I went to a Spoon authorized lot, and they have a Spoon Integra, Fit, and a S2000. The Fit and S2000 were out, but the Integra Type R has this wire on the negative terminal of the 12 V battery that splits and leads to the body, called a grounding wire or kit. They said it improved (on the DC5) hp by 5 on their dyno, fuel economy by 24 miles per tank (about + 1-2 mpg). The explanation is that it improves the electrical system, especially to the computers and ECU.

They said that grounding kits are used a lot in Japan, and at its introduction to the USA, everyone thought it was a scam. However, Spoon continued to export it to the US, and ppl who actually did dyno tests noticed some small improvements. My friend had one installed in his RSX-S yesterday for $140 for the kit + $40 installation. Did anyone do this to their S2000? Does this work? How much can you notice, or is it a very small improvement that can be measured only by dynos? He trusted the Spoon lot since the actively-competing ITR had one, and I haven't heard of Spoon making shady products. The Spoon ITR that was there is naturally aspirated but dynoed at about 275 hp (!!!), and they said it was due to all these small improvements in the car.

Here's the store's website, and the ITR on the front page.
http://www.opakracing.com/

 

A grounding kit primarily works by extracting dollar bills from your wallet.

 

to my knowledge, grounding kits do absolutely nothing. and you have just as much a chance of getting 5hp from one as you do from putting in a 6 disc cd changer.

 

pretty much

 

If I can get 5hp from a 6 disc changer, I will put a 100 disc changer in the trunk and realize 83hp.

Cheapest mod ever.

Btw, does in matter what brand?

 

This is great "marketing". The normal error on your typical dyno can be 3 to 5 HP for a car like ours. If you did a dyno on the same car 10 times, you'll get some numbers at the high end and some at the low end. Which numbers do you think a company selling this stuff is going to use? (Hint: The low ones for "before" and the high ones for "after".) Dyno numbers within the "background" noise of the device means very little but they sure look impressive if you selectively advertise the "best" numbers you got.
On an old car where cables and wiring have corroded and laiden with deposits, then yes, I can see some benefit. But here, such a kit would simply give back some of what you've lost, not give you more than what you ever had. Replacing the old cables with new ones will do the same job.
The premise that grounding kit makers go by is that you give the electricity more paths to complete the circuit and of course, we all know that "more" is "better", right? What they don't seem to look into is whether or not the exist return pathways for the electricity may, in fact, be more than adequate.

FO2K, you may not be far off. Take your car to the dyno and run it 3 times without the CD changer. Now take the lowest number you got. Then put the CD changer in and dyno your car again 3 times. Now take the highest number you got. I'll bet you just proved you gained 3 to 5 whp. And we should ALL be putting in CD changers.

 

It does make the engine bay look a lil prettier i guess. And you can tack on another "Spoon" mod in the signature

 

$162 for a battery holder?...

Explains why the rad hose is so damn expensive.. WTF?!

 

It's only 5 bucks for the holder. It costs 157 bucks to stamp the name on it.
I'm sure the Rad hose comes with the Spoon stickers. Those are what costs.

 

I agree with you here. A lot of Japan goodies are way overpriced and I will be the first one to tell you some arent worth a bag of sunflower seeds. My hypergrounds did nothing but hey they were free. Cant argue with that.