Anyone know where to find a grounding kit?
 

Looking for a grounding kit made by gordgee or SxExCx. ANyone know where i can find one these days? If not what is the best alternative?

https://www.z1motorsports.com/boost-...it-p-8252.html

I know these are available but frankly you can make your own easily and for less money than the $100 they want to charge for those things

Measure out roughly the length you will need to go from the negative on the battery out to the main bonding jumper on the passenger side of the timing chain cover.
Measure from the timing cover bond up to the two (or one if you have a 6MT) on the TOP of the timing chain cover. Add 1-2 ft extra.

Go down to Home Depot and buy that length of bulk 8 AWG copper wire with THHN insulation, it's the most common stuff on the shelf. Probably need less than 10 ft. Typical colors are black, red, blue, white, green for electrical insulation. You can also find brown, yellow, orange at an electrical supply house but HD doesn't typically stock high volt colors like that.

Next find some ring terminals for 8 AWG that has a 1/4" hole (personally I would bring down one of the mounting bolts to verify that 1/4" fits, otherwise you're going to have to drill out the ring terminals a tad to fit the metric fastener), stick with a name brand like 3M, try to find some that do NOT have an insulated throat, you will shrink tube them when you're done. Ignore all those "gold plated" terminals... they are and have always been a silly way of increasing the cost for stereo installations and provide ZERO BENEFIT WHATSOEVER compared to a proper electrical installation. Real electrical parts don't try to upsell you bling on your connectors.

Next get yourself a hand crimper that's sized for those 8 AWG ring terminals, this will be the most expensive part of the whole shopping list.

Next you will need a little shrink tube for those ring terminals

Next item you will need is some UV resistant cable ties (tie wraps) somewhere around the 11" range, don't buy the regular ones they NEED to be UV resistant or they will only last about a year before turning brittle and falling apart from the engine bay heat, Thomas & Betts makes the best cable ties imo but TyRap is also a great brand.

The final item you need is some electrical anti-oxidation grease, by far the most popular brand is ILSCO DE-OX, you only need a tiny bit so get the smallest bottle, Ideal brands NOALOX is also good.

Now to get to work, pay close attention to how you dress the cables throughout the engine bay, there's a lot of pictures on the internet of pre-made grounding kits so you can just find a clean looking install and copy the path they took. Carefully use a knife to strip a little insulation from the end of the wire, apply a light coat of the de-ox to the bare copper, crimp the lug into place, cut a short section of heat shrink tube and place it on the ring terminal so that it will start just PAST the ring and extend about 1/2" onto the insulation of the wire, it's better to cut it a little long than a little short. You can use a blow dryer, a lighter, or your stove burner or any other heat source to shrink the tube but take your time and try to not leave scorch marks in it.

When you go to land the lugs on the existing ground points you will want to take a metal brush and thoroughly clean the existing lugs, the threads of the bolt, and the mating face of the surface it's being attached to. Coat all metal contact parts, including the threads of the bolt, with a light coat of the de-ox and reassemble. Timing chain bonding bolts get torqued to 10 ft/lbs I think. I also STRONGLY recommend removing the single bolt for the coolant reservoir so you can lift it up and access the connection for the 2-hole bonding lug that sits directly below it, this is the primary engine-chassis ground. Also clean up both ends of the negative battery cable, it attaches to the chassis with another one of those 2-hole lugs.

De-ox is your friend, it will last the life of the connection and prevent any corrosion from forming on the mating surface, you don't need WATER to corrode an electrical connection, the simple act of putting two dissimilar metals in direct contact with another can eventually corrode a connection through electrolysis and the de-ox prevents future damage.

Shopping list:

8AWG wire, probably 10 ft. $10
8AWG ring terminals for 1/4" stud $5
Shrink tube $3
Hand crimper for 8 AWG ring terminals, the Klein 1005SEN hand crimpers are rated to 10AWG, they're technically not rated for larger sizes but they do work just fine for 8 AWG, $30
Cable ties, 25 pack, $10
ILSCO De-Ox, $3

If you know someone that has a hand crimper you can cut the cost of the whole kit down to about $25, even less if you already have some of those basic supplies on hand. If you have access to vendors like Amazon you can probably find those items for even less than the BigBoxStore.

Also keep in mind many of these kits are INCREDIBLY redundant, if you were to add anything beyond what I've listed it would be an additional jumper from the engine primary up to the top of the intake manifold but I don't even find that necessary. Mostly these things have a lot of flash for purely cosmetic reasons.

Remember the engine functions perfectly without one, you are simply adding a supplementary ground so the engine doesn't have to rely SOLELY on the chassis for an electrical bond and SOLELY on a single jumper from the engine to the chassis.

So there's not much to be gained? Even with a 15 year old 04 5AT?

It's more of a way to help prevent future issues since electrical connections like that are subject to corrosion and even a little electrical resistance causes things to malfunction. It will provide absolutely zero benefit over a OEM system that is perfectly functioning.

If you suspect you have corroded connections just take them apart, clean everything with a steel brush, apply some anti-oxidation grease like that DE-OX or NOALOX I mentioned and bolt everything back together.

The biggest culprits are both ends of the negative battery wire, both ends of the primary engine-chassis boo doing jumper, and the two wires landed on the top of the timing cover (5AT models one of them is your transmission ground).

Also, thanks for typing all that out, I will probably do a DIY in the near future!

I sent you a pm, let me know.

On cars as old as ours are getting now, and with some living in the rust belt, improving engine grounds is probably a good thing. I noticed on my 1990 Accord that the headlights at idle were a bit brighter and it started really quick. Performance-wise, no change.

I never saw the point of these grounding kits - just about every car I've imported from Japan has them and we'd do a dyno run before removing the grounding kit. They made 0% difference in power/torque.

If you need one though I'm with cleric, just build it yourself. Cheaper and it will look exactly how you want it anyway.

Think i got 1 from gordys or something...on my 05g35x best mod ever...literally made the car idle better,quicker shifts, alot smoother. Def a must for AT guys

Really? I didn't know they made such a big difference. I wonder if battery comes into play? Would the battery size make a difference on idle?

The automatic transmission ground is easy to corrode, especially if you use any chemicals under the hood for polishing/cleaning the engine bay. A properly cleaned OEM ground will have the exact same performance, the grounding kit is just a layer of insurance against a poorly grounded connection.

No clue about batt size, but i had a new battery and added the wires and it was a night and day difference