative terminal of your battery.

 

My friend you cannot even start your car.

 

If you are going for COSMETIC in your Engine Bay and if you are willing to spend that kind of money around $68. Then you can go ahead.

 

There is not much functional use for the electrical system of the Car, if your car is fairly new.

 

Cheers hope that helps

 

Gimmy

[Galantspeedz]

Like that, mine 5yr old car with ICE. got grounding to recommend anot?

[Gim_ong]

Dear Sir,

 

I am talking about COE renewed Car, when I talk about old car.

 

 

If you have ICE, YOu better get a true bloom Electrical Engineer to do it for you.

 

Be careful about some ICE modifying workshop. They also, half pail water one.

 

Grounding is the concept of Electrical Engineering, If you does not know how to ground and anyhow ground. The negative side is that you will create an Endless loop in the electrical system.

 

Please get an Engineer who has at least a degree in Electrical Engineer. They will understand what I am saying.

 

I get my friend who has a degree in Electrical Engineering to do it for me.

 

 

Those workshop Mechanics I do not think they fit the bill. I have tested some of them before I allow them to touch my car electrical system.

for instance, what is the working concept of the ALternator, and how does the Electrical System of the car works.

 

Ask them to draw a flow chart, they cannot do it.

 

For all they know is, Alternator Spoil, change Alternator, Sensor spoil , change sensor.

 

In the 1970s and 1980s , Car is 80% Mechanical 20% Electical.

 

Today it is 50% Mechanical , 50% Electrical. ECU is the King .... it control everything. That is the reason why ECU Re-mapp and all those Piggy back is so popular. It is the brain for all the power.

 

So all those Mechanic, do not let them smoke, Mechnical stuff, they are king.

When touching the electircal system. Please becareful.

 

Some of them cannot make it. I have talked to a 20 years experience Mechanic, cannot even explain to me what the regulator in the Alternator does and its function.

 

 

Later I give up, I get an Electrical Engineer to fix the grounding cable for me.

 

He told me dun borther, currently the electrical system from the manufacturer is well design. Adding extra Grounding cables are redundant.

 

If there is a short circuit, your fuse box will blow first. How can a car maker afford to have the fuse box burst all the time?

 

Therefore there is enough grounding in your car electrical system already.

 

*Note, Every model of car , the engine layout is different, how do you know which point to ground is the right point?

 

In my own opinion, Grounding CABLE is SNAKE OIL, and they are sold to END user for cosmetic purpose. Those so called Monster cables. is out to earn money man.

 

Can you believe that 5 thick cable is selling at $80?

 

I hope that helps

 

Cheers

 

Gimmy

Edited August 7, 2007 by Gim_ong

[Apollo]

In my own opinion, Grounding CABLE is SNAKE OIL, and they are sold to END user for cosmetic purpose. Those so called Monster cables. is out to earn money man.

 

 

 

eh.... Monster cables is a brand fr UK. tat one is used for ICE connecting to ur speaker. material property is OFC.. oxygen free copper designed to reduce impedance, if u know wat impedance means.

 

why u mix monster cable with grounding kit?

 

there is no logic in ur argument.

[Gim_ong]

Dear Sir,

 

Impedance is happen in AC like resistance in the layman term.

 

An Impedance Stabalizer will do the job.

 

Monster cable is what the ICE MOD Shop trying to sell me,

 

They try to use MONSTER Cable to GROUND for me in a package.

 

Told me is good, of couse I know it is good as you said Oxygen Free copper.

 

What I am emphasising here is that, these could be an overkill.

 

BY the way, in the market. When buying grounding cable. I came across Pivot's ground cable. It is not Copper cable, I am suspecting it is some kind of cheap metal inside like Aluminium mix with some metal family.

 

I am still in search for a good ICE MOD shop. I dun go for the most expensive. I dun pay for brand,

 

I pay for the person's Knowledge , the person who service my ICE must have STRONG ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING KNOWLEDGE. At least have some qualification in the Eletrical Engineering Field.

 

They will need them to explain to me the concept of the electrical system and the car load. What happen to the ECU when ICE is involved etc.

 

Sorry man that I sound picky in my choice of my purchase. I am concern because anything wrong, Alternator will suffer.

 

An Alternator replacement will cost easily $800 - $1200.

 

Cheers

 

Gimmy

[Apollo]

aiya.. no nid dear sir

 

i just toylet janitor niah niah.

 

i tell you... impedance must b capped as this will result in better voltage. so larger cable is not an excess.

