Working on the finishing steps to wiring in the Nitrous Controller.

The instructions say IMPORTANT:

Do NOT “stack” clean grounds to the same stud/ground point that you attach “dirty” ground wires to. It is acceptable to run a single ground cable from the battery to a ground buss bar (multiple ground studs). Stack “dirty” grounds to one point/stud and attach “clean” grounds to a separate point/stud.

What makes any difference from running a ground wire to the battery then to the "clean" & "dirty" grounds and connecting them together (which I'm not doing) than connecting them together on a bus bar? Kinda confuses me lol.

Here are the dirty & clean ground wires from the controller.



12V Bus Bar



Screen Shot of the instructions.

 

I couldnt tell you the difference but if you wanted you could grab the PCM grounds, pins 1 and 40, both connectors. I would say it doesnt get cleaner than that for a ground

Dirty boi could just go to the dash or a lug some place where other items are grounded

 

It depends on what they are referring to as 'clean/dirty' as to physical or electrical. You would not want to stack a clean (new) ground connection on top of a dirty (corroded) connection as it would not be a good connection for the new ground. An electrically dirty ground would be one with noise or ac offset in it where a clean ground would have a pure dc voltage/current. In this case physically moving the grounds to separate connection points in the same ground path will make no difference. They would need to be electrically isolated to keep the noise from the dirty ground bleeding over to the new ground. (I cannot currently see the pics in the OP so can't comment specifically on them)

 

Yeah "dirty" meaning noise.

I'm with you seems like both connected to the same buss would be the same as crimping or soldering them together. BUT I've read some forum posts over at ls1tech saying they had issues with the clean side ground on this controller. They probably stacked the clean directly to the dirty ground, and grounding both through the "dirty" chassis.

I'm thinking about running a 10awg directly from the battery to a ground buss bar inside the cab to connect both the clean & dirty per instructions. Or save $10 not buying the buss bar and run a piece of 14awg along side the 10awg from the battery for the clean ground.

 

Go straight to battery for clean and go to chassis for dirty. Dirty, is referring to communication noise, the chassis will have noise if you go to battery it will overcome most "noise".

 

Yeah that's the plan just wiring the "clean" ground straight to the battery and the "dirty" somewhere under the dash. Just step drilled a 1" hole for a rubber grommet through the firewall for all the N2o wires including the AEM wideband harness to the o2 sensor and my subwoofer amps 10 power wire. Tried a 7/8 grommet and things were a little tight. I had the sub & wideband wires running through the pushed out grommet for the hood release cable. I'm glad to tighten up that hacked way of feeding the wires through the firewall lol

 

"clean ground" means that it is not likely to experience higher than zero volts (including spikes and fluctuations from say the ignition system). Likely, if your "clean ground" experienced a voltage surge, something bad might happen (controller dies or inadvertently turns something on).

If you have a chassis ground stud with, say a high powered amplifier grounded there, if the stud is not able flow all of the current from the amp AND all of the current from your "clean" ground wire... then, you have the possibility of voltage running back on your "clean" ground wire.

 

That's is true especially for older systems, the new communication protocals use the ground to transmit data and the data can be a problem depending on the devise.

 

I ran the "clean" ground to the battery and the 'dirty" ground to a dash bolt under the Dorito (fuse) cover. The controller works well.