Staying grounded

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sixty8gts

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Just a quick FYI about battery and chassis grounds.If your battery is in the trunk make sure you have a good size ground from the block to the chassis and from the battery to the frame. It will give you a good ground loop to make sure the starter, lights, charging and ignition system work at peak power. My engine ground to firewall apparently wasn't enough. I added a 4 gauge ground from the rear cylinder head to the K member and now my lights are brighter,starter turns over faster and I'm getting a cleaner spark. Mopar to ya!
 
Bear in mind that the K member, as example, might not be well grounded. It's bolted to the body, and may become rusted.

You need BIG (larger than no4) grounds with a trunk battery, because every inch of wire and body adds SOME resistance, therefore the only way to combat that is to use better connections and larger wire.

For ground terminals, at the very least sand/ grind down to metal and use antioxidant grease. Look to some of the big electrial supply outfits and get ground lugs with TWO bolt holes. We used to use "Burndy" ground lugs like these:

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Another thing you might consider is some sort of heavier plate to give better surface area. Weld a 1/4" or 5/16 piece of plate or angle over a section of firewall or in the trunk, or even braze a piece of copper strap in there.

Make sure all connections are clean as can be and well made as can be.

Use a heavier duty battery to be sure you have enough CA, and you put it back there for traction, right?

Even on my front mount battery, in order to make sure the body and engine "are one" I have a short no4 starter cable going from the rear of the head to one of the master cylinder bolts.
 
and just to add that some mid 70s and later mopars have an isolated K member with bushings seperating it from the frame rails with only the bolts as a connection. i would recommend an engine ground bolted directly to the frame rail and not the K member. i have a trunk mounted battery in my charger. i have grounds everywhere possible. gotta love them uni-bodies
 
On my Dodge ram the hood is grounded to the fenders. There ground straps every where.
 
mullinax95 said:
On my Dodge ram the hood is grounded to the fenders. There ground straps every where.
Click to expand...

Hood grounds are for radio interference. Very important for stuff like marginal areas for two way (emergency vehicles) or commercial HF or amateur radio. USED to be helpfull back when AM radio had anything worth listening to.

On modern "all electronic", "all computer" vehicles, multiple ground straps from the block to the body not only reduce radio noise, they reduce noise in delicate electronics, like the dist. pickup, various control / sense circuits for the engine computer
 
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