Upgraded Ground wires improved performance. 1HP 10Torque in a WRX

9666 Views 17 Replies 13 Participants Last post by fasteddie, Mar 26, 2003

KevinJ_2k1_325ci

Discussion Starter · Mar 24, 2003 (Edited)

2

I posted a while back about ground wires improving performance and nobody seemed to care. Well Sport Compact mag has a article on a WRX getting 1 Hp and a ***PING 10Torque from upgraded ground wires. The ground wires are "Hyper wires" from sunautomobile.com. I saw a pic last year of a japanese dude that got cable from the supplier and ran it the full length of his car from the battery up to the engine bay and mounted a post on the inner engine bay wheel well. He then ran a cable also from the mount to the engine hook. The translation from japanese says he felt more power. He did a full length run of cable because of planned audio upgrades. The sunautomobile website lists a cable option for BMW's "L".

But the question is, Will just adding a simple $100 negative battery ground improve performance. Apparently so according to the WRX dyno but they don't spell out if it was just a battery ground upgrade.

SO can someone who works on our BMW engines point out what else can be grounded and where the cables are located and what thickness of cable is needed for each? I think there is a alternator ground but what thickness do you need compared to a battery ground? There is a engine ground somewhere but I can't find it. I know there is a small ground cable from the hood to the body. There seems to be a post possibly for a ground on the left of the engine bay below and right of the positive battery post. Can this be used to ground the engine further? and what would you connect it to? Pics please and cable size needed? This could be a interesting development for hidden power.

My original post with PICS of the Japanese dudez ground point.

http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53884&highlight=Ground

__________________

Import Tuner article and dyno on WRX

Article says WRX got 2-12 HP from 2000-5500 rpm. The other dyno indicated 1 HP and 10 Torque. It did say shifting mount points gave different power returns

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papasuperman

· #2 · Mar 24, 2003

Japanese car tuner been doing this for years.
Spoon have kits for this.
so is many other japnese tuners.
But Japanese car have very weak Groung wires when stock.
I keep getting shock from my old Civic.

KevinJ_2k1_325ci

Discussion Starter · #3 · Mar 24, 2003

I think it goes with saying that ALL cars have weak grounding

BMW's are no exception. Expecially with all the electrical problems. Upgraded grounding is effective in all cars. The kits that are out there now use ground braided straps. Nothing like the Hyper ground cables that are finely braided and shielded.

papasuperman said:
Japanese car tuner been doing this for years.
Spoon have kits for this.
so is many other japnese tuners.
But Japanese car have very weak Groung wires when stock.
I keep getting shock from my old Civic.

Bezita

· #4 · Mar 24, 2003 (Edited)

hmm interesting...

anyone willing to try? :eeps:

Edit: I just realised the pics above is a BMW, is that your car Kev? any improvement?

Atlas

· #5 · Mar 24, 2003

http://forums.delphiforums.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=bmwsg&msg=5074.1

Some folks in Singapore doin it

Keeferno

· #6 · Mar 24, 2003

Man, if it was that easy to get 10 lbs of torque on our cars I'd be all over it.

StreetTrixE4six

· #7 · Mar 25, 2003

this is interesting, i'd like to know more. keep the info coming

HaN-hAn

· #8 · Mar 25, 2003

Kevin, I did some looking into this phenomena and the reason that there is a performance increase is that those engines which get the performance increase from the new grouding cable are engines that get taken apart and put together again multiple times. In the process, something happens in regards to the electrical system. I read the specific science behind it somewhere but as happens with a lot of crap that I read, I forgot it! =)

Getting the engine taken apart and getting work done it happens to less than 10% of e46's, even on this forum, while in Australia it happens to at least 30's of the jap hi-po cars. These grounding mods are most often found on cars after extensive rebuilds, those cars being WRX's, 200sx, Supra's and GT-Rs. If your engine has not been taken apart, these ground wires will do NOTHING for your car.

AlexRDI330ci

· #9 · Mar 25, 2003

BMW spends millions on R&D and employs top rate engineers.
Do the math.

simon323ispp

· #10 · Mar 25, 2003

AlexRDI330ci said:
BMW spends millions on R&D and employs top rate engineers.
Do the math.

their upper management also need to cut costs here and there especially in bad economy to keep with competition and keep price as "reasonable" as possible. if cheaper grounding wire works within their performance limits(lower limit, that is), why not go with that and make more money off each car.

moral of the story, just because it's an expensive car, doesn't always mean it has the most expensive/advanced parts.

3Wagon

· #11 · Mar 25, 2003

AlexRDI330ci said:
BMW spends millions on R&D and employs top rate engineers.
Do the math.

Also, car companies are known to do things conservatively, rather than try to squeeze the last drop of performance out of a car, since it may affect other factors (aesthetics, comfort, reliability, repairability, warranty claims etc.)

By saying this, you're effectively saying that modding in general does little good, since BMW perfectly engineers the car at the facotry level.

V330xi

· #12 · Mar 25, 2003

How do you do this, are there DIY instructions anywhere?

StreetTrixE4six

· #13 · Mar 25, 2003

V330xi said:
How do you do this, are there DIY instructions anywhere?

i'm guessing it's probably a pretty big job. if this is proven and i decide to get it done, i would most likely take it somewhere.

fasteddie

· #14 · Mar 25, 2003

err, you can still get performance improvements WITHOUT rebuilding the engine. I've seen dyno charts that show +hp (i forgot the number) for a Maxima before and after ground wire install (dyno was same day). I just gotta have my friend look around with me for some grounding points, he has the wires ready for the most part.

HaN-hAn

· #15 · Mar 26, 2003

how old was the maxima? It helps old engines as well.

TeKNiC330

· #16 · Mar 26, 2003

i was looking through the mishibishi lancer EVO 8 and found out that there was an option for upgraded ground wires. so i assume there is some benfit from it.

KevinJ_2k1_325ci

Discussion Starter · #17 · Mar 26, 2003

OK GUYS hang on.

I purchased some ground straps a while back. Just some cheap braided ones. Since they weren't long enough for any engine mounting points I never installed them. Well I starting thinking about this subject again and I installed one brainded ground over top of my existing negative ground cable. The result?

Well my interior lights seemed 20 percent brighter. I won't get any engine performance from this since I need to ground the engine to do that. I'm investigating suppliers right now.

I did find more information about ground wires. The japanese are farther ahead than we are and they have several ground wire manufacturers for BMW's. The translations I've read from people installing them is that they felt more power but they have not done any dyno's to back it up. Engine grounding for performance is not new.

The comment about grounding after rebuilding is way out of context. I think the person was reading stuff on the web about making sure when you rebuild a engine to connect the engine grounding or the engine won't run correctly. This is absolutely true. It is also true that adding high quality ground wires to replace the thin gauge wires, will better ground the engine and battery which directly translates to performance. If not WHY DID THE WRX GET 10HP FROM ENGINE GROUNDING WITHOUT REBUILDING. So no it is not true that you have to rebuild a engine to get more performance. For example when you add more electronic components in your car, it is absolutely neccessary to ground the car.

One thing to consider is that BMW put the necessary components in to operate the car within normal and acceptable limits and not for the highest performance. Those engine components that will yeild high returns BMW engineers would invest in. If BMW put in the highest quality components for every part in our cars then it wouldn't be called a BMW, it would be a Ferrari and cost $200,000. The truth is that the BMW 3 and 5 series is not a flagship product and is a mass produced product.

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fasteddie

· #18 · Mar 26, 2003

maxima is from 98, i notice some improvement in my maxima but that's only butt dyno talking...

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