Hi all, I'm new here and this is my first post... woohoo!

Anyway, my question is whether anyone is aware of proven benefits to supplementing the engine ground in certain vehicles. I'm a member of a Subaru owners forum and many there claim that on the turbocharged WRX, adding additional ground wires from the engine heads back to the battery makes their car run noticably smoother, esp. at wide-open throttle. I'm running 18psi of boost, and I know the mixture is harder to ignite under those conditions, and the reason why the plug gap is only 0.030". But the engine and it's grounding strap is part of the spark energy loop, and the shorter that is and the more parallel paths the better I would think. Can anyone confirm adding addition grounds would be beneficial and why?

Thanks,

Steve.

It would be beneficial only under the circumstance that the stock ground isn't sufficient.  In other words, first prove the stock strap isn't sufficient to pass the required current, then you can conclude more wires will help.

I'll give you a hint... you're not going to prove anything of the sort, so don't waste your money.  the grounding strap isn't a high-tech piece of equipment, it's a piece of stranded copper, and a company isn't going to skimp on that to save $0.02 knowing their engines are going to run rough if they do.

Dan
Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

Oh, I should also add... if the stock strap is heavily oxidized, simply replace it or clean the contact points.  Those engine "gurus" show on their dynos how much hp they gained, which is incorrect... all they've done is get back what they've slowly lost over the years as the stock strap oxidized.  Change out a $0.50 piece of wire and be done with it.

Dan
Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

Have to agree with macgyvers2000 it is a gimmick. Unless your original wiring has some obvious fault, adding one of these expensive grounding kits will do absolutely nothing.

I too agree with macgyvers2000, this is a common problem on older Subaru’s.  The grounds tend to rust and the ground strap on the back of the block becomes heavily oxidized.  Simply cleaning the connections and in some cases replacing a negative batter cable that's in poor condition gives the same benefit of those kits.

This is simply another example of parts being sold to the "performance" market simply because people who don’t know any better buy them.

If somebody famous races with one, everybody wants one.  If I had a nickle for every street driven car someone had with the latest full race cam and 1000 CFM 4 barrel from the pro stock ranks that I blew the doors off with a super tuned stock Olds 442...

Blacksmith