LiL BenNy

i have 2 JL 500/1 amps and 2 10w6v2's can anybody help me get a wiring kit?

forbidden

A kit will not give you what you need to do this properly. So do not look for kits. Go to a specialty shop and tell them that you need two 0 gauge runs from the battery to the rear trunk area, should be around 18 feet at a minimum. At the bare minimums you could use 2 runs of 4 gauge, one for power, one for ground, but this is beyond the limits of being able to power the amplifiers properly. An amp cannot make power unless it gets power. You MUST ground to the battery in this car if a ground return of under 1/2 ohm resistance cannot be found.

bt600rr

You can buy a 4 gauge amp kit. If you remove the pass rear backseat you will find plenty of steel for a ground, use nut and bolt. I have worked with jl equipment for awhile now and would strongly reccomend at least a 1farad cap or optima battery for rear. The battery in the 8 is tiny. You probably want to go with a 100-150 amp fuse under the hood and shoulnd't be any longer than 18in from battery. You can grab a turn on under the pass sill plate I think it is a pink but meter to be safe. Make sure you fuse at that wire also (5-10amp fuse). Have any more questions let me know.

lurch519

hmmm, i believe that there are 0 guage kits available, especially from stinger...including a cap in some of them.


running 2 jl 500/1 amps, i would not reccomend doing a 4 gauge setup, as at 100% efficiency, the 2 amps will be drawing 83.3 amps, and as we all know nothing is 100% efficient. both of your jl amps should include fuses, which if i remember correctly should be 60 amp fuses. when fusing for your system, never put in a larger fuse that what the wire you are using can carry, and if all you are going to be using is the 2 jl amps, then 120 to 150 should be fine. you will need to look at ANL style fuses for that much power.

as to adding a second battery, that may or may not be reccomended as adding a second battery puts a lot of additional strain on your alternator, and when your car is running it gets 99% of its electricity directly from the alternator, a battery is really only there to provide juice to get the car running. running that much additional current for your system, i would reccommend looking at higher current alternators, as the stock is only rated around 100 amps.

bt600rr

It is pretty pointless to run a 0 gauge wire from your battery. In my career as an installer it is very rare i run a 0 gauge. The last 0 gauge I ran was for a grand prix with 4 1000 1s and 2 300 4s running 4 13w7 and 4 sets of components and some pumps. 4 gauge is fine. Check out the site( musicinmotion.net) We did an rx8 w 500/5, nice setup.

forbidden

I used to think like this until one day I decided to learn a little more. I have written a ground article that you might want to read at www.the12volt.com in the car audio forum. If you think it is rare to run a 0 guage, then perhaps you should learn much more about the demands of current delivery and learn how to deliver more performance for the customer who either wants or demands it. The reason why I say that most if not all wire kits do not have what you need, is that sure the cover the basics like power wire and fuse etc, but they generally give you all sorts of crap you do not need and they never give you a ground wire long enough for a vehicle that has a known grounding issue, like this one.

While I am not doubting your capabilities as an installer, try to look a little further into an issue such as this. The grounding sticky I have written can help many an installer in finding out the root cause of many an amplifier failure, that just maybe had no apparent reason, until now. There is something new to learn everyday that every good installer does.

Lurch is correct in that adding a second battery is an additional device that the alternator now must charge. It also MUST be isolated if it is done. Then tackle the alternator if you need to. A additonal battery also if installed must be fused at the rear of the car as well, as close to the battery as possible.

lurch519

ok, i should probably restate my last. you shouldnt run a single 4 guage power wire setup.

you will be running 2 jl 500/1 amps, both of which require a 4 guage power input, so at a mininum you should run 2 4 guage power wires from the battery.

i admit that running a 0 guage setup, not only being more expensive, is a royal bitch to route through the car.

running that jl 500/5 that you mentioned (awesome amp btw, great for an all around system), being the only amp in the system, would be fine with running a single 4 guage power wire.

forbidden

Hmm, I had no problems running 0 guage in this car... ground up the center and power up the side, inside of the white plastic in the passenger door sill as well. With the amps he has, there is no way that I would run a single 4 gauge run to power both of them, either dual 4 gauge and find a good ground return in the rear (or ground to the battery), at this point though, 0 gauge makes a great option.

lurch519

what he said, plus, the jl amps are known to not work when a bad ground is present, so grounding back to the battery would probably be your best bet

bt600rr

I guarantee you that any reputable car audio shop will tell you it is a waste of money to run 0 guage for two amps. They will reccomend running a 4 gauge with a cap using it as distribution for both amps. I have done hundreds of systems, I just dont wanna see this guy wasting his money. The 0 gauge is probably around $5 a foot if not more thats alot of cheddar. As far as a 4 gauge kit goes We never use anything in there but the ground and power. We sell the customer the kit because its cheaper than grabbing it off of one of the 100 ft rolls and the amp installs are usually an amp or two. Yeah we'll pull off the rolls when we're doing a project. Most kits won't come with an anl fuse holder usually glass and they blow . Of course using something like an anl or a breaker is better and running a ground all the way to the battery, resistance?(shorter the better).

