hey guys my battery has been goin dead everyonce in a while and my dad says it coudl be the ground on my system. now i thought if everything worked then the ground has to be just fine. am i wrong?also where are u guys running yours? i have mine hooked up to the rear seat belt thing that is liek a goldish unfinished metel cause it already had a hole and was bolted to the car. my dad says wut u have to do to get a good ground is run it to the neg. battery terminal or to the fron and to the frame. but i think he sounds like a jackass. i figure i can put it right on my inner fender well near the spare tire cause its a unibody so the whole car is the frame. now who is right here? also i have 4 gauge ground and he said useing an 8g solid brass wire would be even better but i beg to differ lol. well let me know wut u think and where u grounded yours. thanks guys

 

make sure its not coated metal or anything, if you have to scrape it with a knife to make sure it is pure metal. Also running it to the negative of the battery would also probably be a bad idea, considering a ground wire isnt supposed to be and longer than 18 inches. Also I am not sure, but it might somehow interfere with the power wire. I am sure some of the other guys can help you out more, I am just saying what I know.

 

just find a good solid piece of sheetmetal (or better yet go to the frame) and mount it there.

Technically you can connect it to the neg battery terminal, but its just impractical and a waste of wire. When you hook the ground from the amp to the chassis in the back, and then ground the battery to the chassis in the front, it is the same thing as running a wire all the way to the battery. You're just completing the circuit.

 

Around where the spare tire is I found a ground that the rear hatch is hooked up too and used it. I've had mine running for a year now with no problems so it should work for you too.

 

I also have a question for you guys. If I am running dual amps would it be a bad or good idea to get a distribution block and split the ground wire to both amps, or should I run 2 seperate grounds for each amp? Also is 8 guage good enough to ground a fosgate 400.4 and a fosgate 500.2 or should I go larger. Thanks.

 

You can see where I grounded mine and I haven't found a problem with that spot yet. And yes you can use a distribution block for ground. I would recomend doing so.

Also regarding grounding to the battery, there is no damage potential, but you do waste money on wire that way when the body is adaquate for most situations.

 

Do not run the ground for your amp to the battery. The sheetmetal can carry more current than 00 awg wire.

Given your situation I would inspect & clean (or even better - upgrade) the following factory wires & connections:
[list=1][*]Battery to chassis ground[*]Engine block to chassis ground[*]Alternator to factory distribution block power wire[*]Factory distribution block to battery power wire[/list=1]

 

Not to get off topic, but let's think about this...(yes tests have been done to back this up)

The average voltage loss over a 4awg between the battery and the rear of a car is less than .05v for good wire. Take a multimeter and test for yourself that there is almost zero noticable voltage loss through that length of wire.

Now, do the same test with your chassis ground that has who knows how many spot welds and breaks in the sheet metal between the rear (where you typically mount an amp) and the front of the car where the chassis ground begins at the battery. I guarantee you that there will be no less if not more of a voltage loss through the body than there ever would be through that wire. Every one of those welds and joints are resistance. If it were a single piece of sheet metal, then maybe I'd agree with you.

Now back on the subject...

What Belker has stated above is more than adaquate for all but the extreme cases. You can ground just about anywhere as long as you clean off the paint and get down to bare metal. Since we're not talking about a large current draw anyway, just find something convinient and go with it.

L8r

 

i am going to be grounding mine underneath the rear seats, there is no carpet down there, and i am going to be mounting my amps into the rear seat!