Hey,

So i bought a ground wire kit for my 98 civic ex, but I need a little guidance before I attempt to install it. I've looked around for pictures of it installed on my type engine, but no luck. I am just not sure where these parts of the engine are:

Cylinder head.
Alternator.
Transmission.

Sorry, I lack complete knowledge of these parts. Not even sure what they look like in the engine bay. I would appreciate it, if someone could just explain where they are located in the engine bay and I can figure out the rest.

Thanks guys.

 

Cylinder head:

(you'll have wire things sticking out the top going to the left side, a giant hunk of aluminum hanging off the back, a big hunk of cast iron sticking out the front, and a plastic oblong-shaped dealio hanging off the right side)

Alternator:

(note: you only have one of these)


Transmission:




Go get 'em tiger




Okay, seriously. The wire coming off the head I believe comes right off the valve cover (the thing on top that says "Honda"). It's just the wire that comes off the engine and bolts to the frame somewhere. The alternator is on the back side of the engine on the right-hand side (when you're in front of the car looking towards the back of the car); vertically, it's at about the middle of the engine. Again, it's the wire that connects the alternator to the frame. For the transmission, it's on the bottom of the engine on the left side (looking from the front of the car). I'm not sure where the ground wire is, but yup... you guessed it. It goes from the transmission to the frame.

The install is literally unbolt the ground wire, put the new one in place, put the bolts back in place. Repeat steps 1-3 as necessary

 

Thanks a bunch reaper. Made it a lot easier on me.
For the kit I bought, it says all the wires should go to an aluminum plate that attaches to the [Negative ] battery terminal, instead of straight to the chassis like the stock ones are. Does it matter? Or can I just replace the wires?

 

to the positive terminal..... WTF a ground kit has nothing to do with the positive terminals.... if you ground the positive terminal you will throw some serious sparks and set the car on fire!!!!!!!!!

if your talking about one of those ugly ground wire kits that comes with a dozen wires off a round disk then it is totally not needed! you only need 3 wires just like stock.
from the battery to the passenger strut tower, then from the passenger frame rail to the top of the transmission, and from the front drivers side radiator suppport to the valve cover.


only reason you would have to upgrade any other wire is IF you have a high power alternator and then you would upgrade the alternators charging wire to the batteries positive terminal. but nothing else needed really.

 

LOL, i got confused for a second.

Okay, cool. It came with the disc but I think that just looks plain ugly on the battery. haha

I should be good then, thanks!

 

ya that weak *** ground kit is ugly as hell. your better off going to your local flea market with a stereo shop in it and buying some black 4gauge wire ruffly 10feet of wire and 6 crimp connectors. might want to measure it out yourself how your going to run the wires tho. and then use some kinda negative battery terminal to replace the stock ground wire.
then simply run the 4gauge wire to the stock location, and simply double up/piggy back that ground point and run the wire to the trannys ground location, then onto the motors block and IMO anywhere on the block will work fine.... but for best charging i would ground it to the alternator bracket itself, easiest spot to connect to is the bottom swivel point bolt tho you might have to enlarge the crimp ring to fit the bolt thru it.

doing it that way gives it a original look and still the performance you you want.
of course you could always use some 1/0gauge wire but for your small system it would be some overkill. but if you plan on buying a larger stereo eventually then it would be a good idea to go ahead and go big.

o ya and if you want it to look even more original then buy some common black wire loom to go over that 4gauge wire. they key here is dont buy the shiny smooth wire loom. but standard dull black wire loom it will match perfectly.