This thread has actually peaked my interest enough that I have contacted a friend of mine who was an electrical engineer at NASA for 17 years and have had a text message conversation with him about it late this afternoon. He says there is definitely merit in doing this and has explained the benefit to me. I'll elaborate on this when I can get to my PC - to much to type via phone. I will say that what he says makes sense...

 

I have seen this on another forum and everyone says they see good results after doing it just ain't got around to it my self and to the guy gripping on page two the tb is not connected to any metal on the engine intake is plastic and I understand there are wires for the sensors but I bet if you trace them they all goto the ecm and not directly to a ground source

 

This has been the big topic on the DT forum for the last couple weeks now and everyone says it has made an improvement to the response. You need a minimum of 14 gauge wire for it to work and there are guys over there even using 4 gauge lol. I plan on doing this over spring break when I redo my entire CAI. But that dynamic kit has been talked about as well and its cheaper to just buy wire and ground everything yourself. The trans ground is what everyone is trying to figure out at the moment because it requires you to drill through the frame.

 

I did Google (Grounding the TB on dodge ram) and found a lot of threads on another forums about this, almost everyone that tried it reported positive results

 

So anyway, this guy who used to work at NASA says it all has to do with interference and electrical "noise". First thing he asked me about was if I ever had an aftermarket stereo hum with acceleration and what the fix was, which was grounding the system with a larger cable (been there in my younger days).

Same principle with ANY electrical component in your vehicle. All are prone to electrical "interference" from other electrical components around them. Also, there is a constant buildup of static electricity in electrical components with metal cases. This static charge also creates interference and won't discharge through the component until it reaches a higher charge than the power going into the part (path of least resistance). In the case of the throttle body it will respond much quicker right after this charge is dissipated but response will degrade until that point when the static has built up enough to discharge again. With a relatively large ground cable attached directly to the case this static won't build and will naturally flow to the chassis or negative terminal.

Makes sense to me. I was going to just take a piece of wire and ground it, but the biggest I have in the garage is about 14 AWG, I think I have a couple of 18" 4 AWG battery post cables in my storage in a pretty accessible spot. So I'm going to go grab them today and give this a try...

 

You are correct Hammer or shall I say your buddy is correct? This is why most wires are twisted inside the cab. They utilize the twisted pair of wires for multiple puposes and they counteract one another and eliminate/reduce the noise interference which they would have otherwise had without the twist. I'm sure you've heard "twisted pair" for telephone wires sometime in your hay day?..lol

If there isn't much interference, the results won't be noticed which is why all the guys report various results.
I'm not gonna get into what I think or anything further technical because it'll be way to drawn out for anyone to care...lol

 

Well I'm gonna run one today in the truck, a big old 4 gauge and see for myself. Ain't gonna do it on the Jeep, the '02 4.7 has a good, old fashioned throttle cable, so I don't see where it'll benefit from it...

 

rofl...4awg...lol
You know, the wires inside and to the T/B are only 16awg. You could either double up the 18awg or run a single 14awg and be done.
Or, you could just throw on the overkill and have a beer conversation with your buddy over it. laughs will come with the territory...haha

 

Well, I thought the 14 gauge looked awful thin, I know the 4 gauge is overkill, but I knew I had a store-bought, pre-terminated length in with some of my boat stuff, brand new, never used.

OK, so I hooked it up to the upper left bolt. My first intention was to run it to where my winch's negative cable is connected to the battery, but the pre-terminated piece of cable I had would only make it by running it straight over on top of the engine. Didn't like that idea, so I ran it over on the other side to chassis ground, where I have my off-road lights grounded, they work, so I know it's a good ground.

Started the truck and the first thing I noticed was after initially settling in on idle, the needle was rock solid, no wavering at all. Now I can't say that my needle wavered at idle since the day I bought it or it was the result of some of my mods, but my needle ALWAYS fluctuates slightly at idle, whether first starting it or sitting at a stop light. I always attributed this to still running stock size plug wires with all my mods and at next plug change (in about 7,000 miles) I was going to do the wires with larger ones. So right away I know the ground cable made a difference. Not one hint of wavering of the needle at idle.

I did a short, 2 mile test drive but only around my sub-division, so no WOT or even speeds over about 40, but I think I feel better throttle response. I'm not gonna sit here and swear to it, but I think I feel it. Obviously, some open road testing and WOT will tell me.

Now I went into this VERY skeptical, at least until I talked to my buddy, who knows a hell of a lot more about electical sh*t than I do, so in looking to disprove it, I don't think I'm feeling any placebo effect, but I really can't tell for 100% certainty if there is a truly better throttle response. I know my tach needle at idle fluctuated slightly (within about 100-200 rpm) and that needle doesn't even waver now.

I have some things on my agenda this morning, but I will try to take the truck out for a more thorough test late this afternoon. Stay tuned...



Cable connected to the top-left mounting bolt: (sorry about the glare)


Connected to chassis ground on the side:


Because of the length of cable I already had, I could not zip-tie it along the rear fire-wall, but I zip-tied it to my CAI's heat shield bracket to keep it out of the way:

 

Varying rpms creates varying frequency changes which in turn can alter interference.

So, if there is any improvement...It will change with the rpms due to the natural harmonic frequency changes.

Placebo effect or not...Its a cheap enough mod to put a grin on your face and keep you mod busy at not much charge.