 

no nid simi master or PHD students or PUB registered engineer lah. this type of kachang puteh thing, the kachang puteh man will tell you also poor impedance result in higher voltage drop, lights can become dimmer. and usually the code guideline is 3% for mains but tat can be sensitive and high for low voltage DC system.

 

so far, haven heard of anyone's alternative failing becos of grounding kit. so wat u say really falls on false premises of kiasu-sim at at extreme end of the extreme.

 

it's safer to hide in a cave. the road is too dangerous for u.

[Dynaway]

wahaha... sensor spoil dun change then wat??? can repair???

 

alternator can repair... but how much are u going to pay him to repair ur alternator???

 

if everyone like u, pretty soon all the workshop can close shop makan kaki liao...

[Elfenstar]

A few things lah bro. Any electrical engineer will tell you that a ground cable should be at least as thick as the "live" cable. Do you see that in cars?

 

A "unforseen" and rarely known fact is that a good negative ground will result in lower corrosion over time.

 

The key to grounding is to make sure that all the parts with electronics are ground, i.e. alternator, head, bottom, ignition,, firewall (as dashboard elects are either directly or indirectly connected to the firewall) and, g/box in the case of an auto/self-shifting-manual.

 

There should be no interference or anything of the sort as all we're doing is ensuring that all these components are negatively ground directly rather than through that tiny wire that runs to the chassis.

 

As for the pivot wires, they're actually tin plated OFC, which offers almost as good properties but much higher corrosion resistance. Sure if you're buying the kit its expensive, but making everything from scratch cost me abt aud$50 anyway (with good quality wires and connectors).

 

As for the impedance apollo was talking abt, i think he was referring to lowering the resistance for more power (or a lower voltage drop) rather than just stablising. Think about it, if you want to run more water to your garden, do you use a straw or a hose? The same principle applies to both what apollo said as well as grounding. Do you think a thicker or thinner cable would be better now?

 

One last thing. After all your talk, are you willing to pay 10x higher engineer rates for work done to your car or mechanic/auto-electrician rates???

Edited August 7, 2007 by Elfenstar

[Apollo]

牛刀杀蚂蚁

[Best_ctzn]

This is an interesting argument. I am an electrical engineer, so maybe I qualified to give my 2cts?

 

I do agreed that the generic grounding kit sold by workshops here are not optimal for any car. It will be a hit-and-miss thing as different car have been grounded differently to certain extent by car manufacturers. So it cannot be a 1 kit-fixed-all kind of concept. Doing double grounding for any part will introduce ground loops which will cause car to be sluggish instead of more responsive.

 

But I do believe that grounding if done properly will do wonder to the car. A good case is the return path of spark plugs in Nissan Latio. Many owners will agree that the car has lousy pickup, esp the CVT version. But if you are to connect a cable from any 2 of the spark plugs ground on the engine block to the negative battery terminal, you will feel improvement in pickup. And DIY the cable will cost only less than $10. But you must know which materials grade to get for the high-temp condition in engine bay. The spark plugs have already been grounded by Nissan in the first place (else they will not work as spark plugs need return path to ground), just that the additional cable provides a much shorter and cleaner return path so the plugs can burn brighter to deliver better power.

 

There will always be areas to improve on car grounding, but one must have a bit of electrical knowledge to know the basic concepts at least so as to be able to explain why/how it works and not to spoil anything else in the process. Generic grounding kits can only give hit-and-miss performance.

[Gim_ong]

"I do agreed that the generic grounding kit sold by workshops here are not optimal for any car. It will be a hit-and-miss thing as different car have been grounded differently to certain extent by car manufacturers. So it cannot be a 1 kit-fixed-all kind of concept. Doing double grounding for any part will introduce ground loops which will cause car to be sluggish instead of more responsive.

 

But I do believe that grounding if done properly will do wonder to the car"

 

Daer Sir,

 

Thank You for your Comments,

 

I truly agree what you said doing double Grounding may introduce ground loops that will cause the car to be more Sugglish instead of responsive.

 

Felt that all these mechanic should have some Electrical Knowledge, I lost confidence in them because I found that sometime because of time or just being plain Lazy. The grounded my Friend's VIOS with 2 piece of grouning cable from a single point to the negative terminal of the battery.

 

This is the reason why I am so suspicious over the competence of Mechanic when comes to electrical system.

 

Cheers

 

Gimmy

[Gim_ong]

Dear Sir,

 

A good mechanic can Strip anything to bolts and nuts and put it back.

