Battery ground wire and hot wire section

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Nico383

Nico383

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Hi guys,

I relocated my battery to my trunk. I faced fact the (european) relocating kit I bougth came with a hot wire with a too small section regarding its length (4.5m / 177in) : 35mm².
I plan to change it to a 70mm² wire (00 AWG). I guess it should be ok.

I ran a 25mm² ground wire (3AWG) from trunk to security switch, then from switch to tran bell, then from engine to frame.

My first question is: do you think I need to upgrade my ground wire to a bigger section one?

My starter is a ministarter but wired with the stock mopar starter wire. Is the section of this wire big enought for a mini starter? (Engine is a 383 with 906 cylinder heads, I dont have the exact compression ratio but it's not been stroked or bored)

Thanks from France,

Nico
 
Nico383 said:
Hi guys,

I relocated my battery to my trunk. I faced fact the (european) relocating kit I bougth came with a hot wire with a too small section regarding its length (4.5m / 177in) : 35mm².
I plan to change it to a 70mm² wire (00 AWG). I guess it should be ok.

I ran a 25mm² ground wire (3AWG) from trunk to security switch, then from switch to tran bell, then from engine to frame.

My first question is: do you think I need to upgrade my ground wire to a bigger section one?

My starter is a ministarter but wired with the stock mopar starter wire. Is the section of this wire big enought for a mini starter? (Engine is a 383 with 906 cylinder heads, I dont have the exact compression ratio but it's not been stroked or bored)

Thanks from France,

Nico
Click to expand...
Nico, Your ground sir should be at least the same size as you power wire.
 
What do you estimate you have in gauges size? on both/ all/ the cables
 
Nico, Do not use the frame as a ground, it will act as a high resistance fault and you will have trouble starting you lighting will be dim and you will have ground gremlins. I know, I did it once and had to re run my ground to fix the problem(s). Ground from the battery to to the engine, I use a bell housing bolt or a starter bolt as the connection point. Secondly, don't switch the ground as your security feed, it can easily be defeated (think about it). Switch the power lead, it's very difficult to defeat this configuration.
 
Hi guys,

Thank you for your replies.
The kit I bought came with a 2 gage red wire and a 3 gage black wire both 14 feet long. I had difficulties trying to crank up the engine and wires were hot so I guess I have to replace them. I will go for a 2 times bigger red wire but I wonder if I have to pay to replace the 3 gage black wire too.

I'm not sure I'm clear, or maybe I didn't understand well but I don't use the frame to carry the ground to the engine : I routed a wire from the battery to the transmission bell housing bolt and then the frame is linked to the ground with a short wire routed from an engine mounting bolt to the frame.

Nico
 
Nico383 said:
Hi guys,

Thank you for your replies.
The kit I bought came with a 2 gage red wire and a 3 gage black wire both 14 feet long. I had difficulties trying to crank up the engine and wires were hot so I guess I have to replace them. I will go for a 2 times bigger red wire but I wonder if I have to pay to replace the 3 gage black wire too.

I'm not sure I'm clear, or maybe I didn't understand well but I don't use the frame to carry the ground to the engine : I routed a wire from the battery to the transmission bell housing bolt and then the frame is linked to the ground with a short wire routed from an engine mounting bolt to the frame.

Nico
Click to expand...

I don't get your 2/3 ga? According to the kit link you posted, those cables SHOULD BOTH be 1 ga.........You sure that is the kit you bought? If so I'd be double checking and contacting Ron Francis!!

In deference to above, YOU CAN use the unibody as a ground, hundreds of us did so "back in the day" but modern electronics, etc, this method has fallen out of favor. The unibody in these cars, being all welded construction, makes a pretty good ground. I did this way back "in the day" in my 440-6 '70 Roadrunner. That was with a wound field (old style) starter, certainly not a "mini" starter
 
Hi,

First I bought a complete kit with too small section wires.So I just bought a new bigger /00 red wire and I wonder if I have to do the same with my negative wire. But I guess I have the answer now ;)
 
Yes ,I would...... Good big clean ground connection(s..), help everything electric better
 
Nico383 said:
Hi,

First I bought a complete kit with too small section wires.So I just bought a new bigger /00 red wire and I wonder if I have to do the same with my negative wire. But I guess I have the answer now ;)
Click to expand...


If you don't mind "looks a bit funny" you could use both the other original wires for the ground........the ones in the kit
 
DDodger said:
If you don't mind "looks a bit funny" you could use both the other original wires for the ground........the ones in the kit
Click to expand...

Well, to be fair that's what I was thinking about, but if it's better to have two wires of the same size, I guess I'll go for a bigger one.

Update on some tests I did with a big /00 positive wire and a smaller section negative one :
when car is warm she struggles to start, I can see a huge tension draw on the voltmeter (goes from 12V to less than 10V), battery charges but not so much, a second symptom of this issue I guess...

Cheers,

Nico
 
I use the chassis as a ground path all the time. Weld a nut on frame and attach cables. If the car is frame connected with welded structures, even better.

I run 00 cable for both the starter cable and all grounds from battery/frame/engine. Don't skimp on grounds as energy will find other paths for grounds. If you ever see a speedo cable that is melted, that's usually from a bad ground path for the starter.

You can pull auxilliary grounds to everything else off those big ground cables.

EFI and other sensitive electronics need clean grounds if being used.
 
I probably should let this go because I don't really have a dog in the fight. For those of you who use your frames as grounds you may wish to compare steel and copper in the attached table. Clearly copper is the better choice.
Electric Resistance – The Physics Hypertextbook
Steel 1.68E+06
Copper 1.66E-08
Simply put, steel has 14 times more resistance than copper.
 
retroron said:
I probably should let this go because I don't really have a dog in the fight. For those of you who use your frames as grounds you may wish to compare steel and copper in the attached table. Clearly copper is the better choice.
Electric Resistance – The Physics Hypertextbook
Steel 1.68E+06
Copper 1.66E-08
Simply put, steel has 14 times more resistance than copper.
Click to expand...
I have used #2 welding cable on three cars ( have it on my 505" barracuda right now) when moving the battery to the trunk, and used welding cable on 4 diff. cars. I have never ran a full length ground cable on any of them, and never had a problem w/ any of them. II f # 2 is getting hot, something else is wrong. I do however have have a motor plate and extra grounds located in various places thru out the car. My motor plates have always grounded the engine successfully. ?????????? who kjnows ?
 
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