Sun Hyper Ground Kit Installed

[NemesisEnforcer]

those look really nice! I am curious...what did you ground out? i know, i saw ur pics, but i cant tell what went to what. did it help you at all? what lengths did you cut?

i see you dont have a terminal, most kits have a big, central block. how is that different from the way you did it, all individually?

as you can see, i am intrigued.....may be my next mod, but need more info!!

for more clarification, this is what i mean...fuond this kit for 8 bucks. might buy it...but see, it has a central hub...whats it for?

sorry jacking ur thread brad, but i am sure you meant it to be informative for all, and this is bringing out different questions. i will start a new thread if you would rather.

[BradWhite]

No central block in my kit, but I know what you're talking about. Some recommend running all the grounds back to a termination block and running one ground for it to the negative post. Others recommend daisy chaining them from the negative post along to each ground location one coming off the proceeding one (hope that made sense). My install is a little bit of both. And so long as my voltmeter shows me the results it did, I'm leaving it that way.

Great job starfuryt550! Those cables look great. I've already bookmarked a place where I can get some. Do you happen to own a voltmeter? I'd love to see someone else post some resistance measurements with new cable in place.

Originally Posted by NemesisEnforcer

sorry jacking ur thread brad, but i am sure you meant it to be informative for all, and this is bringing out different questions. i will start a new thread if you would rather.

NO! No problem, I want to learn along with everyone else.

Brad

I was already typing my "central block" response before I saw those pics. That looks like a great kit. For 8 bucks, no s$%t, where? I tried googling "dream team motorsports" but just came up with a bunch of forums.

And I just took a better look at that kit. There's the central hub, and a new negative post terminal connector, and from the pics at least, good looking cable. I'd buy that one in a heart beat for 8 bucks. I'll put it on my Edge!

[starfuryt550]

Originally Posted by NemesisEnforcer

those look really nice! I am curious...what did you ground out? i know, i saw ur pics, but i cant tell what went to what. did it help you at all? what lengths did you cut?

i see you dont have a terminal, most kits have a big, central block. how is that different from the way you did it, all individually?

as you can see, i am intrigued.....may be my next mod, but need more info!!

No central block for me.
Some of the terminals aren't connected because I'm in the process of doing a head swap.
Grounds were as follows: engine block, alt, tb, and battery. Each is individually grounded.

-- Yes, I have a voltmeter. I can get numbers for you, but it will be like 3 weeks when my car is running again! Gotta wait for dyno time before I can drive it!

Thanks for the comments on the cables!

$8 bucks sounds too good to be true. That's insanely cheap, esp with the hub and all those bolts/nuts. If you get it, give us feedback on the quality of it. I'd be it's not too great being that cheap! But I dunno...

Oh, and lengths...2 wires were about 1 ft. long, and the other 2 were 1.5ft long

[PDQEagle]

If you find any improvement, that tells you the stock system had deteriorated and had some resistance in it. Claims of 3 more mpg and more power??????The manufacturer spends millions to eek out a tenth of a mpg. Don't you think they would install a few more, and heavier gage wires to do the same. Get real..

[starfuryt550]

Originally Posted by PDQEagle

If you find any improvement, that tells you the stock system had deteriorated and had some resistance in it. Claims of 3 more mpg and more power??????The manufacturer spends millions to eek out a tenth of a mpg. Don't you think they would install a few more, and heavier gage wires to do the same. Get real..

That's not necessarily true. Manufacturers want to squeeze every last penny out of a car, so using thinner, cheaper grade wire is a good option for this. Why do you think many of the electrical components on our cars are so thin and cheap, aka alternator wiring or the coil pack wiring? Both which are nutorious to prematurely wear out due to being too thin to handle any small spike in current. Thicker gauge wire can only help in almost any situation.

[whitefox]

Originally Posted by BradWhite

OK so I finally got my trusty Craftsman VM out and read the instructions on how to measure resistance (told you I wasn't an electronics genius)

Here's what I did. Disconnected the new ground cable from main chassis ground location. Measured resistance from main chassis ground (with stock ground cable only in place) to a bolt that a ground wire coming out of the wiring harness is attached to the chassis with. Meter read 1.1

Re-connected new ground cable to main chassis ground. Same measurement points. This time the meter read .5. Did this several times, same results. Also checked several other locations throughout the engine and under the hood in general. Same .5 reading. So I either did it wrong, or the new ground cables would appear to reduce the resistance by 50%.

