i can't for the life of me understand why people insist on running race cars without a charging system. comp or prostock is one thing but for the vast majority of us a charging system is a no-brainer...use one. as for grounds i know many disagree and that's fine but imho there's plenty of steel to have an acceptable voltage drop. i never run a ground from the battery to the engine, you do of course need to use good judgment on the connections and such. it's also worth noting that most if not all single wire alternators are somewhat crippled by the fact that the voltage regulator only sees the output voltage as opposed to the actual voltage found throughout the system which is going to be lower. the best charging system should have a voltage sense wire connected well downstream of the alternator output.