This was done on a 2001 Civic, so it should be the same for 2001-2005 Civics.

ok this is one of the best mods i have ever done to help the electronics in my car.

sorry about the size of the images this is a new camera and i am not used to the settings.

the big 3 consists of your battery ground, engine ground, and the alternator power to battery.

to do this you will need some tools:

10 mm socket, 12 mm socket, wire cutters/vise, zip ties, etc.

the first thing that i did was disconnect my engine ground and replace with 0/1 gauge wire.

stock grounding spot(engine)

this is the other end of the connection that i will still use for the new grounds.

stock ground (body)

now that that is out of the way you can see what a huge visual difference the wires are.


this is what the new battery and body ground look like.


the other end of the battery ground.


this part was a little bit tricky, but with some persistence and removing the heat shield i was able to make it work. that is where the 12mm wrench comes into play. the space is tight so i suggest using a magnetic wrench. this is done by putting a magnet on the end of your wrench.

new alternator power wire

there you go the big 3 is done and it looks way better. by the way i would recommend getting a new battery terminal for both posts to accommodate the new wire size. also i decided to leave the stock wires connected, except the engine ground, because electricity takes the path of least resistance so this works just fine. also remember to put a fuse in all of your future power lines so that nothing is harmed.

all hooked up

 

Decent writeup. Try using photobucket. It'll auto resize pics to what you need them to be.

 

yeah, the big 3 is always a good upgrade, good write up!

 

thanks guys i just saw that we didnt have one of these and i needed it done anyway

 

Good writeup. Not to get you down or anything, but the overall DIY is kind of bad though with these giant pics. Resize them and the DIY will be good.

Photobucket will resize pics upon upload as long as you have the option selected. You have to specify the size to resize to.

 

Man it looks really good. I was wondering if you could give me some advice... (I have a 2003 honda civic 1.7L). Here's my story: I have about 6000 watts of sound system in my car. I have a 10 farad cap. I have 2/3 of the big 3 done so far (engine to chassis and battery to chassis). I had that done because I was blowing through alternators. I bought a high performance alternator and it fried on me as well because I got honda to put it in and they didn't upgrade the power wire from the alternator to the battery. So in total I burned 3 alternators now. (well over $1000) I looked at it this morning with the intent to do this job myself. I followed the power wire from the alternator and it leads to the valve cover... that to me is strange. Then it goes through it and passes back behind the engine THEN it goes Into the block on the left side. I'm worried that if I disconnect this wire it will mess something up with my engine's electrical. Am I wrong? Also, should I disconnect the stock engine ground like you did? Or does it not matter?

Thanks bro, any help would be great!

 

Hey Frank, I'll move this to the HCF Electrical DIY section if you will make the pictures 800x600

 

Big no no. always make sure all paint is off of ground surfaces

 

Yep, I sanded and/or wire brushed all paint from the metal under the hood then covered it with copper infused Permatex or Kopr-Shield in my case to prevent rusting.

Also, not to rain on your parade or anything, but, the Big 3 is fairly useless in most Honda's that suffer the double edged sword of a tiny alternator AND Honda's Electrical Load Detector. In other words, one doesn't need 1/0 cable for Honda's whimpy 65 to 90 amp alternators nor will the Big 3 help much when the ELD senses no load and reduces the alternator charge to 12.5 volts or so.

Sadly, there is only so much blood that one can squeeze from a turnip without employing work around techniques to bypass the ELD after adding a high output alternator.