For anyone that may dispute the "gains" from doing this mod. gains will only be seen/felt if your stock/current ground wiring is shot, corroded and/or outdated.

Long story short. I went out and bought some Streetwires UFX4 Clear power wire from Magnolia Hi-Fi, 9ft of it to be exact. So I cut it to the lengths provided in the installation tutorial (photos included) on http://www.activetuning.com/products...NDKT/index.php.

Bought some generic stainless steel terminals (4AWG) and crimped them myself.
Cost, $19.00 for wire, about $9.00 for terminals, already had necessary tools for the job. $28.00 compared to $50.00, definitely better, but it does take time. About 1.5 hours for preparing and installing the wires if you custom make them.

Benefits that I can tell right away. Stock speakers KICK now haha, but really, they sound a lot better, much clearer lows and better mid/high range. Headlights and all other lights are MUCH brighter! Windows roll up/down faster.

As for the other stuff...
* Increased Horse Power & Torque <~~
* Awesome Looks
* Faster Shifts on Automatics
* Improved Mileage <~~ Don't know yet
* Reduced Emissions <~~ That too
* Stronger & Faster Starts
* Smoother Idle
* More Responsive Acceleration <~~ Noticed a difference right away
* Reduced Audio Noise
* Improved Electrical Accessory Performance (brighter lights, windows/sunroofs operate faster, better radio reception, etc.)

 

interesting... I thought there was a 5 point kit also...
give me a minute
matt blehm has made a set for our cars...
www.blehmco.com
I wonder what the how the extra grounding point does for the car?

 

making your own kit is the way to go. Its inexpensive, and easy.

its a good time to clean up old ground too. Ground the starter too and many have said to have faster cranking too.

 

Man you must of have really bad grounds to notice all those differences. I use to do mine that way and did not notice a thing.

 

My bolts connecting the grounds to the chassis were corroded and tighter than... well you know. The stock wires didnt look all that hot either. And so i got them out and then dremel'd the area where the holes are for better connection and cleaned the stock ones up a bit with a wire brush on the dremel.

 

I just cleaned my terminals with the wire brush and ran one thick a$$ 0 gauge to the main ground. I can't remember but i think i also cleaned all the original grounds and had all the same results.

 

you gots to hook me up before the meet on the 25th.

 

Damn that's a good job you did in making them. They look very nice too!

 

do you know all ur lengths of wires or how much you bought? because im thinkin of doing the same thing

 

best bet, it to go under the hood and plan where your going to run your wires. then measure with a measuring tape and that way your good to go.

 

how many grounding points did you have.. ? ive ran one to the starter and re sanded the chassis and engine grounds.

did you do headlights, alt, and all the other lil stuff?

 

Thank You

These are the wire lengths for the 98 maxima according to activetuning.com:
14" grounding cable from the negative battery terminal to the chassis
16" cable is installed from the cylinder head empty M6 threaded hole near the dipstick to the chassis
12" cable runs from the timing cover harness bracket bolt to the chassis ground
15" cable is installed from the firewall to the intake

For reference, all I have done right now is the 14, 12 and 15 inch cables, i might finish up the 16" today.

negative battery terminal to the chassis
timing cover harness bracket bolt to the chassis ground
firewall the the intake
*I will be doing the 16" cylinder head empty M6 threaded hole near the dipstick and to the chassis

So to answer your question, 8 grounding points (so far). BTW since I did buy 9ft of wire, I might find one or two more points to ground.

 

i only see 4 on ur picture.. and im gonna pick up this wire i need tomoro i think.. where should i go? canadian tire? or say a electronics store? or something similiar?

edit: i just realized that pic shows the ones that the Kit from ActiveTuning comes with. if you could snap a pic of yours that would be awsome with little arrows as well as i am definetly gonna do this

 

Go to an audio store, they def. have them. Swatsypder do not ground your alternator because a positive is meant to go there, just a heads up.

 

i dont see why the timing chain cover is needed cause there is already the main engine ground and that m6 ground nearby. but i guess if you wanna be extra thourough. ill probably do the intake manifold one.

one you should do if you havnt already is your starter. the ground it has is tiny.

 

post some more pics when your all done.. im in the middle of doing this too!!

 

What gauge wire are you guys using ??

-matt

 

Isn't there a positive wire going to the starter? I would like to ground my starter but I don't want to electrocute myself. What do I need to know to do this safely?

