Anyone ever try a heavy-duty grounding job to fix hesitation?

[Barwick]

I've come from the world of RX-7's, which have pathetically weak electrical systems, and a common problem on some of them is the "3800 RPM hesitation". Basically, the 2nd set of injectors kicks in at 3800 RPM and due to poor electrical connections, they don't always fire properly (too much fuel, too little, I dunno, maybe both), but the cars will have a noticable hesitation there.

To fix the problem, they'll go to the auto parts store and grab themselves a few pieces of 2 foot black battery cable (the ones with a flat metal connector on the end so they can stick a bolt through it and bolt it to something). They'll bolt those from the engine block (or something with a good ground to the engine block) to the drivers side strut tower, and then another from the drivers side strut tower to the negative battery terminal.

I was wondering, has anyone tried that with their LS and has it done anything to fix the hesitation problem?

 

[lsbit]

A lot of us have had hesitation problems, but after replacing bad coils or injectors, the problem is fixed.

I have seen where adding grounds can really help on cars, and maybe the LS is one of them, but it is not known as a common issue.

 

[Jim Henderson]

Some surprising problems can be fixed by more and better grounds.

Don't know on the LS but a few years back a lot of cop cars were killing their trannys far sooner than expected. The problem was traced back to insufficient grounding and extra power draw due to police duty. The theory was that all the extra power was being pulled thru the tranny and impacting the bearings whcih caused the tranny to fail early. More grounds fixed the problem. Weird.

So, better grounding is not a bad thing, especially considering that our batteries are in the trunk far away from where the action is. Ever look at a serious "drag racer" that has the battery in the trunk? Big big cables.

Good Luck,

Jim Henderson

 

[Barwick]

Some surprising problems can be fixed by more and better grounds.

Don't know on the LS but a few years back a lot of cop cars were killing their trannys far sooner than expected. The problem was traced back to insufficient grounding and extra power draw due to police duty. The theory was that all the extra power was being pulled thru the tranny and impacting the bearings whcih caused the tranny to fail early. More grounds fixed the problem. Weird.

So, better grounding is not a bad thing, especially considering that our batteries are in the trunk far away from where the action is. Ever look at a serious "drag racer" that has the battery in the trunk? Big big cables.

Good Luck,

Jim Henderson

As far as the ground (negative) is concerned, we've got BIG fat metal bodies that act as grounds from the engine bay to the trunk of the car, so we shouldn't need a big fat wire going to the back for the negative side. But the positive wire is a different story, I dunno...

 

[lsbit]

The theory was that all the extra power was being pulled thru the tranny and impacting the bearings whcih caused the tranny to fail early. More grounds fixed the problem. Weird.

I had an Olds Intrigue and it was plagued from poor electrical design. A lot of people started having tranny issues at 80k and bad grounds were mentioned as a possible cause. Some people were convinced. Most of us had flickering headlights, at least. Some were able to fix it by adding grounds, some of us gave up and got rid of the car. That is how I ended up with 2 LSs.

 

[SolacE]

Upgrading the power and ground cable to a larger gauge ofc wire will help lots of little issues in any vehicle.

 

[dtangerini]

Use a good fuel injector additive and the hesitation problem will go away.

 

[NickLS]

dtang, while adding a injector additive helps, I noticed in alot of these posts that the additive is your only solution that you comment on doing.
Not knocking, the idea, but what works for one, doesn't really always for others. There are a few of us here that no matter how much injector cleaning we do, if it's the coils or the plugs, that's what well have to change.

It's a good checklist thing to do, but it isn't the solution to the chronic problem the COP's are the for the LS.

No disrespect.

 

[lsbit]

dtang, while adding a injector additive helps, I noticed in alot of these posts

2 year old thread. Autopost?

I agree with your post. Fuel injectors and COPs are the most common. A lot of that crap just gets garbage on your spark plugs and who knows what else.