Anybody Contemplating The Big 3 Upgrade

[jkulysses 10+ year member]

I have an 06' ranger with the 4.0l motor and either a 95 amp or 115 amp alternator and was getting tons of dimming with only an 800 watt amp. Enough to were my tach was goin down everytime the bass hit. I did the big 3 today and i thought it might make it a little better but it fixed it completely. No dimming at all now so i'm pretty sure it will be able to handle the 1,200 watt amp i plan on getting soon and a small amp for components. Pretty pointless thread but just in case anybody is having the same issues as me thought they might want to hear this. The stereo place kept telling me to get a capacitor and a new battery, idiots.

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[bamaboy 5,000+ posts]

word...

 

[tEh koRnDog 5,000+ posts]

Im thinking of doing it when I do my install.

 

[Lakota 5,000+ posts]

The stereo place kept telling me to get a capacitor and a new battery, idiots.

This is how they try to take advantage of ignorance so that they can get more $$.

 

[tcguy85 10+ year member]

i was gonna do the big 3 but i only have a total of about 800 watts rms with both of my amps and i have no dimming or voltage drop. i think i have seem my voltage drop .3 at the most.

 

[jkulysses 10+ year member]

My truck has a decent alternator but the stock wire goin from the alternator to the battery was about 8 gauge at most. Huge bottleneck. The ground wire was no more than 10 gauge at the very most.

 

[motox_727 10+ year member]

I just did the big 3 recently and it has made a huge difference, also the fact that i added 2 marine batteries helped alot.

 

[tcguy85 10+ year member]

what gauge wire did you do the big 3 in? 0ga? that stock wiring does sound pretty small. my stock wiring looks ok, for my power needs it is fine. even when i had my ZX750 running at 2 ohms i still had no problems.

 

[jkulysses 10+ year member]

I used 4 gauge. 4 gauge in combo with my stock wiring will be fine. I'll never be running bigger than a 1200 watt sub amp and a 125x2 amp for components. I will get a better battery eventually cause this stock one is junk.

 

[tcguy85 10+ year member]

yea, 4 gauge sounds like plenty.

 

[miker 5,000+ posts]

Odd... I am running 2000 watts, w/ a 90amp alternator, and I get no dimming...

 

[jkulysses 10+ year member]

Odd... I am running 2000 watts, w/ a 90amp alternator, and I get no dimming...

How is the factory wiring going from your alt to your battery though??? Mine was very small gauge and was spliced in to a bunch of other wiring.

 

[miker 5,000+ posts]

How is the factory wiring going from your alt to your battery though??? Mine was very small gauge and was spliced in to a bunch of other wiring.

I'm not sure... I can hardly see the alt.... All I know is that the ground is like 2g, and the main power wire is at least 1g... could be bigger.

 

[tRidiot 10+ year member]

I'm also running close to 3kW on a stock 90A and an upgraded Interstate battery. I do get voltage drop to low 12s and sometimes below 12 if I'm HAMMERING on it at a stoplight at idle... when running on the highway, I stay well above 12V 95% of the time, even at very high volume. However, I do still get headlight dimming, so I'm going to try the Big 3 just to see how much it helps.

 

[jkulysses 10+ year member]

I'm not sure... I can hardly see the alt.... All I know is that the ground is like 2g, and the main power wire is at least 1g... could be bigger.

Ya thats why then. Mine are a least half that size.