Official CarAudio.com Big 3 Thread

[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

i found my big 3 pics while going thru shit. maybe they help someone...

Neg Battery > Chassis =

Pos Battery > pos alt + neg battery > engine =

maybe these can help. if not, meh....

 

[acubsfan 10+ year member]

I seriously just read this entire thread. I think half of the posts are someone asking if they should replace or add to their existing wires. Anyway, I am going to attempt to do this, thanks for the info.

 

[Solo-baric 10+ year member]

This is confusing enough with a car that has a hidden alt. And I need an inline fuse as well? I fuse between Battery and alt? I plan on running 2ga wire to replace the 8ga. Stock alt is 83 I think.

 

[Pl8er 5,000+ posts]

I was just reading another thread (might have been solo-baric's thread) and I was wondering why don't the auto makers just run a larger wire? Just cost reasons? Or do they feel the wire they have on there is good enough?

 

[Solo-baric 10+ year member]

I was just reading another thread (might have been solo-baric's thread) and I was wondering why don't the auto makers just run a larger wire? Just cost reasons? Or do they feel the wire they have on there is good enough?

Battery/Ground in mine is very small, 12awg or so Should've at least did 8awg.

 

[dman4486 5,000+ posts]

I was just reading another thread (might have been solo-baric's thread) and I was wondering why don't the auto makers just run a larger wire? Just cost reasons? Or do they feel the wire they have on there is good enough?

the wire they have IS good enough....

just not for high current amps and such:

 

[Flomaster 10+ year member]

holy shit I just sat down and read all 36 pages in one shot just for shits and giggles.

CA.com has some dumb *** mother ****ers on it.

I knew exactly what /how to do this from the first frigging post. with OUT any pictures.

several people have just been repeating shit non stop I think the mods need to erase all the bullshit and just keep the informative info.

I plan on doing the big 3 as follows.

Buy new bat. terms from Knukonceptz

buy ANL fuse holder with a 250amp fuse

MEASURE and buy 1/0 welding wire and lugs from local welding supply house

from my + terminal on my battery run 1/0 wire with fuse to the POS alt LEAVING existing wire attached.

from my - battery terminal to my FRAME

from my FRAME to any engine bolt thats easy to get to. less wire the better

this whole process should take less than 30 minutes.

and if need be I will take pictures although some one else took 3 GREAT photo of each cable already.

-=jason=-

 

[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

why no battery neg to engine? i'd do that and skip the chassis to engine.

 

[SlickNick 10+ year member]

why no battery neg to engine? i'd do that and skip the chassis to engine.

from what an electrician (who quit and opened his own car audio shop) told me, that would defeat the purpose. Think of it like this: You have a box. Coming INTO the box, you have a water hose that for this example, puts a gallon every 10 seconds into the box. Going OUT of this box, you have a 4 inch pipe cable of pulling a gallon a second out of the box. Do you think that with a water hose going in and 4 inch pipe going out that you're going to be able to pull a gallon a second out of that box? Of course not. you can only pull what's being put in. LIKEWISE, you can only pull the current from a battery that you have going into it. If your battery is grounded to chassis/frame with zero gauge wire and you run another zero gauge wire from engine to Neg. battery terminal, you're defeating the purpose of running that wire off the engine because you're only going to be able to pull a 0 gauge's worth of current in stead of two 0 gauges worth. As someone has stated on here, electricity running DC runs from ground to positive. So the more ground you have, the better so by grounding the engine out to the chassis and the battery to the chassis, you are giving them both their own bit of current.

Now before someone jumps on me and says i'm retarded, simply think about what I said. It makes perfect sense to me and if you can think critically and know an electrician, it should make sense to you too. That's my two cents //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[dman4486 5,000+ posts]

from what an electrician (who quit and opened his own car audio shop) told me, that would defeat the purpose. Think of it like this: You have a box. Coming INTO the box, you have a water hose that for this example, puts a gallon every 10 seconds into the box. Going OUT of this box, you have a 4 inch pipe cable of pulling a gallon a second out of the box. Do you think that with a water hose going in and 4 inch pipe going out that you're going to be able to pull a gallon a second out of that box? Of course not. you can only pull what's being put in. LIKEWISE, you can only pull the current from a battery that you have going into it. If your battery is grounded to chassis/frame with zero gauge wire and you run another zero gauge wire from engine to Neg. battery terminal, you're defeating the purpose of running that wire off the engine because you're only going to be able to pull a 0 gauge's worth of current in stead of two 0 gauges worth. As someone has stated on here, electricity running DC runs from ground to positive. So the more ground you have, the better so by grounding the engine out to the chassis and the battery to the chassis, you are giving them both their own bit of current.
Now before someone jumps on me and says i'm retarded, simply think about what I said. It makes perfect sense to me and if you can think critically and know an electrician, it should make sense to you too. That's my two cents //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

um.......no

the purpose of the engine ground is for the alt. not the battery. if you don't ground the motor, then the alt does not get the upgrade like the rest of the circuit.

edit: you have to think of the entire circuit...

 

[SlickNick 10+ year member]

um.......no

the purpose of the engine ground is for the alt. not the battery. if you don't ground the motor, then the alt does not get the upgrade like the rest of the circuit.

edit: you have to think of the entire circuit...

I never said it was to ground out the battery...I said it needed its own ground like you said, to ground out the alternator.

 

[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

from what an electrician (who quit and opened his own car audio shop) told me, that would defeat the purpose. Think of it like this: You have a box. Coming INTO the box, you have a water hose that for this example, puts a gallon every 10 seconds into the box. Going OUT of this box, you have a 4 inch pipe cable of pulling a gallon a second out of the box. Do you think that with a water hose going in and 4 inch pipe going out that you're going to be able to pull a gallon a second out of that box? Of course not. you can only pull what's being put in. LIKEWISE, you can only pull the current from a battery that you have going into it. If your battery is grounded to chassis/frame with zero gauge wire and you run another zero gauge wire from engine to Neg. battery terminal, you're defeating the purpose of running that wire off the engine because you're only going to be able to pull a 0 gauge's worth of current in stead of two 0 gauges worth. As someone has stated on here, electricity running DC runs from ground to positive. So the more ground you have, the better so by grounding the engine out to the chassis and the battery to the chassis, you are giving them both their own bit of current.
Now before someone jumps on me and says i'm retarded, simply think about what I said. It makes perfect sense to me and if you can think critically and know an electrician, it should make sense to you too. That's my two cents //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

wat...??

by going from chassis to engine you pick up the resistance of the chassis (may be very low but still there...) by going battery to engine you do not.

i read about 2 sentences of that essay you got BTW.

 

[SlickNick 10+ year member]

wat...??
by going from chassis to engine you pick up the resistance of the chassis (may be very low but still there...) by going battery to engine you do not.

i read about 2 sentences of that essay you got BTW.

read the whole thing and you'll understand a little better. it depends on where you run the engine to chassis. there may be there may not be.

 

[DonH 5,000+ posts]

maybe these can help. if not, meh....

wut kinda terminals are thoze? pretty slick!

 

[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

read the whole thing and you'll understand a little better. it depends on where you run the engine to chassis. there may be there may not be.

meh...

wut kinda terminals are thoze? pretty slick!

IIRC they are welding lugs. pops got them from work. they hold up to 4/0 i think