You could contact BigTyla on the forums, you can usually find posts from him in the College Football Threads. He sells a ground wire kit that is top of the line at a great price. Many people on this board use them. You can even pick the color of the coating on the wire you want.
Upgrade Alternator
Upgrade Battery
Upgrade Power wire
Grounding of course is very important, but upgrading the wire from the alternator is equally important, we don't have any real alt upgrades we can do other than having them re-wound. A good battery goes a long way, i would stick with an Optima.
Check out onlinecarstereo.com when you find out what amp you want. They have great prices and its free shipping if you spend over 99 dollars. Also, they have the best customer service of anybody that I have ever dealt with. Whatever you do, do not go to dealercostcaraudio.com. Over a month later nothing was shipped and they didn't even call like they said they would. I had to keep calling and was on wait for over 45 minutes just to find out what was going on with my order. It's been a week and a half since my cancel and still don't have my money back.
Sorry for the rant and o yea planet audio is good. My friend has one of their 1900 watt amps and it is good. The big bangs are amazing sounding too if you decide to switch subs.
No capacitor, they are only a band aid to fixing the real problem.
Says who? Caps are not a must have but in some cases they can help, if you have a Multiple amp setup that draws a lot of current then you might have problems at stop lights if your really rocking out.
EVERY SPL, SQL, and SQ competition vehicle I have seen never had a cap. Just the proper amount of reserve batteres to total up the required amount of Ah to power the system.
Upgrade Alternator
Upgrade Battery
Upgrade Power wire
Grounding of course is very important, but upgrading the wire from the alternator is equally important, we don't have any real alt upgrades we can do other than having them re-wound. A good battery goes a long way, i would stick with an Optima.
I agree whole heartely that a good under the hood battery is important for a high current system, it would appear that it has nothing to do with the big three.
As far as alternator upgrade I remember reading a tech paper from autosound2000 advising against it and to do so as a last resort. I would be more than willing to attempt to find that link if you would like.
upgrading your alternator is never a bad thing, it does increase the load on your engine a bit, but increasing the current to charge your battery faster, and less load on the alternator. There are a lot of people running systems that their charging system cannot keep up with, upgrading the battery helps, but the battery is nothing but storage, if you are drawing current faster than it can charge the alternator is working overtime to keep up. Thats why your lights dim at a stop light, and peoples batterys fail prematurely. Caps are a band-aid to an insufficient charging system. And these tiny 1-2 farad caps that people use are junk, they are drained in no less than a couple seconds, you need at least 15+ farads to be of any real difference.
Thats why it blows me away when guys try to put 2-3000 watts RMS in their cars and do nothing to upgrade the charging system, and then wonder why their car all but stalls every time they stop. if you system is drawing 200amps when its being pushed hard, and your alt can only provide somewhere around 100amps, theres a problem. Infact your systems output is limited by how many amps you can provide, if you are running a 2000 watt amp and you cannot supply it with the current it needs to produce peak power, guess what, you don't have 2000 watts.
Upgrading the power wire includes all that. Most charge wires on todays cars are about 6 ga at best, at around 4-5 feet long, so that can handle efficiently somewhere around 100amps, more than that its going to generate a lot of heat. And of course grounding, that should pretty much be a given. The reason the ground to the engine is important, your alternator has to be grounded, and its attached to the engine, a weak ground = weak performance for the alt. It also makes sure your sensors have sufficient power so it increases performance. Ground to the chassis is important too, the metal in your car is like one big ground wire, so making that beefy connection from the batt to the chassis is just as important as having a beefy ground at the amp(s)
Well, obviously I have a lot of learning to do to put in a system properly. I'm certainly willing to do it right. However, could someone please read my original post and see what I have purchased so far/installed and PLEASE recommend the correct amps that I should buy?
Both my speakers and subs say NOMINAL IMPEDANCE @ 4 OHMs. Does this mean I need amps rated at 4 OHMs as well? I'm seeing a lot of 2 OHMs, etc.
Sorry, but I'm a total novice here but I could really use an education on the amps I should get. At this point, I don't care if the amps aren't Planet Audio. I was just trying to be frugal with my money but it looks like you get what you pay for when it comes to amps.
The AutoGuide.com network consists of the largest network of enthusiast-owned enthusiast-operated automotive communities.
AutoGuide.com provides the latest car reviews, auto show coverage, new car prices, and automotive news. The AutoGuide network operates more than 100 automotive forums where our users consult peers for shopping information and advice, and share opinions as a community.
Re: Need some advice for my stereo system setup
