Thoe99

iTrader: (25)

Anyone know of a place to get cheap gold connectors?

kgmm

iTrader: (1)

Autozone.

-Kenneth

bishiboy

iTrader: (10)

You got me on my math. I actually paid $15 for the wire, 10.50 for 14 gold conectors (for a mom N pop stereo shop, and we live on the mexican border). I already had a bolt for the tranny. So: $25.50. This is much cheaper that $69-200 for name brand kits.

TomsSound

iTrader: (8)

sir lurks alot and I Just installed 4 gauge grounding wires about 20 minutes ago in our EVO's.
Went for a spin... Revs up and down at the lower rpms are much much smoother. I havent had a chance to check the higher rpms yet (raining and traffic).
Well worth the money.


We grounded the transmission to the battery (not sure what size the bolt was except that it was a 10mm Metric Bolt from old parts of a acura integra. Length may have been about 3/4 inch.
Might go ahead and replace the wire from the firewall to manifold soon.
Here is a rough(yep very rough) diagram of what we did.

sir lurks alot

iTrader: (2)

I definitely think that is the best way to do it. You are basically connecting all of the stock grounding points to each other using big *** 4 gauge (overkill) wire back to the neg. battery post. I think the only thing I would change would be to use 8 gauge which would be plenty and cheaper too.

Believe it or not, throttle response seems crisper and the rev band smoother. I can actually observe the difference. I was a complete skeptic. It was a big clue when Mitsubishi themselves sells a kit like that. Everybody do it yourself. Only a little work, and you will be proud when you are done.

We used black wiring and hid it pretty well, so it is a pretty stealth install.


Cost breakdown for 2 cars:

18 feet black grounding wire...on the hookup
buddy charged me for 10 ft. cost $24

20 gold connectors from autozone rang up at $10.99 per 10 pack. Turns out they were mislabled, so I got them for the display price of
$5.99 a pack. total = $12 for all 20 connectors

shrink wrap = $2.00 from radio shizzack

trannybolt = freebie from surplus

total cost for 2 cars = $38

Now get to it guys!

runny_yolk

Sorry for the n00b question but is there a particular size needed for the gold connectors? Did you solder them to the ground wire? Also, what size is the tranny bolt?

sir lurks alot

iTrader: (2)

hte connectors come in varying sizes depending on what gauge wire you use. I would recommend 8 gauge as it is easier to work with and the connectors are way cheaper usually. I didn't solder, but you can, if you want to do take the time. The bolt was 10mm metric, with whatever the typical thread pitch is for that bolt. Only about 3/4 of an inch long like tomssound said.

Thoe99

iTrader: (25)

What does the tranny bolt look like and how big is it?

DGS

Curious. I was tempted by the factory "hyperground cables" kit, also on the theory that there might be a reason for Mitsu to offer it. But I also noticed they offer fancy "shift knob" and "parking grip brake" kits, and I'm disincliined to buy anything whose name begins with "hype".

Was the "before" a bit of roughness just slightly above idle power? I've been seeing that on my EVO, and if grounding can fix it, that would be good news.

Having seen (on the online service manual before it went private) how intensive the EVO is on serial comms, and having experienced ground issues on serial links at work, I have to wonder why Mitsu left this as an option.

Are copper wires unreasonably expensive in Japan? That might explain why (a) there's so much serial comms instead of a conventional wiring harness, (b) why the factory grounds would seem to be inadequate (if people are noticing the difference), and (c) why the factory ground kit lists for $219.

But if copper is all that expensive, I wonder why they didn't just go with fiber optics, which isn't as sensitive to ground issues.

Maybe that's for next year.

Thoe99

iTrader: (25)

Fiber optics isn't really necessary on a car as it would be on a home theater system, where you have big screen tv's with nice DTS sound systems and the need for higher quality becomes more apparent.

Alchemist

iTrader: (23)

Prices for stuff like this is another reason to buy from local/ mom-n-pop places instead of the big chains. I went to my local store (Stereo Warehouse- very inventive, I know) and asked for 10' of 8 gage blue stereo cable (braided) and 7 sets of 8 gage ring terminals (figuring I'd end up messing one up, or seeing another place to ground). The guy who manages the place pulled about 21' of wire off the spool, only charged me for 10' and he only wrote up 4 pairs of ring terminals.
$/ft and $2.99/pair for the terminals. $23.19 after taxes
"Good Guys" $1.50/ft and $3.99/pair

DGS

I wasn't referring to the stereo -- heck, I've barely even run the stereo ... a habit I got from the Italian cars, which pack their own music in the engine bay.

I was referring to the serial comms for engine and controls management. Check out the CAN 2.0B bus spec on the Bosch web site. If I was reading the online manual right, even the headlights controls run by a serial control bus on the EVO.

But I was still wondering what part of the "rev band" seemed smoother with the added grounds.

I presume we're talking braided 8 or 4 gauge, rather than solid.

TomsSound

iTrader: (8)

seems to be the entire range... but most noticeably for me is the lower 0-4000 range.

BadBoyBeltran

iTrader: (3)

I spent around $35 overall. 10 ft of 4 ga for $1.75 a foot, and 3 packs of gold connectors for $4.99 pack of 10. I actually found 2 different bolt holes in 2 parts of the tranny, so I grounded both of them. The other one is 13mm and is to the right of the 10mm bolt. I basically followed the schematic, but I had to ground both main grounding wires to the negative battery post. I will post pix of my set-up soon.

On my previous cars, ground kits eliminated radio noise and improved current flow to all electrical parts of the car, specially headlights and ignition, so I am positive that there is a good gain from this install. It is even known on Porsche 911s that if you do not ground the tranny to the chassis (even if the engine and tranny are connected, and the engine is grounded), the current will travel through the clutch cable making it brittle (in time of course).

STi

Thoe99

iTrader: (25)

Can I just choose which bolts to bolt them onto, under the hood, so long as I have about 7 different grounding areas? Also, can 8 gauge wire do just as fine?