Suneet

Since I installed my new components I've started to have some weird eletrical problems. I think that I'm not getting a good enough ground to the amp I have in my trunk feeding my sub. Before I install the second amp that will power my components, I want to get good grounding throughout the car. After doing some searching on the forums it seems the best bet for getting a "ground kit" is to just go to a shop and buy 20 feet of 4 awg cable, terminals/spades, and just do it yourself.

Has anyone else done this? Can you chime in on good ground points in the engine bay and the trunk? I'm using this picture from retrodrive as a starting point for the engine bay:



But I'm not exactly sure how to read that diagram. So are there 6 cables connected to each spot and do each of those cables connect to the negative terminal on the battery? As for the trunk, right now since I have one amp I'm grounding it to the bolt that holds the original OEM subwoofer amplifier. This is connected to the chasis. I've heard that when installing multiple amps you should always gorund them to the same point. Is this true? To me it shouldn't really matter, if the chasis is all properly grounded the entire chasis should act like "one point'". I've also read that perhaps drilling a seperate ground point into the trunk somewhere undearneath all the carpet and just screwing the terminals of the ground cable into that would work well also.

If anyone can share their experiences on installing a ground kit in their engine bay, that would help. That picture helps but its difficult to see whats really going on. Thanks,

- Suneet

Suneet

No one else has installed a ground kit on their LS?

GRAND_LS 4

iTrader: (2)

You might find a lot more info on grounding kits in the GS forums.

Tammy

After removing the battery, you'll follow the ground wire, checking the connections at each point. Check for rust or corrosion, clean with baking soda as required. Purchase a few large star washers (hardware store) and place them between the crimped wire lug and the steel body connections and retighten. This insures good electrical contact, battery to the body; body to amp with dissimilar metal connections. (Brass/copper/steel)

Buff off all paint at your new steel connection point on the body in the trunk. This would be about a half inch circle. It must have a locking nut on the back side, not just a sheet metal screw screwed into the body, so locate the mounting hole carefully. Four gauge wire and crimp lugs should be good to build grounding wires to the amp cases.(Use larger rather than a smaller wire if you need to adjust the guage) Using a star washer between the body steel and the first lug, tighten the lugs in a stack using a 7/16 or 10mm headed bolt and nut. An additional nut atop the first, acts to lock the connection solid. Label with pemanent ink pen there are a couple locknuts located below that need to be removed prior to loosening the ground connection.

Also, use a star washer at the opposite end of the wire, as it's lug connects to the amp, between the wire lug and the metal casing.

Finally, insure less than 1 ohm resistance between the battery ground disconnected and your new grounding wire's lug, using a digital VOM multimeter.

Doing the grounding this way should eliminate the chance of creating ground loops.