I would rather buy wire here i dont want to pay for shipping. I need only like two feet anyway

 

Ever since the rear harness ground issue I saw in my 95 Z28, I do not trust stock or chassis grounds for anything higher than a 200w amp. Simply too much cheap wire, cheap connections and questionable chassis conductivity for my taste. I ran my additional ground through the interior - haven't done one on the 'balt (yet), but I'd suspect that it isn't too difficult to run the wire like I did on a j-body.

If it is easier under the chassis and somebody knows - do tel!!! Save me the trouble of figuring it out when I do run my system!

 

its definatly easier to run the wire inside the vehicle but theres a limit of how much wire should be in the damn thing so i did my grounds outside

 

So when i redo my ground where should i connect it to?

 

That's no problem - you can connect it straight to the cable, or, if you want to improve grounding in general to the rear of your car, you can secure it somewhere in the chassis where there's a decent sized bolt or to the stock ground point for your rear, then to your amp. On my Z28, I had a spare hole from where some other old parts connected, and I sanded and used that point as a chassis ground - I even have my ground points for my rear lights relocated there.

 

generally u dont want to reuse a bolt as your ground. since most are just spot welded on the car anyway a direct sheet metal ground is better

 

How would I go about directly grounding a wire to the sheet metal?

 

using a grounding bolt like rockford fosgate offers is best otherwise just metal bolts or self tapping screws

 

was reading this post because the setup i have pretty much makes my lights dim as hell but not flicker which im guessing is just for the power that theyre actually using and began wondering if there was anything actually bad with that? its a dumb question but i dont know much about my cars electrical system so just thought id ask. running a pioneer headunit a kenwood 1800w at around 900 rms and 2 kicker l5s at 450 rms each

 

Didnt think kenwood was a bad brand

 

its not... sorta

but to answer ur question yes dimming can be bad but it really all depends

 

To get an idea of the power draw of an amp, I've heard of this equation - multiply the number of channels by the RMS watts per channel, multiply it by 2 to take into account the power loss/inefficiencies (a rough estimate, but it works), then divide by 13.8 volts (average alternator voltage). Divide by 3 for average power required for the amp and you get an idea of how many amps your amp takes. If I did the crayola math right, you're pulling 87 or so amps on average, and assuming the 'balts alternator is 110 amps, you can see you're taxing the power capacity of your balt. It isn't surprising that you will see headlights dimming, even with good grounds and adequate cabling. A capacitor can help, but still, I think you'll be drawing from it a lot. After around 800 watts, I'd consider upgrading the alternator to a higher power unit - or driving around without the headlights on!

 

this thread it way to long for such an easy solution....if you dont want headlight dimming either do the big 3 and get a deep cycle battery or buy HID's....never had a headlight flicker on around 2k rms since i installed HID's...

 

I've actually not had a problem after I put in a 130 amp (or higher) alternator in my high-wattage cars I used to do! Its a heck of a lot less expensive and time consuming than swapping out the innocent parts!

Then again, those cars had welding cable running to the back to supply the juice......

 

lies. weren't u having problems with ur hid kit for a while?


but yes a functional hid kit will fix dimming issues

 

ive been having HID issues for like a year even with my brand new projectors but it completely stopped dimming

 

lol i know that but had to give u some ****... i might get around to doing gen 1 retrofits this year but idk. if i do it its gonna be as all out as my system so gonna suck without a shop to work in

 

What is the big three?

 

upgrading batt ground alt power and alt ground

 

What would upgrade power? Battary?

 

what do u mean upgrade power?

 

Oh i read your post wrong sorry. How do i upgrade alt power?

 

run of wire from the alt + to the bat + or from the alt+ to the fusebox and from the fusebox to the batt+ (how its ran stock)

 

Is that what the two wires are in the picture you postrd? Are those going to your alt?

 

no those arent part of the big 3 hence why i said that may or may not have even made an effect. those are from my battery grounds to the alternator grounds