somebody please help me!

[Guinelle1 10+ year member]

hey guys, so i think i may be having a problem with my HO alternator? so i have an 00' chevy silverado ext cab 5.3L with a dc power 190 amp oem alternator. 4 RF p1 10 in subs under the back seat, 2 amps for the subs and a 3rd amp for the front door speakers. sony xplode HU and front door speakers (I know crappy). but anyway. i have done the big 3 with 0 gauge, 4 gauge to my amps. 0 gauge body to frame ground. and my amps are grounded directly to the frame. now my voltage gauge flickers at idle, even more so when my turn signal is on. my headlights dim slightly and voltage drop when i hit the brakes at night, serious voltage drop when rolling up both windows. now mind you this never has happened until i installed the system and it even does it with the amps off.. is my alternator faulty? its only a few months old and the battery is fairly new too.

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[Guinelle1 10+ year member]

and i know the voltage output can fluctuate, but this is the stock gauge thats in the dash.

 

[Imtjnotu 5,000+ posts]

Have u checked ur battery to start? Also take ur truck to autozone and hve them roll out he cart test ur alternator....that will hep u a lot more then any of us ca offer

 

[BnGRacing 10+ year member]

Sounds like you forgot to ground something, or knocked something loose, under the dash. Like your amps, the dash assembly needs a good ground too. A good place to start would be the driver's side kick. There's usually a few things grounded there that you may have knocked loose or out of the connector. That's probably where you ran your power wire...right?

Look there and see if anything's missing. If not, zip a self-tapper into the metal frame under the hush panel by your knees and run some primary to ground it at the kick. That may solve the problem.

 

[Guinelle1 10+ year member]

i checked all my cables under the hood and my amps. what i dont like is that even with my amps all completely unplugged it still pulls this ****. i almost want to just rip the stereo out but its obviously not going to fix the problem anyway so there is no point. there was a solid metal frame behind my dash which is what the headunit is grounded to. i thought it would be a sufficent ground. i mean for ***** sake my amps are grounded directly to my frame!! they have more then large enough wire to and from them.. it must be a problem in my stock electrical system. its really annoying me that the truck does this. i really do not understand it. i have not gotten my battery or the alt tested and dont even know where i could do so. would pep boys be able to? how much are they going to charge? and i actually didnt check the drivers side kick, and yes my power wire is ran there. i should do that too.

 

[Guinelle1 10+ year member]

i think ive actually found my problem, my rockford fosgate amps (201s) i dont think they are 2 ohm stable bridged. i have each pair of subs wired to 2 ohms then bridged on the amps. if my amps arent 2 ohm stable could that be why i get such large voltage drop?

 

[Moble Enclosurs 10+ year member]

i think ive actually found my problem, my rockford fosgate amps (201s) i dont think they are 2 ohm stable bridged. i have each pair of subs wired to 2 ohms then bridged on the amps. if my amps arent 2 ohm stable could that be why i get such large voltage drop?

It is an issue, yes. Related, not sure. When you ask the amplifier to give you voltage that it does not have, it will still try to get it from somewhere. This would be from other components on the same ground loop. A stereo system has to be thought of as an electrical circuit because that is exactly what it is. Also, some amps will tell you it is 2 ohm stable, but may not mention it is "stereo mode only". Reconnect them in series and see what happens. So many variables in a vehicles electrical setup, that pinpointing it without actual testing or trial would be much less efficient, so do both of what has been recommended on here.....have it tested for batt and alt stability, and also do your amplifier resistive correction. Let us know.

 

[FtheNutHuggers]

When you did the big three, did you remove the factory alternator-to-battery wire and or the factory battery-to-ground wire?

 

[Guinelle1 10+ year member]

i put them on just one of the channels at 2 ohms so thats 100 watts rms for both subs, definitely not enough. i cranked the gain all the way up and the bass boost all the way up and i get like no voltage drop at all. i think i should just buy one amp that can handle all 4 of these subs instead of having 2 small amps

 

---------- Post added at 07:16 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:16 AM ----------

 

all i did was piggy back the original wires when i did the big three. from the research i did that was the best thing to do..