Grounding Kit for 370Z
 

I was enlightened by the prospect of reading about the benefits of installing a grounding kit. According the Stillen website, the benefits including the following.

1. Ensures Proper Ground to Sensors and Computers to Prevent Performance Loss.

2. Featuring 8-Gauge Copper Wire, Gold Plated Connectors and 4-Gauge and 8-Gauge Ring Connectors.

3. Improve Shifting and Reduce Shift Lag on Automatic Vehicles

4. Reduces the loss of HP and Torque.

As I have a 7AT, I am of course very interested in benefit No. 3 above.

I am having a difficult time wrapping my head around this one and understanding these benefits? Would appreciate any feedback if in fact these claims are true. These grounding kits retail for less than $100.00. If true, it would have to be the best bang for the buck Mod there is, right?

Someone help me to understand this better. :icon14: Thanks.

Your vehicle is supplied with perfectly acceptable wiring, and only reason to install something like this is for looks.

If you wound up with a situation in which wiring had corroded, etc, enough that wire impedance became a concern....you would be best served replacing it with wiring purchased from Home Depot for $12.

Some people report better performance, but I'm guessing placebo effect. If you want one of these, go buy wire, ends and heat shrink tubing and make your own for a fraction of the cost.

Does your car start? Do your headlights come on? Does your radio work? Interior lights work? If so, car is already "grounded." Save your money. Their "benefits" have no foundation in reality.

I have the lines and a 7at. It does #3 for sure. The rest I can't tell much difference. Was it worth me spending $100?. Well I didn't have to size and crimp wire all day long... But for about $30 and a couple h ours of your day you can do the same thing. Transmission response is NOT placebo though. AT shifts faster with ground kit.

don't do it.

IF your wiring has deteriorated over the years, a grounding kit might have some value. If you have installed a larger amplifier for your stereo, a grounding kit might do some good. If you have installed any other high-current devices (eg, big fuel pump), a grounding kit might help. Otherwise, it's pretty much snake oil.

I can see no way that it would help the 7AT with shifting - unless you have a grounding problem to start with. If you have a grounding problem, just install a larger ground wire to the transmission (no need to do the whole car).

fixed...

I agree on the no way to help with shifting. Yet on the grounding portion I disagree. I don't have the magazine with me, but grounding kits do actually work. I read an article about one they had on a FRS. They did dyno pulls for every part of the grounding kit they put on the vehicle, and in the end 2 grand later it gained 6whp and 4lbs of tq. Which obviously is retarded and the magazine boasted it was such a great gain from something so simple. Simple yes cost affective no if buying one that is preset. As far as aesthetics I wouldn't say it does much as whatever color you choose will now be laying around in your engine bay and people will say hey what are those colored wires for? This can go back and forth and I am sure after I post this more people will chime in. You may or may not see some benefits but make sure you are using the grounding points they use with the stillen kit and it would be cheaper to make your own. Best way to put this topic to rest is do a baseline dyno, install kit and run her again. Good luck with purchase.

Don't waste your money on this. If you must have this go to your local hardware store and get wiring shrink tubing and do a nice DIY. You Z is perfectly grounded.

:icon17:

Well within the margin of error on a dyno. Dyno your car every day for a week and let me know what happens

also dont forget the garden trim and the ballcockshank washer. :tup: :ugh:

:p

:icon17:

I got a grounding kit a long time ago, just because it was red and it made my engine bay look more interesting. Got a good deal on it, though, I'd never pay full price for it.

Just-because-I-like-the-way-it-looks is a pretty good reason (not my cup o' tea but I'm not King Of Aesthetics this week). Not so much for performance on a stock DD (unless you already have a problem but, even then, there are better fixes). Still need to be careful of ground loops.

I did the same thing. I haven't notice any of the claims mentioned.

I did one on a previous car. It ran smoother afterward. I thought it was the grounding kit until I remembered I reset the ecu at the same time. :rofl2:

for instance like this, you can just buy red tubing and just hook it up from here to there and there to here to make it look grounded without having any ground loop issues. :icon17: just friction fit the tube ends into the threads ends.

dont forget to ground the strut bar. :tup:

I have the Stillen grounding kit -- I have it for the admittedly marginal improvement in electric system health, but mainly for looks. I admit it.

