How To: 1st Grounding Kit for MSP

rktktpaul said:
Ok Craig -

I bought the basic kit from you, but am now wishing I had gone with the full negative side kit. Can I still get the pieces necessary to make it a full negative side kit?
I can make you the other wire you need but I can't get the battery terminals. Its just a Monster cable MBC2-. YOu can use anything with a top ring post though. I prefer the Monster though so I only use them.
 
okay, perhaps you could help me with this.

i was removing wires last night and did this:

ninth_bolt.jpg

removed the short wire (in pic), moved the white ground or the airbag sensor wires (next to it) to another hidden grounding point, and moved the tiny gray box below on the right and also removed the entire bracket.

i also removed the stock negative wire completely without replacing it
ground2.jpg


i do have two wires going from the battery to here:
sixth_bolt.jpg

(the star bolt)

and

(one of the bolts) here:
fifth_bolts.jpg

(above the intake mani)

okay, so do i really need to replace the stock ground wire i completely removed? also, that white plastic piece ( i believe holds the airbag sensor), does it need to be there? your help is GREATLY appreciated.

thanks!
 
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L8R said:
okay, perhaps you could help me with this.

i was removing wires last night and did this:

ninth_bolt.jpg

removed the short wire (in pic), moved the white ground (next to it) to another hidden grounding point, and moved the tiny gray box below on the right.

i also removed the stock negative wire completely without replacing it
ground2.jpg


i do have two wires going from the battery to here:
sixth_bolt.jpg


and

(one of the bolts) here:
fifth_bolts.jpg


okay, so do i really need to replace the stock ground wire i completely removed? also, that white plastic piece ( i believe holds the airbag sensor), does it need to be there? your help is GREATLY appreciated.

thanks!

Yes, you do need to replace the stock ground wire. I believe Craig's kit comes with the wires that replace the stock ground wire point. It's at the point where you suppose to put the additional longer bolt on.

When I replace/install the ground wire kit, I didn't touch the white plastic piece and the little grey box. I left them alone. All I did was connect the ground wire to the metal bracket that's touching the chassis. Just grounding it, and that's what the ground wire is for :)

Hope that helps.
 
thanks :). fast response o_O,

i have my voltmeter hooked up and im still running at 14 volts and no check engine light. my car starts and runs fine... im just worried something may not work later? also, the mazdaspeed and protege5 stock grounding points are in different locations. just thought id let u know :) i love your write up though. i just have the sun industries grounding kit, not craigs kit.
 
L8R said:
thanks :). fast response o_O,

i have my voltmeter hooked up and im still running at 14 volts and no check engine light. my car starts and runs fine... im just worried something may not work later? also, the mazdaspeed and protege5 stock grounding points are in different locations. just thought id let u know :) i love your write up though. i just have the sun industries grounding kit, not craigs kit.

Regardless of what kind of grounding kit that you have, make sure you have a grounding point at the engine block. In my write up, it's the location number seven, or number eight.

In terms of the voltmeter, try turn off your engine and check the voltage. It should not be higher than 12.9. If your engine is on and you read 14 volts or higher, you might have a battery which is not recharging. Now if you have an optima, those deep cycle recharge battery, I would say it's normal because the battery probably has not reach to the charging point.

May be some electronical engineer could drop in some insight :)
 
with my car in 'off' (i turn the key once), it reads at 12 volts. when i'm driving, it is between 12-14 volts, but usally 14 constant. i have an optima red top battery fyi. only grounding point to the block is location 6 (and that comes straight from the battery to the block).

thanks for all your help and indepth responses!
big help
 
I am a little losed as to what you have done. Nothing to do with the air bag should be touched.

The only differenc I have seen between some of the proteges is with the factory grounds. On some cars, it goes from the transmission braket to the body ground point on the shock tower. Then another wire goes from there to the battery. On other Proteges the wire from the transmission goes to the battery first, then another wire goes to the factory body ground.

Its visiable here:
ground2.jpg


On Panzozo's car, the ground is as I first described. I take it your P5 does not have 2 wires at the negative battery terminal, it has 2 at the strut tower body mount?

With my kit, you can wire it either way. You can also use the wire that is intended to go from the tranny to the battery to go from teh engine to the battery, this way avioding the hardest locations to get to.

It is important that the wires all chain and get connected to the battery terminal so you will either have a long chain of wires that ends at the battery or a long chain that ends at the battery and then one more wire that connects from the battery to the strut tower.
 
i just completely removed the stock negative wire altogether. instead of running a wire to where the stock negative wire went to (transmission i assume), i connected it to here:
http://www.mazdamp3.com/members/Panzozo/sixth_bolt.jpg (bolt shown with the star)

in the pic attached (#1), in green is what i removed out of the motor (negative wires and brass bracket), red is what i moved to the stock negative wire ground point to be hidden (transmission i assume), and the pink is what i moved to be hidden away as well.

im just worried about what i circled in pink, if itll affect anything by not having a direct ground wire to it or even by moving it, if ill be screwed lol

thanks for your indepth reply :)
 
I just installed my grounding kit and it seems to working fine. When I hit the major bass, rolling wondows down it all seems to be better. I will wait til the morning to see if the a/c switching is better with the headlights on. The worst part for me was getting to the alt.

-Dean
 
which PITA bolts? the one on the transmission? just put a ratchet on it and put a long wrench on the ratchet handle. no need for a big long pole. also, u might want to get a ratcheting 10mm wrench with a swiveling/flex head for the bolt under the Y in the wiring harness (or do what the instructions say and move the wiring harness, easiest way). nothing about the install is a real PITA. also, go to http://www.monstercable.com/mpc/ and http://www.knukonceptz.com/ and put together your own grounding kit. order about 16 feet of wire and about 20 ring terminals and the battery terminals. that should be plenty to put one together. just make sure u have adequate crimpers. u can make a kit out of 8 gauge, that would be sufficient. the power does seem to come on smoother without a pause then sudden umf. also, starting the car and idle seem to be smoother. but there is definitely no power increase.

MSP#735 said:
whats the best method to remove those PITA bolts???????
 
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i don't quite understand what the purpose of this is. what does the grounding kit do?
 
From my previous post: "the power does seem to come on smoother without a pause then sudden umf. also, starting the car and idle seem to be smoother. but there is definitely no power increase." I guess the real reason would be for people running pretty nice sound system set-ups, to help with headlight dimming and etc. But as I posted before, I did notice a difference in start-up and idle. I do not have a big nice sound system, just stock MPS system (8" sub).

samm5149 said:
i don't quite understand what the purpose of this is. what does the grounding kit do?
 
ok so i havent completely installed the kit, i installed everything BUT the negative terminal....my lights however still cause a dimming when rolling up the windows but doesnt stumble when turning on the a/c or defrost...will the negative treminal grounding eliminate the dimming of the lights when rolling up the windows??????
 
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