Redoing main power/ground cables; who has done it?

[jepherz]

I'm wanting to re-do the main ground and power wires from the battery to the starter and alternator. You can buy the generic cables from Orielly's for cheap and they seem like decent cables, but they don't necessarily have all of the points needed for our car (the factory ground strap has a terminal that bolts to the body.) For the people that have done this, what did you use and how did it turn out?

 

[curtis]

I ran the factory cable from the alternator and then another I think from a grand vitara. It was in a harness that I needed some plugs from. Both of those to the fuse box on the battery. Then ran a larger cable to the starter and to the battery ran a hot from the trunk to a distribution block and then daisy chained the ground in probably 10 different places from the trunk all the way forward. Then up there ran probably 10 grounds from the engine to the chassis.



It really helped and car seemed to run clearer and mileage may have went up. The SUV's my wife have had in the last decade I've seen 1.5 to 3 mpg better on the interstate with just adding extra grounds to the engine.



Last summer my buddies honda was breaking up under boost and super bad in 3rd and 4th under a hard load. We tried an external aftermarket coil with new cap, new plugs, new wires even changed the distributor out. After fighting the car for weeks he finally said I'll try more grounds and run a larger cable from the alternator. No more misses and pulls to the rev limiter in all 5 gears.

 

[alansupra94]

Quoting jepherz:
I'm wanting to re-do the main ground and power wires from the battery to the starter and alternator. You can buy the generic cables from Orielly's for cheap and they seem like decent cables, but they don't necessarily have all of the points needed for our car (the factory ground strap has a terminal that bolts to the body.) For the people that have done this, what did you use and how did it turn out?



I can try and post some picture for you but it is going to be a bit tough.

Essentially, I moved my battery to the trunk. Doing so, I replaced all the stock wiring (the larger gauge) with 1/0 gauge wiring. I replaced the alternator, starter and battery wire. Installed a 250A breaker (I have a 200A alternator), removed that ugly little fuse holder that sits on the battery and replaced it with a nice fuse box, built a nice battery tray and replaced the majority of the grounds with some random 4 gauge wire that I had. I also reused the old starter wire as ground other places.

I honestly love how powerful the starter is now. Thing is a beast with 1/0 gauge. Everything honestly "feels" better electrically (not sure how to word it).

Also the solar panels work fantastic. I can leave the radio on all day with the sun out and the battery doesn't dip /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Lucas03ES]

I did a run of 1/0 from the battery in the trunk through a 200A breaker straight to the starter, from there in to a 100A fuse under the air filter that runs to the alternator. I was able to delete the factory fuse box that bolts to the battery + terminal as well. I ran a few 4awg ground in the bay, and also a ground from the bellhousing to the battery in 4awg. Everything works really well except I still have to redo the original battery box mount. I feel like it is much cleaner this way

 

[Terry Posten]

I ran twin cables for both terminals.

Ground has an 0 gauge from battery to frame rail, and an 0 gauge to a top tranny-to-block bolt.

Power has a 2 gauge to the starter and a 0 gauge to a power lug on the passenger inner fender that the stock harness attaches to as well.

All cables came from Autozone and were Beldon. I cut to length and crimped on AMP terminals using the proper AMP crimp tool.