I was ordering something from Stillen a few years ago and needed to push my purchase up to the free shipping threshold or something like that. It sat uninstalled for a few years and my son Colin decided to install it when he installed my Gen 3 intake on my 2013.

http://scontent-a-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/h...57615852_n.jpg

Was included with my G3 intake as part of a promotion. It's like chicken soup when you have a cold, it couldn't hurt.

Well the general consensus here is that this is snake oil with the exception of UNKNOWN370Z.

Guard Dad, since you have a 7AT, did you notice any difference with the shifting as pointed out by UNKNOWN370Z?

Yes, but to be fair I've never used one on an automatic car so I can't speak to that point.

I mean **** just look at what the product is and what the claims are. C'mon man!

:tup:

I can't honestly say that it made a difference. But I wouldn't rule it out. Here is my take on it:

I have a great deal of respect for Stillen and their products because they are a "real company" with a track record and their products seem to stand up to scrutiny on the dyno and in the real world.

You wouldn't think that additional grounding would be necessary but if your factory grounding is anything less than perfect for any reason this should make a difference. With modern electronics once in a while little things can make all the difference. Perhaps this could be better thought of as a proactive measure to prevent problems as a much as one designed to solve them. If your car sees rain or road salt that might compromise the factory set up the grounding kit could be money well spent.

My car is for the most part a fair weather car that that has only 12k miles in 3 years so I can't talk about track performance and so forth, but my AT7 is a delight and the more I use the manual mode the more I love it.

I neglect using the m mode often because of having to replace the torque converter? I may be wrong but I think i read on here that someone needed to replace X part due to daily use of m mode?

I can't imagine there being any truth to that whatsoever. Most of the 7at drivers here live in manual mode. If it caused problems you'd have lots of guys with problems.

Yeah idk i could be wrong

You can hook up a multimeter and an oscilloscope anywhere you want on the car and objectively demonstrate that the grounding quality is unaffected by the installation of such a kit. You could measure shift time and demonstrate that as well, if you were so inclined.

There would have to be a staggering design flaw for a late-model car to benefit at all from a grounding kit. Modern vehicles have return wires from electrical components rather than remote ground to frame, and have nice fat wires with negligible impedance. Throwing another wire in parallel doesn't make a significant difference in your ability to move electrons.

Any difference that is "felt" is placebo. I'd be happy to lend electrical equipment to any who would like to experiment on their own.

I myself doubt that this item will do any of the claims I've seen across all the manufacturers. That said, I am currently in the process of making my own. I work around electrical components for my job and sourcing what it takes to build one was fairly easy for me. On top of that I believe mine is going to be better built simply because I'm doing it and it's for my car so I'd take more care to make it look nice than a big supplier would.

There is no such thing as "too much" grounding in any electrical power system. Only application I've seen exception to this rule is in some telecommunications applications.

I'd think that with very little research a person could build one of these in an hour and spend no more than $35-40 on it. For that money even if it does absolutely nothing if done right it will make the engine bay at least look nice, any power gains would be a bonus imo.

I'll post pics of mine when I get done with it.

"Too much" grounding doesn't (generally) create issues, but it also gains nothing.

it gains a sophisticated look.... :ugh:

For the cost of some wire, terminals and heat shrink tubing, it's worth it. For the $100+ companies charge it's pretty obscene.

mine is an auto... It has a slight but noticeable increase in shift time.. from what I've known foryears. This is snake oil on a MT.

:icon17:

If upgrading the transmission grounding will improve shifting, that would be one of the easier and cheaper mods to make. While UNKNOWN_370 seems to know what he is talking about, I'd like to hear from others that have upgraded their transmission grounding before considering making the mod myself.

uh... you're talking about one wire from the tranny to ground, no? is that something that takes SERIOUS consideration to do? :ugh: :icon17:

I've heard that claim before on different vehicles. I can't verify it since I've only owned one car with an auto and its shifting and 0-60 was best measured by a calendar.