Replaced the engine ground battery cable to block, and starter ground cables etc., with some heavy duty types, so had some extras laying around. What the hell. As an experiment bonded both heads together and ran a cable direct to the neg. terminal on the battery. Danged if it doesn't seem to run more solid at highway cruise and under load. Is it just my imagination or is there a benefit to doing this?
There should be plenty of continuity between heads & block via the head bolts. Besides, what electrical components do you have grounded to the heads?
I agree it "shouldn't" be necessary. The only electrical components grounded to the heads are spark plugs!
I think it's one of those deals where when you wash your car it always seems faster than when it was dirty.
Well, it sure can't hurt and proper grounding is certainly important. A little redundancy is good insurance.
Just being 'presumptious', I'm gonna take a shot in the dark and guess this V8 (whether or not it's a flathead) has a negative grounded battery. But you said it 'ran more solid', so I gather it didn't let the smoke out of the 'box'. So...perish the thought.
Haha! You know, it never occurred to me about the spark plugs grounding thru the heads. I was thinking about electrical components such as the starter, etc. Duh! Still, I do think there should be plenty of continuity thru the head bolts for electrical currents to flow from the heads to the block.
Yeah I'm no drag racer, just like to get these old things running good, as advertised. It looks like from digging around the 'net that aluminum heads are supposed to be grounded. Guesss I'm not the first to think of this, imagine that. Some claim that even iron heads might not be grounded as well as they might be, because of gaskets, assembly grease, loctite, corrosion on fasteners, etc. "Continuity" as such really doesn't tell you much.
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