Ok, now I am not an electronics genius, but I did spend $12,000 and one year of my life to learn all about it.

First of all, all resistance is measured outside the circuit. Meaning that one end of the cable or device being tested can not be connected to anything and it is recommended to check the resistance with neither end connected. So, if you want to get a correct ohms reading, check the resistance before you install the cables or remove them completely from their connections and then check them. Also, turn the meter selection down to 100 or even 1 to get a more accurate reading.

[BradWhite]

Originally Posted by PDQEagle

If you find any improvement, that tells you the stock system had deteriorated and had some resistance in it. Claims of 3 more mpg and more power??????The manufacturer spends millions to eek out a tenth of a mpg. Don't you think they would install a few more, and heavier gage wires to do the same. Get real..

Good thought, however Ford didn't even ground the throttle body on the 08' which it's now a fly-by-wire system. Adding that one simple ground wire alone makes and noticeable difference in throttle response on the 08'.

There's no doubt they spend millions in research and there's also no doubt that they mass produce their vehicles where the eek out every tenth of a cent they can in savings. It's a simple matter of compromise between engineering and production.

Originally Posted by whitefox

First of all, all resistance is measured outside the circuit. Meaning that one end of the cable or device being tested can not be connected to anything and it is recommended to check the resistance with neither end connected. So, if you want to get a correct ohms reading, check the resistance before you install the cables or remove them completely from their connections and then check them. Also, turn the meter selection down to 100 or even 1 to get a more accurate reading.

Thank you, I want advice from knowledgeable people (no I'm not trying to be a smart ass, I want to get this stuff right)

I have a Craftsman Autoranging Multimeter (model 82334) so I don't have the option to turn the meter selection down.

I don't want to just measure the resistance in a piece of wire, I want to measure the difference in the overall ground performance in the vehicle. What I did was measure the resistance between the main chassis ground and another known ground location with and without the new cable connected to the main chassis ground. If that's not valid, can you tell me the best way to accomplish measuring the overall effect on the ground system?

[kimbo305]

Originally Posted by BradWhite

Thank you, I want advice from knowledgeable people (no I'm not trying to be a smart ass, I want to get this stuff right)

Brad, man, relax. I find you to be really aboveboard and a boon to the 08+ community. We need more guys like you to keep this site moving into new Focuses.

[BradWhite]

Originally Posted by kimbo305

Brad, man, relax. I find you to be really aboveboard and a boon to the 08+ community. We need more guys like you to keep this site moving into new Focuses.

Thank you, I'm here to learn what I can and share what I can.

"relax", yeah sorry if any of those responses seemed rushed or not so friendly. Certainly was not my intent, I was at home and trying to respond before I had to get ready for work and I was still 15 minutes late doing that.

I should have waited until I had more time, like now when I'm at work and should be doing something else.

There's tons of controversy all over the web about grounding kits and their effectiveness. As there is in this thread. Personally I went for the whole kit after simply adding a ground to the throttle body and experiencing the difference that made.

[honhon]

grounding kits do work on pourly grounded circuits in cars... and its obvious with all the plastic on the duratec engine, that some of their circuitry doesnt have a full on loveable ground.

if you want to test out the ground wires you installed do this...

remove a cable off that you installed and make sure it touches nothing... then measure the ohms resistance from that point to either the battery's negative post or the main chassis ground right by the battery... then check that ohms reading against with the cable installed,

and then just go around to each cable you put in... what your doing by lowering resistance and creating a shorter path for the ground to travel...

instead of a ground having to go through god knows how many connectors and size wires, your letting it go through a larger ground quicker to a more likeable ground.

i am an rv tech, and there are dimmable lights in some coach's and the dimmer doesnt dim power, it dims the ground, i cant tell you how many times ive had issues with 12v when it came down to a bad or dirty ground...

honestly, troubleshooting a ground problem is harder than troubleshooting a 12v problem, because the ground can make things do strange things...

the biggest thing ive seen is when taillights loose a ground, they will use the smaller filaments as a ground and when you hit the signal light it looks like an amazing light show. lol

but enough rambling, i hoped that helped alittle. lol