ou sig

Here is what I added. I used about 5 feet of the ground wire (it is 4 gauge Stinger wire) and I added the HPM battery terminals.
They have 4 hookups - 1 for a 1/0 gauge wire and 3 for 4 gauge (or smaller) and they give a very clean look.
I put in 3 new ground wires - tranny to chasis, battery to chasis, and battery to engine block

This is after taking out the battery, the bottom plate it sits on and part of the air box so I could have more room to work.

Look at the difference between the stock ground (that was on the transmission) and the new ground wire.
I have no idea why so much wire was exposed on the stock wire - cant help with the electrical connection.

Here is the bottom of the ground wire that comes from the battery down to
the engine block.
Once again, lots of exposed wire (sorry about the flash).

Finished

Another view (with my dog).


I am not going to say I can tell I got a big power increase or anything, but I swear the car does idle smoother
(like it does right after you change your oil), shifts smoother - like others have said, and I really think it drove much better overall.
It took me a little over 1 hour. I really think this is a good thing to do if there is a lot of corrosion on the stock wire. There is no way
my stock wires in the condition they were in conducted electricity like they were designed to.
I am very satisfied - and I really love the Yellow Top battery!!! I cant wait to be able to listen to my stereo w/o the engine on and
not have to worry about the battery running down in a few minutes like it used to.

BLADE RUNNER

Great job in grounding without all the BS of a specialized kit. I am going to duplicate this on my 02 TLS. You were right in that the ground wire to the transmission looked cheap and vulnerable. The new grounding plumbing looks sweet.

subtledreamer

that is tight... major props! i love my optima yellow too

merkin110

how much do those optima batteries run for?

TunedTL

Good mod. I saw you bought some gold O rings and crimp them on bigger gauge wires. Where do you get a crimper that can handle bigger wires?

NYZGREATST

nice upgrade.

ResidualFreedom

Linesman pliers, channel locks or a hammer... They all work very well. There would be not point of getting a crimper for 2 gauge lugs.. It is a very specialized tool and you'll never use it again.


I know a few professional stereo shops that use hammers and vice grips,even though they do install them daily.

ResidualFreedom

Nice install Sig.. what was teh total cost of install?

$10 wire, $30 new connectors, 150+ Optimum Yellow top? just guessin...

ou sig

They run about $130-$160 depending on where you get it. I think Sears has just about the best price. I got it for my upcoming birthday from my dad so I dont know the exact price.

Ya I got the 4 guage O rings and 1 nice ring terminal (the one that connects to the chasis right by the front headlight, just for looks).
the crimpers I had were just fine. I Just made sure I got at it a few times from slightly different angles. Though like RF said, a vice grip or a hammer would work - just make sure it is very tight.

Pretty much, I got the everything off Ebay except the battery. Bag-Boy was the seller, or something like that. The wire was $1/foot, the connectors were $10 then the battery terminals were kind expensive at $20/terminal. So without the battery, it was about $50 - it could be much less expensive if you didnt get the nice battery terminals.

So you could ground even more times and it would still be MUCH less expensive than a good grounding kit you buy. You sometimes see people take a ground from the battery to the throttle body, well I didnt do this because I dont know the conductive characteristics of the thermoblock spacers.

ou sig

They run about $130-$160 depending on where you get it. I think Sears has just about the best price. I got it for my upcoming birthday from my dad so I dont know the exact price.

Ya I got the 4 guage O rings and 1 nice ring terminal (the one that connects to the chasis right by the front headlight, just for looks).
the crimpers I had were just fine. I Just made sure I got at it a few times from slightly different angles. Though like RF said, a vice grip or a hammer would work - just make sure it is very tight.

Pretty much, I got the everything off Ebay except the battery. Bag-Boy was the seller, or something like that. The wire was $1/foot, the connectors were $15 then the battery terminals were kind expensive at $20/terminal. So without the battery, it was about $60 shipped - it could be much less expensive if you didnt get the nice battery terminals.

