Pretty popular with the ricers. I don't really know how old of theory this is...perhaps it has been around for ages. This 'multi-ground' thingy--where a half-dozen or more fat ground wires run from the battery off to all over the engine. They bolt to just about anything that doesn't move. Is there any merit in this?

steve77

Using the body as a return is dubious at the best of times.

If it wasn't then all car electricals would be single wire!

I suspect many of the zed electrical problems that we read about are brought about by PO's disregarding the negative return and relying on the body as a negative return rather than using a dedicated wire return to negative.

The ground trunk that you are describing is from the boating industry. Since boats are made from composites and fiberglass there is no way for current to return to the source, thus you have an incomplete circuit. Lately the aftermarket and repower sectors of the boating industry have gone to using mutiple battery gangs, good for hi/po & multiple engines. But for the other goodies and nick nacks that have become every day items that are all solid state and run off direct current. To complete these circuits in the boat the ground trunk evolved. usually one main ground with smaller branches coming off of it. That will all lead back to the source. This should work wonders for the Z if you wanted to rewire it. Better B+ feed to the system will require better ground return path. :devious: .