grounding

93SOHC · Post by **93SOHC** » March 5th, 2005, 5:39 pm

olay so I did some ground wires today. 4G wires. I am a bit confused on something though. I ran some such as front of tranny to chasis, MAF to chasis, IM to chasis, block to chasis. I didn't do the negative battery terminal cause It confused me and I have yet to get the cash for my optima and gold terminals. The wire off the - battery terminal goes to a chasis ground point then splits off and goes down to the tranny and mounts on the throttle cable bracket. Is this mazdas cheap a$$ way of grounding the trans and the battery in one shot? Since I already grounded the trans on the front side( where there was a crappy little 14G wire going from it to the subframe) do I have to do all this BS spicing or can I just find a good spot to ground the - battery terminal, and call it done? Any insight would be great. I checked out gro's site, but I did it a bit different than him, so I can't really compare properly. I should have the battery and terminals in a week or 2 so take your time guys...

Grants · Post by **Grants** » March 5th, 2005, 6:22 pm

If you've grounded everything to the chasis you'll now just need a good negative battery connection to the chasis. You haven't really improved anything until you do that. I don't really know what you mean about the splicing. Are you going to leave the original ground wires? I would. If not you'll need to make sure you've got new wires to each point the originals went to. Don't forget the purpose of installing these wires is to improve the original design and reduces electrical losses so you might as well leave what Mazda thought was good enough, it can't hurt!

Just grab a new terminal and connect both the original ground and your new one to it. Ideally, run your new main ground wire to the same place on the chasis where you connected all your other new grounds. Why not run this new main ground wire now and connect it to your existing terminal? Until you do that you mightn't see any improvement and you can always change the old terminal later if you want.

93SOHC · Post by **93SOHC** » March 5th, 2005, 8:46 pm

yeah, I know, obviously i'm not gonna see much of a difference, without the main battery ground. I just wanted to get it started. I will take the advise and leave that crap alone. I will just add an aditional wire for the main ground on the battery. Thanks, I am well on my way to upgrading my 12 volt system

matt_fulghum · Post by **matt_fulghum** » March 5th, 2005, 9:09 pm

ummmm, fyi... ALL grounds go to the negative battery terminal... you should have your central ground point go DIRECTLY to the battery instead of to the chassis... that's the only way you're gonna see a real grounding difference.

93SOHC · Post by **93SOHC** » March 5th, 2005, 9:27 pm

I guess I should be specific here: wire from block to chasis, from ther another wire to IM, from there to another grond point, off the same point to MAF, from MAF to trans to chasis. Then when I get the negative terminal grounded properly, there will be one from the same point trans is grounded to, to the - battery terminal. They are all linked together and will be attached to the - terminal when this is done. I could have just attached these all together and ran it to the - battery terminal, but in order to keep them kinda outta the way and make SURE they were grounded to something, I just stopped along the way to the battery - terminal. I realized about halfway through this that I wasnt doing it quite right and also that I really need new battery terminals. The concept is to get all these point head, IM, MAF, and trans to the - terminal of the battery, which will be grounded very well itself, correct? If my grasping of this is way off, please tell me now, how the heck to do it

plusinfinit · Post by **plusinfinit** » March 5th, 2005, 9:55 pm

I am confused about all this negative ground talk. I plan on doing a ground rewiring and bought some 6 gauge wire from napa. I thought that if i just replace the original grounding wire with the 6 gauge one i will achieve a better running engine. I plan on leaving all the grounging spots the same(maybe add one). If by boing the above mentioned i do not gain anithing please let me know. I plan on changing all negative wires from batery down the harnes, maybe to the alternator because the alternator seems to have the same tipe of wire collor(black/yelow) as the ground so iam probably going to open up the harnes.
Please let me know if the thing that iam about to do will work at all.
I have a 93SOHC

freyguy_412 · Post by **freyguy_412** » March 5th, 2005, 11:16 pm

just to add my 2 cents, when i did mine i added a wire from the block to the passenger side chassi, from the intake manifold to the firewall (will probably add another from the tb... i heard it helps too) and I ran one from the distributor to the frame (there is a spot where two little wimpy wires ground on the block. I connected it there and ran it to the frame under my intake). personally I would reccomend using a rough grit sand paper and sanding everywhere you connect a ground on the car. the paint will weaken your connection and i noticed a slight difference after sanding as well. will do the battery cables soon. i have seen what you talk about where the cable comes from the battery, grounds itself on the back wall, then goes to the tranny. im going to run one wire from the battery to the frame, then run a seperate wire from the tranny to the frame as well. just my .02

93SOHC · Post by **93SOHC** » March 6th, 2005, 12:47 pm

ok, it is done for now, and I have noticed a difference in both perfoumance and in idle problem, both much nicer. I would imagine that after I replace my terminals, battery, alternator wire, and throw on the gs alternator I got from 2fazed, My problems may be solved all together, yay me!

I'll post pics in a week or 2 when the rest of the stuff is done( waiting on the IRS to give me money for my optima red top

)

Grants · Post by **Grants** » March 6th, 2005, 3:17 pm