forbidden

Think of this, try and learn, instead of going with what the assumed correct method of grounding is, which you have just reiterated. I do not care how many hundreds of systems you have installed, I care about a PROPER job for the paying customer. If I can educate the customer, my installers and salespeople about how to do a job properly and then demonstate and document why, then I have done a PROPER job. A proper ground is not about the shortest amount of ground wire to be used, it is about the resistance on the return through crappy spot welds, glued together unibody panels, whatever blend of metals they are using at the time and finally the tiny little wires they call ground.

Electricity is an algebra equation, what you do to one side you MUST do to the other. As current travels from negative to positive, the most important wire is THE GROUND WIRE. As I pointed out earlier, if the return resistance is below 1/2 ohm at some point in the rear of the vehicle, use that as the ground point. If it is above, time for a new ground point that is below 1/2 ohm or ground direct to the battery. I'm not trying to diss your knowledge on install at all, just showing you that perhaps there is something else to learn, in this industry there is something new to learn all the time. A good installer learns and passes on this knowledge.

Measure a length of 0 or 4 gauge for resistance, you will find it to be well under 1/2 ohm. Now take a vehicle like an RX8 or any GM and measure what the return resistance is, you might be a little surprised. Resistance on a ground return is not about the amount of metal in the chassis of the vehicle, it is about the ability or restriction of current passing though it. It equates to you eating a foot long sub and then having your butt cheeks sewn shut.

forbidden

BTW, I am a highly reputable audio shop, this is why I might just have opened your eyes to other areas of installation. BTW, a cap is another device that the battery and alternator must now charge, so most reputable shops, like mine, will not recommend them as they DO NOT create power. Caps have a purpose, for 99% of the time, it is for marketing. Have I used them, yes, will I continue to, yes, but the customer will be given the proper information so that they can make an educated and informed buying decision first. I encourage you to explore this topic in more detail with the industry professionals that can be found on www.the12volt.com and learn from them, if anything it can make a person a better installer which is something that we all want to be.

LiL BenNy

thanks for all the feedback.. i called JL and the said to run a 2 gauge and split into 4 gauge... anybody recommend that?

lurch519

yes, you can definately use 2 guage, though most shops wont carry it, plus the difference in price between 2 guage and 0 guage may be small enough that it would be better to run the 0 so you have future upgradability to add more amps or larger amps.


this guy really knows his ****, most people think that positive means that the power comes from there, but wait, what is electricity but the flow of electrons, and what charge does an electrol have, negative.....things to make you go hmmmm.....

so what you are saying is if i was running 2 amps, lets say 2 jl 1000/1, that i would be fine just running 4 guage. i dont think so.

N8theGr8

Off topic...did you get my PM a few weeks ago? I shot over some questions for ya

forbidden

.......ummmm.... checking PM's..... I more than likely did but I have been absolutely swamped here at the shop in the last month.I'll go back and see if I can respond to it in the next day or so. On any given day I normally have about 80 e-mails awaiting me asking me questions, during busy season it is hard to get to them, my apologies.

LiL BenNy, yes you can do this, however as was pointed out, the $ difference between 2 and 0 + finding someone that might stock 2 gauge is slim to none, I would go with the 0 and call it a day. Hope the reads above made some sense to you.

Rob

lurch519

you are correct in that a cap will help smooth out the flow of current from the battery/alternator when the music is turned up. a cap is basically a filter, smoothing out ripples in the supply, and as such, is really just a band aid in this circumstance when installing it in a car stereo system. the first solution, granted that funds are available for it, would be to replace the alternator with a higher current model, as you will eventually end up replacing it down the road anyway as it will most likely burn up due to the fact that you are exceeding its rated output by a significant margin

bt600rr

Who said anything about a cap creating power Forbidden? I said a cap was a nice way to use as a distribution center. The cap also plays a larger role than just that. So pretty much what your saying is you carry caps at your store even when you think there useless, thats a great way to run a business. As far as running a four gauge for 2 1000 1s any day as long as a second battery is back there, never had any comebacks, maybe for a blown sub. I find reading about things is useless, being hands on and experience is the best knowledge you could possibly ever have(trial and error), being an installer for ten years you pretty much know what you need for each job.

lurch519

personally i have 6 years experience in car audio installation, sales and service. i bow to your superior knowledge and experience. i guess jl has it all wrong, as the following is quoted directly from their installation manual for the 1000/1

forbidden

Here is what I said. "Caps have a purpose, for 99% of the time, it is for marketing. Have I used them, yes, will I continue to, yes, but the customer will be given the proper information so that they can make an educated and informed buying decision first." After this if a customer still wants or must have one, yes I will sell it to them.

