big 3 question

[soul05 10+ year member]

so basically i dont understand why my car has dimming lights. after some research, i found out my car's alternator puts out 140amps. i am running 8 gauge wires to a 400 watt amp. looking at my car's stock battery setup, it looks like theres already 4 gauge connecting the alt, ground, and the battery. but i am still getting dimming lights when i crank it. shouldnt my car be able to handle a measly 400 watts? i will do 1/0 gauge if i have to...but i was wondering if there is something else that might be f'ed up...

Click to read more...

 

[azeroth123 10+ year member]

Make sure everything is grounded right, especially the amp. Does it dim only at idle? What is the rpm? Yeah for that small of a draw there must be something that isn't quite right... Probably a corroded post on the battery or alt, maybe the amp ground isn't right (on paint?), I'd say look around at everything first before doing a big 3 upgrade.

 

[thegreatestpenn 5,000+ posts]

how are your gains set? is your amp's gain all the way up as well as the bass boost? that would definitely cause problems.

 

[soul05 10+ year member]

dims are only occuring at high volume only. my amp is grounded on a common ground in my trunk.

my gains are set by a multimeter with no bass boost.

 

[95BlackGA 5,000+ posts]

how are your gains set? is your amp's gain all the way up as well as the bass boost? that would definitely cause problems.

Why is the person in your avatar wearing an afghan on his face?

dims are only occuring at high volume only. my amp is grounded on a common ground in my trunk.my gains are set by a multimeter with no bass boost.

Try grounding at a different spot, does your car have a unibody? You may have to run a ground wire from the battery.