Would a higher output alternator increase alternator whine?

[ladysmanfelpz 10+ year member]

So I blew up my alternator cleaning my engine (stupid me), so now I am looking to get a little higher output alternator for my 97 legacy. I already have pretty bad speaker whine and have been to 3 different shops and they couldn't figure it out and have looked at near everything myself. My set up is an 8ga to my cap that powers my 450w amp to 10"cvx and another 8 ga to my 400w to my 4 speakers. My alternator is directly grounded btw. This weekend I installed hushmat and did some other things to my car to clean it up and thats when I blew the alt. from cleaning the engine. I also cut the 8ga to the 400.4 and hooked that up to the cap as well, which now I realized is stupid because I have less power cable to my stuff. My logic at the time is that the 1 farad cap could handle both the 400.4 and 450.1 and the 8ga would slowly keep the current coming into the cap. and I may just see more voltage drops, but the strain is directly on the cap. now and not on the battery and alt. Is this correct or did I put more strain on the alternator since it is struggling to keep the cap and amps at proper voltage?

K so I know my stuff is all F'd, but I plan to do big 3 and run a 4 ga or bigger power cable to my cap. when I get back to working on my car. So if I put in a higher output alternator, won't I hear more speaker whine? I want to have a good alt. for my system, but all the work I have done will be worthless if I have any more whine as it is already driving me nutzzz!!!! Could the whine have been because I didn't have the big 3 before and there was a lot of strain on my system? I would love to track down the root of the problem, but I have done near all I can and am about ready to install a ground loop isolator to fix it. Sorry if this was hard to understand. Ask any questions and ill reply quickly. Thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge/experiences.

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[mlstrass 5,000+ posts]

HO alt should make no diff. Your mids/highs amp could be the cause of your alt whine. Have you tried swapping it out with another amp?

When you do the BIG3, lose the cap as it does nothing...

 

[ladysmanfelpz 10+ year member]

No i haven't but both the shops thought it was the amp and im suspicious as well. Will do the project and if still there will look into another amp. How does the big 3 make the cap obsolete?

 

[LosIsATool 5,000+ posts]

Caps already obsolete. They are not meant for what they are marketed for.

 

[ladysmanfelpz 10+ year member]

Quick question. Is it fine to do the big 3 with 4 awg wire? I'm pushing less than 1000 watts off a capacitor. I know my electrical system needs an upgrade, but 1/0 gauge is expensive and would like to just do 4 awg for now

 

[audiobaun 5,000+ posts]

Quick question. Is it fine to do the big 3 with 4 awg wire? I'm pushing less than 1000 watts off a capacitor. I know my electrical system needs an upgrade, but 1/0 gauge is expensive and would like to just do 4 awg for now

If all you have is 4ga for now,its better than the 10 ga that is stock.If you dont have any lying around,It would be better to spend the extra $15-30 on the 0 ga for it to be done one time only.But if all you have is 4ga lying around rt now,absolutely its fine to use.

 

[audiobaun 5,000+ posts]

I think RamDesigns is selling the Big3 upgrade wiring as a kit so to speak.May take a look in the for sale threads

 

[Firebird 1991 10+ year member]

ya i wish ppl could relize that about caps, if your alternator doesnt have enough amperage to keep the batterys in your system charged while your system is at full tilt, then the power is virtually going straight through the cap to the amp. Now if you had a h.o. alt then the cap would help you out a little because there would be enough to keep juice in it, But then again why not just go with a battery and dont waste your money on a capacitor...

 

[Firebird 1991 10+ year member]

do big 3 and get rid of the cap all together is my vote too

 

[Chriszle 10+ year member]

If your going to do the big 3 with 4 gauge, you can keep the stock wiring in place too. Will help some with current flow.

 

[ladysmanfelpz 10+ year member]

Gonna do 0ga for big 3 and upgrade all my wiring to 4ga and then use my old 8 ga to make an engine grounding kit //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif Thats the plan so far. Hopefully it will get rid of my whine. Oh and the capacitor is staying btw

 

[quackhead 10+ year member]

Gonna do 0ga for big 3 and upgrade all my wiring to 4ga and then use my old 8 ga to make an engine grounding kit //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif Thats the plan so far. Hopefully it will get rid of my whine. Oh and the capacitor is staying btw

ALWAYS use the same size wire for ground AND power... Lose the cap before you burn something else up.

 

[ladysmanfelpz 10+ year member]

Ya but my thinking if it is 1 farad, it has a set amount of current in it, and the amp can slowly charge it. ya i know what you are saying that the amps go right through it, but at least it has the extra stored current for big hits and so it gives good crisp sound and isn't straining my electrical system too bad with large voltage drops. Now after the big 3 it will allow my alternator to produce the most amp/hrs it can possible and running the 4 ga to my cap and amps is going to open up a lot of current flow. Volts=IR where I is current which is a squared value, so I will see exponential gain in current with the larger wire. I think the cap is what has been saving my system this whole time, as my sub amp barely gets hot at all while my 4.400 gets smoking because the 8 ga is struggling to keep up with it. I'll be able to see visually if it helps as the cap has a voltage meter, so ill let you guys know if i see less voltage drops on big hits.

Oh and if i still have the whine, the last thing I can think of is grounding my rca's on my HU. what ga wire do ppl use to do that?