I was diddling around this afternoon and just changed my oil and was running the motor for about 5 minutes. This is a 96 LT1 car.

I inadvertently touched the ground coming out of the harness which is mounted to the radiator support to the drivers left of the radiator. This ground appears to come from the underhood fuse/relay box near the ABS. It was HOT to the touch.

Just for grins I opened the fuse/relay box, and all the operational relays (fans, ABS) were also hot (fans were on at the time). The metal area around the actual ground was NOT HOT.

Q1: Should either the ground, or the relays be hot?
Q2: If not, do you think making a better ground here (clean up and remount) will fix the HOT situation?

Bock (not an electrical guy) Folken

You could be missing an engine grounding strap (I think your engine has been out once or twice, but I don't know this). If so, it could be grounding through "alternate means" (finding whatever grounds are there). I'd not expect it to be hot to the touch, if it is, it's too small. I'd probably clip a jumper cable on the block and then to the negative on the battery (or another good chassis ground) and run the car again. See if it still gets hot. If it no longer gets hot, I'd add a ground strap (or two) from the chassis to the engine.

Just my thoughts.

Kevin (former avionics technician) G.

Kevin is correct. That is most likely the problem. When building my CMC car, I had to add a big grounding strap from the engine to the chassis to stop from burning the small ground strap from the factory.

Update:

I cleaned and remounted three existing grounds in the front left quarter area and this seems to have helped.

I purchased a "Universal" ground strap from the local parts monkey just in case...it goes into the "hope I never need that" pile in the corner.

Thanks Guys.

Bock

I'd just put it on. Insurance. Better to have and not need than to need after you've burned something up.

Just my thoughts though....

I suspect your thoughts trump mine in this case.

Any suggestions on an appropriate mounting spot?

Bock

Bolt it to something solid with a good clean connection on the chassis. Then most of them go to the edge of a cylinder head (front or rear) or other similar location. On top of the engine lift plate on the intake (above the plate, under the bolt), etc.

If the LT1 blocks have a fuel pump boss on them (I don't think they still do), you could bolt it on there and then to the chassis.

Back in the 'old' days, late '70's Firebirds had a bad habit of grounding the engin/tranny through the shifter cable. It would get so hot it would melt the casing, on some vehicles. The TSB kit included a new shifter cable and ground strap you ran from the tranny to the trans cross member.

Just a datapoint, but yeah, you probably need to add a ground strap. Almost anywhere from the engine/trans to the chassis.