Big 3 and ground upgrade
Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:20 am
I have a pretty ambitious lighting upgrade in the works that will involve four Hella FF1000 driving lights and upgraded headlight harnesses. That goes along with Hella Supertones and the option for adding foglights. Am I a little crazy? Perhaps.
Anyway, the lighting project is going to involve lots of wiring and fancy fuse holders and relay boxes and weatherproof connectors, and I figured that it would be best to ensure my charging and ground system were in tip top shape. To do that I contacted Shane of Paranoid Fabrications (paranoid56). He sells a Big 3 wiring upgrade, ground upgrades, grounding kits, stickers, and other stuff. Plus he's local to me.
I got myself a custom setup that has an Alternator to Battery line, Battery to chassis ground, battery to transmission ground, and transmission to chassis ground. I guess that reduces resistance or something. I also picked up some stickers because I want to replace my missing Subaru badge with something custom.
So here are some pictures of that whole deal.
A box. With wires:
And stickers:
And an atomic fireball a la Kartboy:
The wiring is all fancy like:
Here is the power wire:
And ground wires:
That's platinum, yo:
Here is the old and busted:
Ewww gross:
New positive terminal that was the nicest one three different pep-boys/autozones had:
Old ground vs new ground:
Installed:
That positive terminal is a little cramped. I'm going to have to figure something else out there.
So is the alternator post:
I'm not quite sure how I'm going to hook up 5 accessory circuits.
You kind of loop that wire around the a/c lines and zip tie it to things:
Lost of room on the ground side:
Although the battery to chassis wire is a little short since a WRX attaches next to the fuse box instead of above the headlight:
Please ignore all my half-assed wiring because it's getting re-done shortly and I don't even have my driving lights on the car.
So the other wire goes to the transmission where the old one was. Zip tie it to the starter lead:
Then I attached the third wire to the pitch stop mount and a lifting loop on the block:
And then installed my awesome rally stickers:
The mini ones go great on my nalgene bottle:
It's been about three weeks so far. Have I noticed any sort of a difference driving? Actually, no. Do I feel that I wasted the $60 total I spent on all this stuff? No. I'm going to have some pretty serious wattage hanging off the front of the car and will probably find a higher amperage alternator to go with it. With this stuff I don't have any concerns about the charging or ground system of the car.
After you subtract the shipping and stickers, it was really only like $45 for nicely crimped 4ga wire, the fuse, and a battery terminal. Of course the cost of materials is much less than that, but it saves you the hassle of tracking down a way to crimp the connections and measuring wires etc. For extra, gold terminals and soldered connections are available.
Anyway, the lighting project is going to involve lots of wiring and fancy fuse holders and relay boxes and weatherproof connectors, and I figured that it would be best to ensure my charging and ground system were in tip top shape. To do that I contacted Shane of Paranoid Fabrications (paranoid56). He sells a Big 3 wiring upgrade, ground upgrades, grounding kits, stickers, and other stuff. Plus he's local to me.
I got myself a custom setup that has an Alternator to Battery line, Battery to chassis ground, battery to transmission ground, and transmission to chassis ground. I guess that reduces resistance or something. I also picked up some stickers because I want to replace my missing Subaru badge with something custom.
So here are some pictures of that whole deal.
A box. With wires:
And stickers:
And an atomic fireball a la Kartboy:
The wiring is all fancy like:
Here is the power wire:
And ground wires:
That's platinum, yo:
Here is the old and busted:
Ewww gross:
New positive terminal that was the nicest one three different pep-boys/autozones had:
Old ground vs new ground:
Installed:
That positive terminal is a little cramped. I'm going to have to figure something else out there.
So is the alternator post:
I'm not quite sure how I'm going to hook up 5 accessory circuits.
You kind of loop that wire around the a/c lines and zip tie it to things:
Lost of room on the ground side:
Although the battery to chassis wire is a little short since a WRX attaches next to the fuse box instead of above the headlight:
Please ignore all my half-assed wiring because it's getting re-done shortly and I don't even have my driving lights on the car.
So the other wire goes to the transmission where the old one was. Zip tie it to the starter lead:
Then I attached the third wire to the pitch stop mount and a lifting loop on the block:
And then installed my awesome rally stickers:
The mini ones go great on my nalgene bottle:
It's been about three weeks so far. Have I noticed any sort of a difference driving? Actually, no. Do I feel that I wasted the $60 total I spent on all this stuff? No. I'm going to have some pretty serious wattage hanging off the front of the car and will probably find a higher amperage alternator to go with it. With this stuff I don't have any concerns about the charging or ground system of the car.
After you subtract the shipping and stickers, it was really only like $45 for nicely crimped 4ga wire, the fuse, and a battery terminal. Of course the cost of materials is much less than that, but it saves you the hassle of tracking down a way to crimp the connections and measuring wires etc. For extra, gold terminals and soldered connections are available.