E30 Zone

greetings from Canada.

anyone had any experience with grounding wires? I've been offered a grounding wire kit and was wondering if i'm trying to fix something which isn't broken or whether there is any notable differences?
he's offered to install it, he has one in his alpina b10- biturbo.. said it helped smooth out the idle and increase instant response.

Hi dude, welcome to the zone

Hmm, this mod sounds a bit spurious, yeah I'm sure re-grounding your entire engine loom would pay dividends as it will have deteriorated with age, but what exactly is the kit offering ?

well, apparently smoother idle (which i have to admit isn't a problem), and it takes out imperfections in the electric signals which is supposed to offer better fuel efficency, eliminate headlight dimming from stereo (again, not a problem - don't think), and more instant response (ECU has less hickups). the company is sunautomobile.com, but in reviewing the site since i posted this i realise the kit doesn't show my year or model, so this solves it i suppose.

Sounds like a load of bull to me. the symptoms they describe are nothing a good going over with a wire brush wouldn't cure

Total, complete and utter bo**ox!!

if it ain't broke, don't attempt to fix it i guess.

thanks for the feedback.

That is not fixing anything - I looked at the site.
They sell three extremely clever gadgets, each in 6 colours. The really clever bit is the transfer of your money to their bank account - while suckering you quite badly until the FTC closes them down.

Pseudo science - from 'engine destroyer' (previously amusingly called 'engine restore' by the snake oil salesmen) to slick 50 - 8 class action lawsuits cannot be wrong. (http://neptune.spacebears.com/cars/legal/index.html)

Physics:
The reason an earth wire will not help your spark strength can be seen by comparing the size of your negative battery strap to the size of the little wire running up to the HT coil. Yes - it's much bigger. Doubling the size of that strap, even replacing it by a superconductor will not change the fact that all your spark energy goes up this little wire to the coil. Once inside the coil of course the wire is also pretty dam thin!

If you read their site carefully you will see that there are little disclaimers that they sadly think will prevent them from being sued. As with all quack remedies the power of the Placebo Effect means many people will swear blind that the new shiny yellow braided wire gives them more response or power. People rarely have access to a dyno and a lawyer to prove otherwise. [/b]

I just changed my engine block to chassis earth wire and it has improved the running and made it smoother.

The wire was a bit worn before though, and it was well worth doing

Hhmmmm, think this would only help running if the existing ones are well knackered!!

Usually only done with large ice installs 'cos (from my experience) it does make a significant difference then!!

Of course adding a parallel wire between engine block and car body will make a difference if the OE one is defective, but on well maintained cars this rubbish will make no difference at all.
As with most thimgs of this kind, if it was an improvement, BMW would have done it in the first place!

my little brothers polo just got a new earth wire. it wasn't starting and was cranking very very slowly, when cranking there was a lot of smoke coming from the engine bay. it had two wires originally, one large high current one and an additional one the other side that i assume is there for supression reasons. this second one was about 2mm sq i guess. the large one fell out of its crimp and he only had this single very small one and it was glowing when i saw it!!!!! fool!

turned over a load better with a new one on!