A few weeks ago after getting my '04 Forester XT I decided do a "Grounding Mod". This mod has been debated back and forth and one thing is definitely for sure: if you pay $100 for wires over the internet you are a sucker (or VERY lazy)

So I headed over to my local Radio Shack and shelled out $8 for some 8 guage wire, terminals, and heat-shrink-tube-wrapper-things.

I cut the wire, capped the ends with terminals, and bolted the wires to:
* Negative battery terminal (1 wire)
* Intake manifold (a bunch of wires)
* Strut caps (a wire to each)

Turned the car back on and it seemd to idle a lot smoothly, and after during driving home after the install, the car seemed to run a little bit smoother overall, but I was honestly unsure if I was just hyper-sensitive to the car.

Flash forward two weeks later to this morning, I get in my car, start her up, and notice (as has been true the last few days) she's idling high at start, and is a liiiitle sassy overall (not a sweet hum)

On my way to work, I stopped to get some gas, opening up the hood to check the oil and stare at my baby while the pump pumps. Since I noticed the high-idle, I fiddle with each of the connections of my ub3r-l33t grounding mod, and LO AND BEHOLD: the connection to the battery terminal is loose as a goose! Slackass me didn't crimp the terminal enough, so I fixed the terminal and upon starting her up she purred! No high idle at all, very crisp acceleration & overall response on the way to work.

So i just had to share that I totally noticed the difference made by extra grounding :banana:

Cliff Notes: Installed grounding kit, wasn't totally sure it made a difference, engine starts beign sassy, I find out kit isn't connected, fixed it, and noticed a huge difference!

Thug life baby:
http://internal.cas.gmu.edu/~mwalker/images/Subaru/GroundingMod_battery.JPG

A few weeks ago after getting my '04 Forester XT I decided do a "Grounding Mod". This mod has been debated back and forth and one thing is definitely for sure: if you pay $100 for wires over the internet you are a sucker (or VERY lazy)


Thats very true! Even the homeade ones that people sell for like $50 is way too much! I did mine with high quality power wire, quality gold connectors and soldered each connection. My experiences were different on the performance side of the mod. I didn't notice one bit of difference on my STi. It seems this mod is hit and miss...some work and some don't do anything. I figure it can't hurt to do the mod though.

yea, you kit looks nice. but i can tell that shrink tubing came from rat shack as theres is not very good stuff.
and if you pay anything more then 30 bucks for a wireing kit that is just too much :D
Shane

Would you keep us posted how it is after about 400 miles?

Thanks. :)