These Are Your Best Project Car and Motorcycle Tips

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – Marv Electrocuted, Harry Blows Up Scene (4/5) | Movieclips

1. Swap your switches from power to ground. Don’t put amperage load on your switches, even if they’re rated for it. That includes triggers for relays: just send the ground side to the bulkhead terminator, not the power. The power can come straight from a battery positive bus strip.

2. For cars with digital components, use separate ’dirty’ and ‘clean’ power and ground bus. Those digital components like ECUs etc don’t like noise from fan motors, fuel pumps, water pumps, etc. They also don’t like power spikes from relays and solenoids turning on and off. If you have an HEI distributor or a high power digital ignition unit on a carbureted car, probably a good idea to isolate that power and ground wise.

3. Use ground bus strips connected directly to the battery negative (sad) side for grounds. Don’t ground everything to the body. That sucks. This also goes with #1. If you are running power to your switches and just grounding things to the body… yeah it works but does it work?

4. Avoid damaging sensitive stuff with power spikes by putting a diode across the positive and ground. This is called a ‘flyback diode’ and it’s a good idea to keep voltage spikes from burning out components. Most modern electronics will have internal diodes, but still, its not expensive and it’s better-er.

5. Use a good bulkhead connector. Don’t just put wires through holes in the firewall.

Submitted by Brian Madigan