Spent about an hour today making up and fitting 4 new earth wires with connectors. In red and yellow of course :D:D:D I made sure all the earthing points I connected them too were nice and shiney and conductive ;) Very easy job with a soldering iron, screwdriver and 10mm spanner ;)

 

Immediately upon startup I noticed the idle settled straight to 800rpm whereas normally it would spend a few seconds dropping from 1,200rpm. Idle noise was smoother.

 

I blipped the throttle whilst stationary and the change was obvious. I didn't think anything was out of order before but now the revs react quicker to stabbing the throttle, and the exhaust note is smoother and the rise in note sort of more linear as you press the throttle, and less/no overrun on the revs when you back off.

 

Driving the car it seemed a fair bit pokier, smoother and gear changes actually felt a bit more forceful, dunno if thats the ALC's input now being stronger?? I only took it a couple of miles and didnt try anything silly as its wet.

 

I'm well chuffed with the results, and it looks good too - see pics. And best of all it cost me less than £7!! :D:D:D:cool:

 

I expect people to reply with it being due to the ECU resetting whilst the battery was unhooked, but it was more than that. Ok I bet the effect is mainly because the earth strap is old etc but the difference is there.

 

Thoroughly recommended - do it!

 

Pete

Originally posted by TonyC

Just seen that nightbreeders is allso a UK spec,wonder if Jap and uk differ,would be interesting to find out:)mind you Mattys is UK,worth checking,i only had the one earth from battery,to the rear bulk head area!

 

Yep me too. Doubt there's a difference between UK and Jap earth straps, old electrics are old electrics ;)

 

Yeah I also read the post on gtr.co.uk about the guy whose ECU ballsed up because of a bad earth, busting his engine :eek: :( Makes it even more worth doing IMO :)

 

Pete

Must admit it is a recognised mod that is meant to have general benefits all round!

 

Also it is meant to stop the heater cores from decaying, someone posted up a link a while ago where poor earths caused the coolant to become more corrosive!

Originally posted by TopLess

Also it is meant to stop the heater cores from decaying, someone posted up a link a while ago where poor earths caused the coolant to become more corrosive!

 

LOL Seriously Mark?? Is there anything this mod doesn't improve!!?

 

I've actually noticed my tyres are wearing less and the paintwork is looking much shinier :D:D

Yeah no joke, someone sent me a link from a sad mag called something like heater core monthly, because of the bad earth it caused the colant to become corrosive eating through the heater core!

 

I am thinking of whacking a couple of earthing straps in my undercrackers, see it perks things up down there as well:D

Originally posted by TopLess

I am thinking of whacking a couple of earthing straps in my undercrackers, see it perks things up down there as well:D

 

I can seriously recommend against this. I tried attaching a jump lead to the -ve terminal of the car and holding it against various parts of my pants. Jane watched the result to see if there was any discernible difference at each position. She reported no alteration.

 

So we decided to try something more powerful. We wired one end of the lead into a mains plug and plugged it into the house mains. Upon repeating the experiment, we found that everything is now a lot smaller ("shrivelled" would be a better adjective). It has also had the detrimental effect of a severe blackening and some not insignificant pain. There are now also severe starting problems.

 

So I can honestly say this wasn't the best advise I've ever received from this forum.

i read about doing this when i had my impreza

tried it and guess what car went better

had forgot about this until now

have a look at my 300 tomorow

whatever it cant hurt.

 

steve:p :p

you can test this to see if its actually doing anything or just a placebo effect ;)

 

place an voltmeter from the negative post of the battery to the earth wire of any consumer (light bulb, sensor, ecu etc) and you would expect 0v right? what you may get is a small residual voltage (current used up by a poor earth), up to 0.1v is usually deemed acceptable for most items.

 

test before & after fitting your additional earth wires to see if youve made a difference.

 

then let me know, i cant be arsed :D

So we decided to try something more powerful. We wired one end of the lead into a mains plug and plugged it into the house.

 

So I can honestly say this wasn't the best advise I've ever received from this forum. [/b]

 

 

who told you to do that ??

lucky you didnt kill yourself.

 

steve

these look ok

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=33574&item=2451611177

 

steve

Originally posted by Paul C

test before & after fitting your additional earth wires to see if youve made a difference.

 

then let me know, i cant be arsed :D

 

Do it yerself ya lazy fooker :D:D:D:D You know you want to ;)

Originally posted by Paul C

you can test this to see if its actually doing anything or just a placebo effect ;)

 

place an voltmeter from the negative post of the battery to the earth wire of any consumer (light bulb, sensor, ecu etc) and you would expect 0v right? what you may get is a small residual voltage (current used up by a poor earth), up to 0.1v is usually deemed acceptable for most items.

 

test before & after fitting your additional earth wires to see if youve made a difference.

 

then let me know, i cant be arsed :D

Took Pauls advice and went round the engine with a voltmeter today , generally getting 0.0-0.1v and sometimes -0.1v accept on the Rad where I get a constant -0.44v to -0.46v depending on where I touch the Rad , so why the big minus figure on the rad ???:confused:

I shouldnt think readings at the rad are meaningful. It is not in any circuit nor does it have any sensors into it. The high reading there is probably due to the rubber mounts and the fact that its nearly electrically isolated due to them.

 

Between car body and engine is usually what counts.

I SAID PUT IT BETWEEN THE -TVE & GROUND WIRE ON ANY CONSUMER, YOU TIT!! :slap: :p

 

:D

Shouldn't you be testing resistance rather than Voltage :confused:

Originally posted by SMW1

Shouldn't you be testing resistance rather than Voltage :confused:

 

id say that'd be a more appropriate measure too. Current would be even better id have thought though.

Yeah, set your DVM to Ohms.

Go Between battery -ve and points of earthing.

Originally posted by SMW1

Shouldn't you be testing resistance rather than Voltage :confused:

 

not always. voltage drops & residual voltage can be a very good way of diagnosing electrical faults.

 

a poor earth is basically a resistor, which will share the voltage with the consumer on a circuit.

so if you check after the consumer on the earth wire & theres say 2v, then the earth circuit is drawing 2 volts!

 

checking current draw is no good because the current shown will be the currant drawn by the consumer and the earth as an ammeter goes inline measuring all current flow in that circuit.

 

;)

ps, unless you have a very good multimeter, then i would avoid using an ohmeter where ecu's are involved, as they have been known to be fried!! voltage testing is far safer :cool:

I've been for a good long drive today and I'm very impressed with this 'grounding' I've done on my Z.......I have to agree with Tony that my autobox changes are smoother and I have a bit more poke in midrange

 

This Mod does work........no I'm not believeing it is, I know it works!! (NB - only on cars with naff grounding!)

 

The idle is bang on 800 and from cold the reduction in revs is steady and not jumpy as it was before, the idle is very consistant too when at running temp.

 

Just thought I'd share...... :D

 

Matty.

Pete does this compliment your grounding kits or are you basically saying you can make em for 7 quid? I was trying to find the cable on the web...cant find it anywhere, id like to have a go at making it all up myself but trying to find all the bits :)

Re the testing...can you just not use your tongue?

 

Just a thought for those without Multimeters...on a good earth there should be no "tingling"

 

PMSL!

LOL Nah I used cheap stuff for my 1st go on mine, wasn't even thinking of selling them then :) Add the battery clamp, the more expensive cable, lots of my labour, postage, packaging, traders fees etc... £7 it aint :rolleyes: