Mitsubishi - what WERE you thinking?

I disconnected the factory ground strap from the battery to the chassis to find that they bolt it on right over a painted surface. It's a miracle it actually completes a ground circuit at all. I ran a tap to clean up the threads and used my dremel to clean the surface free of paint where it connects.

 

You do realize the surface is painted to prevent rust? I almost bought a car where someone did that for a better ground, but ended up rusting the area through, leaving no grounding point for the battery. This was on a car that had lived in Southern California all it's life.

I know the difference better grounding makes, I completely agree with you on that. The lancer is the first car I have owned that hasn't had the battery cables swapped out for better stuff and the ground threads cleaned out to remove paint, which is on my to do list. The most you want to do is clear the paint away from the threads. With the screw touching the threads and the ground cable ring, your ground will be more than adequate.

If you're not going to swap out the ground cables, you may want to paint the area to prevent rust. Just speaking from experience.

 

Yes, but it really shouldn't rust in the trunk. I'll watch it over time.

 

You got me on that one. Keep forgetting about the battery being in the trunk for the evos. Not a whole lot of exposure to water in the trunk, unless you take a long drive off a short pier.

 

Maybe some rust inhibitor?

 

I just relocated by battery and washer tank to the area behind the right fender well so I could run a JL13 behind the seat and still have trunk room. Sanded down the grounding point and ran 0/1 gauge cable and it worked awesome, took a lot of the hiss and ground noise out of my system.