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ECU grounding point

Old 10-01-2012, 10:49 AM
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ECU grounding point

Where is the ground point for the ECU on series 1 car?
Old 10-01-2012, 10:53 AM
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For the ECU specifically? There are several ground points on the RX-8.
Old 10-01-2012, 12:24 PM
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There's a bunch of them on the left side close to the firewall, both for the ECU & EPS.
Old 10-01-2012, 12:31 PM
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Specifically for the ECU... the closest one that the ECU physically uses to reference ground
Old 10-01-2012, 04:02 PM
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So anybody know?
Old 10-01-2012, 05:35 PM
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I think it's grounded in the harness to the engine and some other places but if you want to look at the electric manual for the 8 let me know and I can email it to you.
Old 10-01-2012, 08:06 PM
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I have all the manuals. I read the electrical one. It just shows that "it is grounded"... doesn't point to anywhere on the diagram where exactly it is..
I'm asking here because potentially someone knows exactly where it is so I don't have to physically remove the battery, battery tray, and get at the ECU and trace the wires myself...

but it looks like that's what I have to do.

I am on a mission to clean up the grounds in the car. Lots of people are just "adding grounding kits" to improve the ground. Yes that will work, but that's just adding more clean wires to the system. What happens later on when that goes bad? Are you going to add some more brand new wires again?

I want to take the approach of attacking the root of the problem, and that is to examine and clean with wirebrush/re-grease the original ground points in the car.

I'll be cleaning the ones on the left/right fender, the one by the firewall.. but I want to go after the one in the front closest to the ECU. There must be one there near it.

Last edited by Footman; 10-01-2012 at 08:09 PM.
Old 02-26-2017, 03:23 PM
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Did you end up finding them? If so please show. I have an issue with my ebrake light, my ABS light, and my power steering light staying on. and my speedo doesn't work. Everyonce in awhile at random, the speedo comes back on and the lights go off or blink. I also am loosing power to the RPM meet-re randomly. Can someone give me some help here? I took it into the dealer the other day and a mazda professional told me it was the grounding wires in the steering rack. I don't know what where either of those are. I took apart my steering wheel today and reconnected what seemed like a loose connection near the key and my powersteering was working, but then it lost it again. One more question, it would be awesome if someone could answer these all at once but its okay just please address, my battery light is on when i turn the key on but when i turn the vehicle on it goes off. Is that normal? I have an 05 auto
Old 02-26-2017, 09:05 PM
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Any chance there's a post or a picture floating around detailing the different grounding points? I saw in the "recommended maintenance" schedule that gets posted around here that they should be inspected/cleaned at 90k but I have not seen anything detailing the actual locations of these.

So far I've found 5. I've got a feeling there's a few more.

Under the airbox
The power steering rack
Right side fender
Two on the left side fender
Old 11-10-2019, 01:06 PM
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Originally Posted by crottycat
Did you end up finding them? If so please show. I have an issue with my ebrake light, my ABS light, and my power steering light staying on. and my speedo doesn't work. Everyonce in awhile at random, the speedo comes back on and the lights go off or blink. I also am loosing power to the RPM meet-re randomly. Can someone give me some help here? I took it into the dealer the other day and a mazda professional told me it was the grounding wires in the steering rack. I don't know what where either of those are. I took apart my steering wheel today and reconnected what seemed like a loose connection near the key and my powersteering was working, but then it lost it again. One more question, it would be awesome if someone could answer these all at once but its okay just please address, my battery light is on when i turn the key on but when i turn the vehicle on it goes off. Is that normal? I have an 05 auto
I am having this same issue. Was there any resolve?
Old 11-10-2019, 02:26 PM
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You need the actual physical electrical paper manual for your model year. Not the online version. It does list each and every grounding point in a general sense, but finding the exact point does require some physical digging around and possible disassembly to get to where it may exist.
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