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so, heres my initial thoughts in one word about ground wire kits. Junk!

ill say this though, i have a background in Electronics, though i would never claim to be a know it all, i just cannot see what these kits will do other than just add some color to your engine bay.

heres the thing. with electricity either you have a connection or you dont. if your battery is grounded to your frame then your car is properly grounded. anything metallic that touches your frame will then be grounded as well. yes i get that one metal conducts better or worse than another and yes i get that smaller guages of wire will have higher resistances than larger but i still dont see these high dollar gound kits actually making a difference.

heres what whateverrandomcompanysellingthisjunk.com has to say about it.

- By utilizing a 24-karat gold plated distribution block and multiple grounding points, improved idle and drivability are often obtained as the additional grounding points equalize resistance and voltage between various ground points. -

ok, this kind of makes sence to me. i can see how high resistance in your grounding system could create problems electrically. sure. but what are you really doing here? look at what we are doing. we are running one wire from the battery to point A on your frame or engine block. then you will run a seperate wire to point B on your frame or engine block, so on and so forth...

am i the only person that notices that all you are doing is attaching one wire to one place and another wire to what might as well be the same place. the whole freaking frame is metal, what in the heck difference could placing another wire to the same piece of metal make?

i guess the answer is in the application. does this really work? i want to hear from someone that knows more than me on this or better yet someone that has one installed and has in fact seen a difference in idle and drivability or not.

::sigh::
Rant Over

Cheers!

As a retired EE I can also understand, and would expect, that the ground potential at different points of the auto-body would be, and ARE different - sometimes by as much as tenths of a volt, but usually only hundredths.

This is one reason audio equipment gets "ground loops" and have noise induced when to audio devices are independently grounded AND connected together by a cable that is also grounded to both equipment chassis (MP3 player to Head Unit with MP3 player being powered by the vehicle, for example).

Thing is, the major segments of the engine systems are designed knowing and expecting ground point differences, variable supply voltages, noisy power, and noisy signal channels. In fact ground point differences an order of magnitude larger than those experienced in the average vehicle have no effect on performance of the engine systems.

Overall, unless one's sensitivity to change is so finely tuned that one can sense nearly unmeasurable (and often imagined...) differences in performance, adding "ground kits" are usually as effective as adding decals...

This is NOT to say that ground kits do nothing, they DO provide better, more stable grounding than the body of the car can or does. The culprit in body grounding is that where pieces are spot-welded, riveted, or bolted together, the resistance of that connection is less than ideal, and can change over time, especially with body damage, body flex, corrosion, and age.

Automotive systems are designed to work despite these changes, and they do, quite well. Thing is, a ground kit does remove some of the variability and noise from the equation, and bring worst-case situations back into the center of the range.

So, would I add an elaborate ground kit with multiple grounding points to MY vehicle? No.

I would, however, try to ensure that the OEM grounding is is good condition, and make sure that connections are tight and corrosion free.

ONE additional ground cable directly between engine block and battery might actually be a good "belt and suspenders" addition, but for 99.9% of the cars on the road would probably add nothing to performance or reliability.

That's MY opinion, and I'm sticking to it.

i really dont see a need for a grounding kit. a ground is a ground to me. i wouldnt spend a great deal on one. now if i got it like 80% off of retail price new then i might think about it.

i see what you guys are saying and i am as electrically retarted as one can get, and i really dont think it does exactly what the manufactures say
i had a buddy install a ground wire kit on his car and he said that it idled better and that was the whole reason for me making mine
i seriously doubt that you can increase hp by adding a few wires to ur engine bay
but like i said it did what i wanted it to do so im happy

you know Tomas, i was really hoping you would bite into this thread. thanks man, youre always full of great info.

If everyone is worried about their idle, why not just adjust the throttle body opening to stay open 0.5mm's larger.

I made a ground kit for mine. Not that I ever expected it to improve performance or idle better. To be honest I was tired of getting the crap shocked out of me every time I opened the damn door. Seems to be working, that or the humidity levels coincidently rose enough at the same time and stayed there to eliminate the static charges.
I guess I'll know for sure when fall rolls around again.

(The "getting shocked when getting out" is just a static charge that needs to be drained off, and you become the easiest path when you complete the circuit between the vehicle and the ground. Absolute best way to get rid of that is to get one of those conductive rubber antistatic "ground straps" or "static discharge straps" that lightly touch the ground under the car, and constantly drain the charge off.)