Should there be a grounding strap from the engine to the body?
A TON of cars came from the factory with grounds right off the negative terminal straight to the fender well, radiator support or inside the fender, plus the main ground going to the body. Isn't that what you describe? They worked just fine.
Yeh. And you'll find that NONE of those came with any EFI or any other critical electronics. What he speaks of is a REAL issue. Audio guys (working with line levels and microphone mixers) run into this, as does anybody who works with instrumentation.
This is getting to be an issue "for us." I run Holley EFI, so it obviously lacks the years of time and millions of dollars that the OEMs spent doing R & D.
"Back when" I was in auto parts there was a "rage" to put pyrometers on diesel trucks. I can think of no worse example of poor grounding, than a logging truck.........dirty, rusty, everything moves whether it's supposed to or not, and back in those days, some of them ran starting relays which started on 24V and ran on 12. Pyrometers are essentially "self powered" by the thermocouple. Was it any surprize 'we' had trouble?
When I worked for Motorola, we had a big issue with an old surplus truck "brush rig." This is a short wheelbase, military fire truck all wheel drive, built to "get out" into the brush. It was so noisy, it had aircraft style "ear muff" headsets so people could hear the radio. A ground loop problem caused noise, static, and alternator whine in the radio.