So you could ground even more times and it would still be MUCH less expensive than a good grounding kit you buy. You sometimes see people take a ground from the battery to the throttle body, well I didnt do this because I dont know the conductive characteristics of the thermoblock spacers.

whatwasthat

i would like to do this, could you write it a little more detailed?

ou sig

well what do you not understand? It is 100% straight forward. If you look at your battery now you will see two wires on your negative terminal and two wires on your positive terminal (unless you have a stereo then you will have 3 on the positive side).

If you look pretty much under your air intake tube and slightly toward the driver on the transmission, you will see another ground wire connected from the top of the transmission to the side of the chasis (I have a picture of it).

I replaced all three of those ground (negative) wires and the ends with the new wire/ends. I used the original bolts and locations to hold the wires down.

So all you do is follow the wires down to where they are connected too, remove them and make new wires a similar length and re-due the connections.

If you still dont understand I will try to tell you more.

ou sig

the two original power wires i kept, I just cut the old ends off and used them again.

I really wanted to replace the positive wire from the alternator to the fuse box and from the fuse box to the battery. But when I looked at the fuse box I noticed the wires were connected with this crazy looking end, and I tried to see if I could get a new end, but they only sell the entire wire setup new. And the wire that came from the fuse box to the battery (main power wire) isnt very good or thick. Looks slightly smaller than 4 gauge but not 8 gauge.

The other power wire that connects to the starter looked very good still (no corrosion at all) and was much thicker so I left it alone.

TunedTL

I will try the hammer, thanks. What do you recommend to cut these bigger power cables if I would buy 20 fts of 4 gauge off ebay?

ou sig

you dont need 20ft for this. 5 or 6 is plenty. And I just used tin snips to cut it...doesnt really matter. As long as it will open up enough, be sharp, and allow you to get enough of pressure.

I wouldnt use a hammer to crimp these terminals because it would be hard to hold it steady and hit it even. Any crimp tool should work fine and you can be very precise

TunedTL

Needs more wires for two cars, TL and my SUV. Thanks

ou sig

oh sounds good then, if you have any questions you can PM me or respond here.

ResidualFreedom

There is a mechanical ground there even though the thermo spacer doesn't conduct electricity.. The bolts that hold the manifold to the engine, the ones that are replaced (with longer bolts) when the thermo kit is installed. These bollt will surely conduct current through them.. I understand what you meant though, being an electrician, I just thought I'd mention the bolts are plenty of contact if you did decide to run a ground cable to the top of the engine.

sbuswell

I did this a few weeks ago and idle is better, stereo is clearer, throttle response is definitely better. I don't think this adds any HP, but my car is definitely faster than before. Probably mostly because old wires were horrid. This is a great mod you can do you 30-35.00 and 1-1.5 hrs.

ou sig

damn that is a really good point - cant believe I didnt notice that. I wonder if it is worth it to add multiple extra grounds? I really doubt it. I think 2 4gauge wires is plenty of grounding potential for the car.

brianscio

That mod looks great but i gotta tell ya......I'm an electrical engineer. I always see people overkill their cars with fatty wire. You could wire your entire car with 10 awg and you wouldn't notice any difference. There is nothing in your car that will draw enough current to require 4 awg. It does look cool though

uncald4

iTrader: (3)

Awesome project. Great job. Cut the handle off the batt.

ou sig

ya I should haha
Well there are a lot of amps though the main wires - over 100, just not many volts obviously. So 4 guage may be overkill, but it cost only a few more bucks vs. smaller stuff so its not a big deal - plus the stock wire was 4 awg (the ground on the transmission looked like 8 awg though).
plus the stock wire looked like crap, so Im sure new wire helped
thanks for the props though.

sbuswell

the wire going from my batt to block was awful. there was a lot of exposed wire like yours ousig and was starting to fray. after a few weeks now and taking out my subs my car feels a lot faster. now i need someone to sell me a UR UltraS underdrive pulley. c'mon who's got one FS?

pistacio

iTrader: (1)

OU SIG, could you please post the model number on that yellow top? The subject has been beaten to death but, there are way too many threads about it with no exact part number or too little info.