 

Gone were the days that such mechanics is around. Or I should say CAR Repair god.

 

If you find such person, you can rest assure that you can bring him with you to the DESERT TRAIL in Australia From the EAST to the WEST.

 

From my experience, Sensors sometimes is dirty, especialy the Air-Flow Sensor, Please just clean it not ask customer to clean. IF change, why dun I buy one from teh spare part store then change it myself.

 

 

Alternator if spoil, please check if the rotor is work. It can be repaired.

 

This is what I called REPAIR MEchanic.

 

For CAR Engine MOD Mechanic, they are a class higher, they have a bad habit in wanting the best quality. It is because they have been dealing with Performance car most of the time. Performance car will, always use good stuff.

 

Cheers

 

Gimmy

[Apollo]

so u wanna do the grounding for Gimmy the towkay boh? he rich lah.. u charge a bit more then subcontract to me can? i jagar toylet beri eng one.

[Best_ctzn]

Hi, did I sense some sarcasm here?

 

Think the newer generation of drivers, being better educated, will tend to question more regarding what is in their car. Not everyone will accept whatever the mechanic/workshop recommend and will ask around for feedback or to know more about the things. This is not a bad thing really. For one, I will not trust a mechanic on grounding kit if he is not able to explain to me how it works, and that there is no detrimental side-effects. I will know if he is bull-sxxt just trying to sell goyok, or that there is some working principle behind. But I know general public might not know and will simply be awed by all those thick cables and some hard-sell.

 

To me, good grounding has to be tailor-made for individual car make. Efforts have to be made to study the current stock grounding setup, then testing has to be done to the common grounding points to confirm improvements or not. This kind of grounding-kit then I will buy.

[Apollo]

warouz... got so complex anot???

 

better educated drivers will know wat they supposed to buy lah. but still got pple come goreng and try to show they also knowledgeable yet telling nothing or worst, the wrong things.

 

grounding points on the ride already fixed position. if they not working, the car already cannot work or fuse burnt leh. so after market ground just to improve performance only. simple logic lah.. my kachang puteh friend say electricity travel by shortest path. so in a bi-polar situation like DC system, just ensure new ground points are distributed out evenly to the car chasis, avoiding existing grounding points.

 

but this is not to say i support grounding.. just to say if want to do also not so complex. cheap grounding kits at ard $20 and diy with some spring washer and additional hex hd nut can do the job liaoz.

 

no need simi megger testing lah.. how to megger? everything will fry leh. this one my friend holding the kachang puteh say one.

[Dynaway]

as u have said, sensor spoil change... u didnt say is dirty... i think u jus contradict urself.

 

if u r looking for this kind of standard, i suggest u look for a specialist instead of a general mechanic.

 

nowadays, u dun really need a skillful mech to do all the repair work.... tat is why they have change the job title to technician....troubleshoot mechanic days are long gone since the ODB introduction in automotive industry.... generally i would call all the technician in local agent as fitters instead.

 

like i said in my earlier reply, how much are u willing to fork out to have a specialist repairing the alternator. it'll be more costly to repair than to replace a faulty unit.... unless mechs are paid by the hourly rate, if not i dun see a point to do all the repairs for the customers.....

 

imho, if the rotor is spoilt, it will be better to replace a new rotor rather than repair the rotor as not many ppl in the market have the proper equipment for testing after re-winding or changing of armature. but if the rectifier unit is burnt or brushes worn, it can be replace easily.

 

i dun see what is so difficult for anyone with good mechanical knowlegde n tonnes of $$$ to buy n fit in those high perf parts available in the market.... i think the most important things nowadays for a high perf tuning is getting a good tuner who knows how to plot the fuel map & ignition map points on ECUs... mechanical adjustment & installations are pretty much dead straight-forward with all the installation manauals & torque specs.

[Gim_ong]

Dear Sir,

 

According to your statement which is most likely to be ture.

 

From your statement I would say that within the 5 point ground cable , some helps and some does not.

 

For instance, the Alternator is grounded to the Car body, there is a negative wire grounded to the car body in my Engine bay in stock condition. A short wire.

 

If you ground a long wire from the alternator negative to the Battery terminial Negative.

 

Which path will the current take? The stock grounding path or the addtional new grounding path?

 

Base on your Hypothesis, I would say that grounding helps for some, and some are redundant.

It adds weight to your Engine, redandant weight.

 

Cheers

 

Gimmy