 

Only Autotragics actually feel any difference. I have alot of cable left over as i didn't finish. I only did the main ground and cleaned up all exisiting. I'd sell my wire (0 guage w/ 0 guage terminals) but my wire didn't cost 19 bucks.... More like 70 and i know the org is cheap. LoL

 

Looks like I have myself a little project for this weekend, I get 4ga. wire & ring terminals dirt cheap from the shop I work at on Saturdays.

Hopefully this will take care of my engine noise coming through my sound system, I've tried just about every trick I know.

 

i just bought Audison 4AWG power wire and terminals $3.99 a foot... its light blue too! super flexible and awsome wire!! gonna install it tomoro ... are those measurments right by the way??? did you measure first or just make them then go put them on?


These are the wire lengths for the 98 maxima according to activetuning.com:
14" grounding cable from the negative battery terminal to the chassis
16" cable is installed from the cylinder head empty M6 threaded hole near the dipstick to the chassis
12" cable runs from the timing cover harness bracket bolt to the chassis ground
15" cable is installed from the firewall to the intake

 

Took about an hour to do this after i found my crimpers but all in all turned out good... now time to install them!!!


sorry bad pic.. need to get digital camera charged but i lost my charger

 

Streetwires UFX4 Clear, it is 4AWG.

The starter ground is through the housing, not a wire directly attached... The positive is attached by a wire directly from the battery.

I will quote another member, "you are supposed to use one of the 2 bolts that run into the bell housing. The other end, I dont know if people chassis grounded it or if they grounded it directly to the battery."

Running the line directly to the battery is better.

The sound system feedback is most likely from the grounding system. Tell us if this fixes it.

I measured the wire first... I also cut the wire a little long, added about 1/2" to each one. so 12 1/2, 14 1/2, 15 1/2, 16 1/2. this allows for a better fit IMO.

Nice job on the wires. The 4th wire, chassis to engine that I did, I put shrink wrap on. I will have to take time another day and pull the other ones back out to put the shrink wrap on them too.

 

I ran 1/0 in my car.

 

Isn't anything bigger than 8awg overkill?

 

...and let the debate begin . . .

 

Technically? Probably. But 4 or 1/0 are probably BETTER than stock, so if you have aftermarket ANYTHING, you should (in theory) see benefit to oversizing.

 

What is the purpose of all these ground points? The only one that seems any beneficial is the battery ground.

Perhaps I don't understand how the whole grounding idea works. But it would seem that the only way a ground would be beneficial is if you were grounding a specific component. Like the starter, alternator, battery, etc. Not just release the grounds that gather on the intake manifold to the chassis.

But like I said, perhaps I don't understand it well enough.

 

^^^^^^^
I think that only the Batt ground and engine block gnd. are needed. I did those 2 plus the batt-->alternator positive run. Those 3 are considered the "Big 3." Any additional runs may have a benefit, but noone has really measured a gain.

 

Yeah i have seven grounds running to the motor and the body. i didn't really feel any difference but thats just me. i'm not even using the stock grounding cable. i put a separate terminal with all the ground wires connecting to it. i get a lot of funny looks and laughed at alot for it... >_> oh well

 

Well I did my ground upgrade...I have an AT, so I did notice the quicker & smoother shifts, car starts up alot quicker too. As far as my engine noise through the sound system.....it didn't even phase it a little, I still have just as much as I did before, maybe I need a new head unit.

 

2 questions:

1-Is there a ground spot on the starter?
2-Is the alt to battery (pos) a good idea? i would use 0 gauge for that

 

I think you just find any bolt on the starter to attach the ground to.
Alternator to the positive is right, don't do it to the negative.

 

I have an alpine 50 x 4 HU.... so that it why. I forgot to mention that my HU was not stock.

 

Great job. You should put some kits together and sell them on here.

 

The starter grounds through the transmission housing, so as long as your tranny case is grounded your starter will be grounded. And if you car runs at all, then you transmission is grounded, because your sparkplugs ground through the engine(cylinder heads), and the engine and the tranny are bolted together...

-Matt

 

My head unit isn't stock either. I re-did my whole system, I ripped out the bose and put in all aftermarket stuff with 2 amps and a box, headunit & TV. Like I said I think I need a new headunit, cuz that might be where the noise is coming from.

 

You have no idea how much this thread helps me out!

Bought the 5 piece set from Cattman not too long ago, but it never had any install directions. Since you used 4 pieces, does anyone have any ideas as to where another possible ground connection would be?

Gonna try this out on my engine today, but with all 4 Bose speakers blown out, lets see what other results I can muster

 

Excellent information!