Great job on the grounds and terminals, looks killer! Doing it soon! Hopefully it will relieve some noise problems in the stereo/navi screen.

joseph_99tl

that your dog?

jleon2516

I was also having alot of noise on the screen also when I would watch movies. It turns out that the shop installed the navi conversion kit to the ignition switch, the ignition switch has alot of noise. I hooked the kit directly to the battery and now I have almost no noise. The only problem now is that my battery is going alot quicker than before.

pistacio

iTrader: (1)

I did the battery grounds today with 2-gauge cables, still having noise in the screen.

Sorry to jack the thread, but I thought the power had to be run to a switched power source. I have mine hooked up to the auxillary 12v plug in the console. I Guess I'll have to try running power to the battery. This is driving me nuts because I've tried everything. Different grounding points (tons of them), noise filters (three different types), running the grounds straight to the battery, all with no luck. I'm almost clueless on what to try next.

NFLblitze1

usually you use wires

pistacio

iTrader: (1)

Wires, cables....same shit, lol

blk2001tlon19s

Nice

ou sig

part # - SC34DU but there isnt a model # listed. My dad told me the guy told him there were universal...so maybe thats the case. Just call Optima - their customer service is very good.

I bet it could help with the noise - if you look at the stock wires, you will see that there is no way they could do the job 100%

Ya me and my wife's. the dog is funny as hell and we didnt want a big dog yet because we are moving and I just didnt want to mess with big ass turds.

NFLblitze1

lol it was my terrible attempt at making a joke about the title of the thread

pistacio

iTrader: (1)

Oh, my bad. I'm sorry. Nice one, lol !!


Thanks OU SIG. BTW, the upgraded grounding didn't help me as far as the noise in the stereo.

ou sig

well you must have a ground loop somewhere else then. Check the rest of your wires/grounds to see if they are lose at all or have any exposed wire, and keep RCA wires away from power wires

brianscio

pistacio,

Go to radio shack and buy a 12 volt line filter. They are cheap money. Also, make sure that you are grounded to a good piece of frame......any piece will do. Cars are noisy. You ignition is blasting shots of around 30,000 volts. You just need to stay away from that. You can also use a hand held AM radio to detect where the noise is coming from. Just rev the engine a bit and move the radio around. It will pick up the noise. Anyway, a filter will do the same as running directly to your battery.

tommiesay

hey there i like the mod u did with the Batteries and i was gonna do the same mod as u were...but i was wondering were did u buy ur grounding kit from and wat type if wire u use..and i was wonder if u have a site were i can order it from


from ur post
3 new ground wires - tranny to chasis, battery to chasis, and battery to engine block


i wanna add more power to my car when i start up...

well thank u for ur time...

AcuraTLSFan

I did this mod a couple days ago...I wanted to do it for awhile, but never found the time.

This was way back about 2 years ago when the Acura-CL.com people were doing it, a member made his own hypergrounding kit out of 4 gauge cable and did a write up of it. It required about 20 feet becuae there were multiple grounding point setup in a "daisy-chain"

The car does run smoother....and shifts smoother. Only problem I have is after that mod, I have a slight increase in engine whine sound. Not from the speakers...just from the engine bay itself.

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...ht=hyperground

Mine is like this setup, except I didn't connect to the driver side chasis. I connected straight to battery and to the ground connector on the tranny. https://acurazine.com/forums/showpos...&postcount=190

AcuraTLSFan

ou sig

I said in my post that I used stinger brand wire. You can get that off Ebay or at your local car audio store (just make sure you get 4 gauge wire). On the wires, I just took off the stock ones and made the new ones the same length. read through my original posts again and you will see how to do everything.