Where to ground?

[sweetride01]

OK, yes, you are all going to get very annoyed w/me. Marakka said he grounded the amps into the shock tower. I am still somewhat resilient to the idea of putting a screw into the shock tower (a high load area) as I don't want any cracks appearing 5 years down the road.
So, the next logical place would seem to be the screw holding the strut to the shock tower. Would this work? I would kinda be grounding the amp to the strut then, so that may not work.
Can someone please post a pic of where exactly the grounded their amp in the floor or somewhere on the left side of the trunk? I don't want to go drilling into the fuel tank.

[Jordan]

You want your amps grounded as short as possible. Wherever the amp is you want the ground going from there, to the nearest metal.

My amps had 5in long ground straps each.

[DSchultz325e]

The fuel tank is over on the passenger side. Just scrape down an area on the driver side right up by the sheetmetal of the seatback and sand it down to bare metal and drill a hole there. A black anodized screw works fine.

[sweetride01]

Will the seatback work ok?

[Nick325is]

My amp is grounded to a shock tower bolt. I just sanded the area down to bare metal and bolted it down. No problems yet.



Nick

[marakka]

Short screws will always be your friends. I only used 3/8" screws for my grounds as I didn't have time to always jump out and check what I was drilling into. With 1/8th being taken up by terminal and another 1/16 or so by metal I'd only have just the tip sticking out the other side. NEVER shot a screw into something I didn't mean to. I'm no Luke.... but I'd guess I've done at least 500 amp installs.

As far as where to ground. Ground to any existing metal spot on the chasis. Stay away from grounding to pre-existing bolts as that provides an additional item that may have to be removed if you have to repair something. OR if you have a loose bolt on the ground you could actually arc out the bolt and cause damage to it. Screws into the seat back or into the floor board are just fine. I used to use a wire wheel attatchment on my drill to grind down to metal. Good luck.

[MitchFong]

Why cant you just attach both +ve and -ve wires to the +ve and -ve terminals on the battery?

[sweetride01]

Since I've heard you shouldn't use a wire longer than 18", I guess I'll use the seatback for a ground for both amps. My amp shelf is pretty big.
Will it be ok to ground both to the same screw?
I'll post install pics later tonight.
Thanks!

EDIT: K, well I drilled into a thickish area of the seatback. It happens to be a fluffy area though, so I hope I'm not making a fire hazard.

[DSchultz325e]

No, no fire hazard. You can do the same ground point, too, but you should get a multimeter and check the resistance before you throw everything in. Get a nice glob of silicone sealant on there too, as you just made yourself a potential rusting spot.

[sweetride01]

No, no fire hazard. You can do the same ground point, too, but you should get a multimeter and check the resistance before you throw everything in. Get a nice glob of silicone sealant on there too, as you just made yourself a potential rusting spot.

I want low resistance, I presume?
Why would it rust, there should be no water there.

EDIT: I just recorded a resistance of 1/2 Ohm from one side of the hole to the other.