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Burned a ground! no good~

TRicker

Hard-core CEG'er
Joined
Jun 25, 2006
Messages
3,931
Location
Center City, MN
teh ground from the firewall to the passenger side motor mount burned out. i found out that i left off the ground strap from the coil to the head. i put that on, and im going to replace the ground. one problem though.... my coolant temp sensor isnt working now (the wires over there are fine) and the oil light stays on when the car is off (but turns off when the car is running)

the car ran fine after the wire burned apart minus the shift linkage that i broke, now it doesnt even want to shift. oh and it hauls :)
 
i moved a ground where i had two running to the same bolt, and it just started burning a different ground wire. i cant figure it out. any time i put the positive wire on the battery it starts burning a wire instantly.
 
The only way ground wires burn is if they are overloaded and that is usually because some other ground got left off or isn't of satisfactory. Usually it is the main ground to the block that isn't good and the other grounds barely function to allow the engine to crank until the remaining grounds fry.

Find another car and look it over to determine what grounds you left off.
 
Major ground to trans is connected? firewall to motor mount? minor ground from fender to trans?
 
Yeah... if you're just hooking up the battery and it does that w/ relatively no draw I'd say you have a short somewhere.
 
Disconnect battery, check with ohm meter across the terminals for a short (close to 0 ohms). Check starter wiring.
 
You have a bad short, even with car off.

You have a bad short, even with car off.

Disconnect battery, check with ohm meter across the terminals for a short (close to 0 ohms). Check starter wiring. Don't reconnect power till short is gone.
 
There is a BLACK line under there that is actually a POSITIVE!!! I can try to get a picture if this is still happening.
 
Did you relocate your battery to the trunk?!?!

If so, fricken run your ground back to the block or trans case! I know alot of CEG'ers don't, but our cars aren't unibody, and grounding in just the trunk isn't the best idea. Plus voltage drop FTL! Too many people melt or burn up that ground!
 
Indeed power to the starter is black power wire.

Running ground wire all the way back up to the trans is 150% pointless! Now up grading from the stock 4 gauge trans to body ground is a help. But there is zero need to run a 17ft zero gauge back to the trans from a battery in the trunk.
 
Indeed power to the starter is black power wire.

Running ground wire all the way back up to the trans is 150% pointless! Now up grading from the stock 4 gauge trans to body ground is a help. But there is zero need to run a 17ft zero gauge back to the trans from a battery in the trunk.


Jason, measure your voltage drop cracker.

Do it once, do it right.
 
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LOL are you serious? This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my life. there is zero reason to run a 17ft ground back up to the engine. A voltage drop of .1 has zero issue. My car runs a 14.5 all day long.

Maybe you should do it correctly the first time!

I suggest finding a diff topic other than automotive wiring to argue with me on.
 
By the time you run 2 zero gauge cables front to back you might as well not relocate your battery with all that additional weight.
 
well the culprit was the black power wire from the starter to the ecu (has a 175 amp inline fuse too) got burnt on the EGR tube and shorted out the system. i put in new grounds where they melted, and re-routed the power wire to stay out of the way of the EGR tube. ive got about 200 miles on the engine now, and it runs great! just needs more LSD and shift cables, i still have one zip tied but ive got new cables in the trunk going in this weekend. power from 3000-6800 is impressive on this motor, and ive ridden in a few 3L swapped cars. next on the list is xcal2 with PRP, a good dyno tune, and then i can start getting the trans money saved up :) i'm all smiles right now. thanks everyone for the advice and help along the way!
 
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