Now to me this sounds like a great way to run a business, be truthful to the customer, always. Next, as it seems you do not want to learn about how to further your installation abilities and you seem to only want to do things hands on, go and measure the return resistance on any given vehicle and see what you come up with.

If you want to be a better installer, you had better take the blinders off and want to learn something, otherwise, you will get no better than you are now. What is so hard to understand about reading and simple math. Electricity is a algebra equation, what you do to one side you must do to the other. If an amp struggles to get power, how is it suppossed to make power? If your house is on fire, are you telling me that because you saw your neighbour using his garden hose on it, you will do the same, done using the hands on approch. Myself, I'll use the firehose thanks.

Over 95% of installers DO NOT CHECK the ground return resistance and I expect that you are one of them. Had you checked the return resistance you would know what I am talking about instead of not wanting to read something in order to become a better installer. Installers like you have no place in my business. Just because you have not had a problem yet (that you are aware of - maybe your competition is though) does not mean that you have done a proper and thorough job. If it is truly so hard for you to read something and learn from it to make yourself a better installer, then your place in this industry is watching and not doing. I as you do take great pride in the work I do, yet about 8 years back I, like you now, was faced with learning something new that I had not learned hands on. I, unlike you, learned from it and today am a better installer because of it.

BTW, total time in the bay for myself, over 20 years and I am not scared to learn that there is something new around the next corner. I learned that lesson years ago. Sometimes you learn from your mistakes, one of mine was my ego and the thought that I knew everything. It took a customers amp blowing for no apparent reason 6 times for me to learn about resistance on a ground return. Now there is a great article written on the importance of a good ground for other people to learn from and apply to their everyday hands on approach to make themsleves a better installer. It seems to me that you are not one of them by your own words. "I find reading about things is useless, being hands on and experience is the best knowledge you could possibly ever have(trial and error), being an installer for ten years you pretty much know what you need for each job." Imagine being an installer for ten years and going into it in the first place not knowing about resistance on a ground return because the person training you did not know either......does this make it correct because it is the assumed correct method of grounding? Your installation techiques and approach are scaring me dude, no offence intended. By your own words, you have shown all of us a limit in your ability to learn and apply proper installation methods to a customers vehicle.

lurch519

this whole thing reminds me about history. he who fails to learn history is bound to repeat it.

forbidden

The scary thing for me is.... I used to think just like him.

dave_euser

I'm slightly surprised that anyone would state that adding a cap in parallel with your battery is a marketing ploy only...

Yes, initially, it will draw an additional current from your alternator/battery, but after that, it provides some additional filtering that is beneficial - as mentioned previously, that cap works to smooth out the 12V supply.

However, a capacitor is never a good filter just on its own....a big 1F cap will only smooth out low frequency fluctuations in the supply (the actual bandwidth depends on the resistance from the positive terminal to chassis that the capacitor sees). Ideally, you'd want to first examine what the input stage of the amp looks like - until then, you can't really do much. The capacitor will help, because your nice small amp package can't fit the 1F cap in it, but after that, it should be able to supress any transients of higher frequencies. If you don't trust the amp, then putting together something to supress any transient voltage and currents should not be that difficult, just finding a place to mount them might be. (a fairly large inductance to smooth out the current flow, and buld up a nice filter on each side to really help things out).

Keeping things close to the amplifier installation point is critical at this point, and running a nice clean ground to the chassis is also important. Running back to the battery is a good idea, but not because of what most people will probably think....You want to keep the ground resistance to the audio source as small as possible, not to the battery (necessarily). The reason the idea works is that the physical connection between the car deck and the battery is fairly short to the battery negative terminal...running to the battery also solves the problem of what to do with all that current....

To clarify, without a good ground connection, you can end up with a leakage current through your ground path, and depending on your hardware, this can result in some distortion.

Conclusion after all this - it all depends on your amp. Some might have solid filtering built in, others might not. The best you can do is ensure good wiring, solid ground connections to minimize the EMI realized by the amp/speakers. A big capacitor will help, but it's not a total solution.

A car will always be fairly noisy with the electrical ground for the audio system hooked into the chassis ground....I'm looking through the shop manual schematics, and don't see any additional filtering around the audio system (though a few other subsystems seem to have it - braking, the heating system, etc). Ideally, your amp will use seperate internal floating ground to drive the return on the speakers, with appropriate filtering to the chassis ground. But I don't know enough to state exactly what they do....

EvilBostonRX8

My reputable shop INSISTED I use 0 gauge wire to run my 1000/1 and 450/4. Of course I ended up buying the Monster 2000 watt amp kit which had all this stuff, but with everything included it was worth it.