Dual 4 guage wire for big three?

[BassBooster 10+ year member]

How would this work instead of using 1 single thing of 0/1 guage wiring ? Im just wondering because I am now going to do this to my car....also how does it work with side terminal batteries?

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[DNick454 10+ year member]

Most people are going to say a single run of 1/0 gauge wire would be better. And I would tend to agree for a couple of reasons. A couple runs of 1/0 wire is easier to hook up, crimp, and add terminals to and ground out then having to do like six to eight individual wires of 4 gauge depending on how many spots you ground the system in. With less connectors and less wires, there a less chance that one of those connections might be loose or prone to get any water in there and corrode. Plus... 1/0 wire would just look nicer. Have only 1 wire from alt to batt, alt to ground, and batt to ground would look alot nicer than having a handfull of wires running around.

As for the side terminal batteries, it's no different in the wiring scheme. It's just a ***** because they don't give you posts to work with (and usually you have less room aswell). You're going to need to go buy a special distribution block for a side terminal battery, something that screws into the battery and gives you multiple outputs/inputs for larger gauge wire. Usually that screw that clamps down the factory terminal ends to the battery is never long enough to add aftermarket stuff.

While two runs of 4 gauge wire would probably, almost assuredly, be better than whatever the factory used, a good quality 1/0 would still have more copper and a higher strand count. Also, using two runs of wire presents a pretty confusing issue... how do you fuse it? There needs to be an inline fuse there when you do the big 3 and with 2 wires instead of one, that would make things annoying. I wouldn't want to run the wires into 1 big fuse because one wire might carry most of the current in one situation and blow that single wire before the actual fuse goes off. That would leave you with 2 fuses, one per wire lead, not only would that look weird and be hard to hide in the engine bay, but like I said earlier, if one wire is carrying a larger portion of the current on a large draw, it could pop one of the fuses, shift all current to the remaining wire run, and blow that fuse too.

It's your car, so by all means give it a shot if you got the wire for free or something. I can just see a bunch of problems down the road though with that. Awhile back, I saw Kicker flex 1/0 wiring kits for sale on ebay for like 80 bucks. And that's like 17 feet of power, a few feet of ground, fuses, and even the distribution blocks. I imagine for the 10 feet or so you'll need, you could find a killer deal somewhere if you just be patient and look around.

Sorry for the long post... Summary: (1) 1/0 Gauge > (2) 4 Gauge

 

[csu87 10+ year member]

why not just get 1/0 wire? it will cost about the same as using twice as much 4gauge

 

[BassBooster 10+ year member]

ok thanks but my on my battery the terminal seems different to let you know I have a 2005 Chevy Impala that still has a stock everything

 

[BassBooster 10+ year member]

After re reading the post above are you saying that I will have to redo the factory wire also? as in take the clamp they have off and replace it wit the new block

 

[BassBooster 10+ year member]

I just saw I picture of what I will have to do thanks guys