Big 3 upgrade problem

[marc2112 10+ year member]

hey guys can he ground to the alt ground bolt or just alt bracket or something? seen that done in video and it is bolted to heavy metal ususally

Yes but he still needs a good chassis ground.

 

[Riggz]

A crappy amp will do that.. I have ran small lower end kicker amps and had the lights dim, replaced with a larger but more efficient amp on the same electrical and had zero dimming

 

[Darkspartan239]

Aren't FSD Audio amps supposed to be pretty nice though? It's a Class D but I'm not sure about the integrity of the amp.

 

[Riggz]

I didn't mean that your amp is not a good one or that a more efficient amp is nessecarily a better amp but it can draw more power and produce less watts than a more efficient amp. Most spl amps are not as efficient as a small sound quality amp. You can calculate an amps efficiency by dividing the power in by the power it puts out. However, an easy way to tell is just to touch the amp because an amp that is 75% vs an amp that is 90% efficient will be operating at different temperatures. The more efficient amp will stay cooler because all that 25% of power consumed but not output is released as heat.. again I've had some old school amps ppi, hcca, punch, etc that you could fry eggs on but they were good amps that also put out a bunch of power just were also power hungry because they were not very efficient.

 

[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

I didn't mean that your amp is not a good one or that a more efficient amp is nessecarily a better amp but it can draw more power and produce less watts than a more efficient amp. Most spl amps are not as efficient as a small sound quality amp. You can calculate an amps efficiency by dividing the power in by the power it puts out. However, an easy way to tell is just to touch the amp because an amp that is 75% vs an amp that is 90% efficient will be operating at different temperatures. The more efficient amp will stay cooler because all that 25% of power consumed but not output is released as heat.. again I've had some old school amps ppi, hcca, punch, etc that you could fry eggs on but they were good amps that also put out a bunch of power just were also power hungry because they were not very efficient.

Woah,...1st time I'm hearing about this and have heard of people running those amps before but haven't heard of them get hot/overheated on them. Makes me wonder if something was wrong on your end.

 

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

Check all your connections.

Make sure your orginal connection from the battery to the fused distribution block is good dont remove any orginal factory grounds they actually help not hurt.

Where is you engine block ground terminated at?

 

[Darkspartan239]

I haven't removed any wires. My engine ground is on some strut that was holding part of the alternator bracket. I can post a pic of it tomorrow. But someone suggested running the battery and engine ground to the actual chassis and not the body, so I need to fix that tomorrow.

 

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

The body and chassie is usually isolated. Make sure tgat the are bonded before doing so.

 

[Darkspartan239]

What do you mean by bonded?

 

[Riggz]

I didn't see your pics until now because for some reason they were not loading but fixing that ground to real metal is going to help everything. Your not grounded to sheet metal in the back as well are you? You should find a seatbelt bolt or a body mount bolt under the carpet for the rear as well if you haven't already.

As far as the amps I referred to as getting so hot you couldn't hold your hand on them.. these were not there same precision power, fosgate, orion amps you buy today. These are referred to now as cheater amps and in the early.90's all the big boys made really small, really under rated amplifiers that you could really draw a lot of power or of. . It meant a lot to stay within the 101-250 watt class because above that you would be against a van with 10 12's in it and these amps made it easy to do

 

[Darkspartan239]

I believe I did ground it to sheet metal in the back...I will definitely have to fix that as well. Do you think that could've caused the headlights dimming in the first place?

 

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

What do you mean by bonded?

Means to be grounded together.

 

[Darkspartan239]

I figured that, just making sure

 

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

I believe I did ground it to sheet metal in the back...I will definitely have to fix that as well. Do you think that could've caused the headlights dimming in the first place?

Usually limits output and increases amperage so its possible that when you crank it that its pulling additional current to produce the power with the lower voltage.. try to reground the amp as well. Grounding to tge body isn't always bad because tge body has huge surface area to carrry the current but the body when properly bonded lowers the resistance. No doubt tge best ground is tge same grounding location as the engine block ground or battery ground.

I poor engine block ground substantually lowers the alternators output. Even factory grounds sometimes are less than ideal..

 

[Darkspartan239]

Alright, attaching it to the chassis seemed to do the trick. Thanks for the help guys!