While this practice is quite commonplace in Asia, especially Japan I rarely see it done or even talked about much over here. Since a few people have recently reported having problems with their bikes and other odd behaviour that might be related to ground.

I've dug out a link to one of the most comprehensive 'Earth Upgrading' articles I know of.

More Grounds!

It is based on the NC24 model but is easily adapted to any of the other NC models.

Quick Edit:

Since the NC series has aluminium frame it is quite easy to corrode the earth and have poor earth performance, as the VFR has few ground points. The theory is to build more paths to ground.

The website claims some of the following benefits.

More low speed torque
Better fuel economy
Easier / Improved starting.
Better idle speeds.
Lights run brighter at idle.

Basically reducing the voltage loss. Not sure of the theory behind it. Does make a noticable difference though, especially on starting if you've never done it to a bike before ^_^

No point IMO of doing the one to the front of the engine, you just need one good earth to the lower crankcase, shorter, easier, lighter and neater to do it to the back of the cases than the front.

I added an extra heavy duty earth when I added a low-beam relay to NC35#1 (along with a new fuse, power relay and extra heavy duty power to the headlight relays), attached it in parallel to the existing earth wire, soldering it to each junction then by the front coil and to the rear subframe.

I'm going to repeat the same for NC35#3 (when we get it) along with ripping out the alarm, I'll take pics this time[1].

Druid

[1] And not use self amalgamating tape either, bloody crap stuff just fell apart after a few years.

Ooh yeah. Pics would be good!

I'd take pics of my but all the wires are neat so you can't see anything unless you strip it.

When I sort the carbs out possibly next week i'll snap some pics up.

Neosophist wrote:Ooh yeah. Pics would be good!

I'd take pics of my but all the wires are neat so you can't see anything unless you strip it.

When I sort the carbs out possibly next week i'll snap some pics up.

Yeah same as, only thing you can really see without looking really closely is the extra power relay (attached by the fuse box) and extra low-beam relay (by the high-beam relay), I wrapped it back up into the main wiring loom.

Druid

Any chance of someone translating that site to english so we can read it?

spooky wrote:Any chance of someone translating that site to english so we can read it?

Yeah give me half hour. I was hoping to run it through an online translator but it comes up with rubbish >.<

edit

Done, put an english copy here on my website.

Hope thats of some use. ^_^

Magic Neo. Thank you. How do you translate that? Goggle does a bit, but its gibberish!

I run an extra earth from the front coil/front radiator mount to the frame. Mainly because I have crash knobs fitted there, but also because it's a bit dodgy relying on the paper thin metal bracket to make good frame contact. Works well.

Hadn't thought of adding any extras - I've tried to get rid of as much loom as possible!

I've done it on my 35 sorry for the poor pic but you can just see them



one at the bottom of the engine curling around the sump and the other at the top looking like it comes out behind the crash bung mount.

am i the only one who thinks this is a complete waste of time and effort,i can't see it working or making any difference at all but i'm interested to see if it does.....