When I went to the local jaycar rep with some old amp wire that needed to be upgraded to a better guage he gave me 2 guage wire instead of 4 guage. I didn't know any better at the time and I figure he knew what he was talking about but I have been doing a bit of homework since then and I wanted to make sure it was going to be okay. Cheers.
Im using 4 gauge on mine, with 8 gauge earth. im powering two amps, one 1000w for the sub, and a 4k (1k per channel) watt 4 channel amp for the door and rear speakers. Make sure you have a in line fuse rated for your system as well, you want it as close to the battery as possible and for added measure stick one near the amp(s) as well. Make sure your earth point is short and close to the amps and if you have to (always a better option) sand back the bare metal for the earth point. The car chassis is the earth, so doesnt really matter where you put it as long as its touching the body work with a good clean contact. Always use connectors where possible and crimp them tight onto the wire and heat shrink over the ends to help stop the wiring working loose. Ive installed lots of car amp set ups and ive always used 4 gauge for the live, and 8 gauge for the earth and never had a problem yet. good luck.
Short answer is hell yeah it will be unless your running comp class amps, with 2000+ RMS watts, you'll be 100% fine, im running 2 gauge to a 4ga distro block, with 2 650watt RMS amps at the end, and have had no problems at all, just be sure to also upgrade your earths, as most/some people do the power cable but not the earths as a general rule of thumb, as always bigger is better
They are a pair of fusion fp 1404's. There is a different amp for the fronts, tweeters and rears with a 4 guage power lead. The pair of fusions are for a pair of subs, a couple of 12inch lightningaudios. I have been reading the manual and looking at the specs, but I can't figure out how many watts they are. There seems to be two sets of specs in the manual for them. 12.6 VOLT AUDIO POWER OUTPUT 100 WRMS x 4 into 4 Q (Q is the closest thing to the symbol) 165 WRMS x 4 into 2 Q 350 WRMS x 4 into 4 Q Bridged 14.4 VOLT AUDIO POWER OUTPUT 120 WRMS x 4 into 4 Q 200 WRMS x 4 into 2 Q 380 WRMS x 4 into 4 Bridged I hope that these specs mean more to you guys than me. I remember reading in the manual to use the same guage earth wire as the power wire and I have got enough left to do it. Thanks for the advice guys.
What kinda 4ch amp is that ? 1000 watt per channel ? ... most speakers dont even crack the 500watt mark. And 2 guage will be fine, i run a 0 guage back to the distribution block . 4 guage to the 4ch amp 0 guage to the mono block 0 guage ground from the mono 4 guage ground from the 4ch...
I use 2 gauge from the battery to my mono block and 2 gauge ground. I heard that you should use the same gauge for both positive and ground, is this true? 2 of my friends had problems when running a smaller earth cable.
oops, my bad wrong way around with the amps, im running a 1k watt amp for the speakers and a 4k watt amp for the sub. good spot. it was late here (1am) when i posted that. wires are the same though. and it does sound cracking. I've still got the Bose enclosures for the speakers which helps a lot as well.
pretty much with any amp, the bigger wire the better, many reasons why. just as long as it fits in the amp, if not run it to a distro block or capacitor near the amp, and then run the biggest possible guage wire from there to the amp. also, make sure your ground cable is the same size or bigger then your power wire and not more then half a meter long, shorter the better.
haven't had any issues so far mate, I've always done that. if the ground isn't good enough the amps don't power on anyway
WTF ?!? who ever said to run a smaller gauge wire for earth is a knob. The basic principle of electricity is to find the shortest easiest way to ground as possible, by running a smaller gauge wire for earth you are just asking for trouble. If the electricity thinks it's easier to spike back through your "larger" power wire than it is to go through your "smaller" earth wire then you will pop your fuse, if you dont have to correct size fuse installed then it will pop your ecu, battery & pretty much everything else it can find untill the elctricity is discharged. There is no problem running bigger gauge wires than your amp is rated to, the BIGGER the BETTER, you do NOT want any restriction in power supply to your amp. If your amp tries to draw more power than your wire can flow then you will get voltage drop which can blow your amp. The general rule is : Power wire - 4 gauge is suitable for almost all applications & can handle up to around 500w RMS with about 4m of wire. anything over 500w RMS or 4m i would recommend going to a 2 gauge or even 0 guage. The power wire should have the correct rated fuse installed & should be installed within 0.5m of your battery terminal, when running your power wire take the most direct route possible & trim any excess cable left over, the shorter the better as this reduces the risk of voltage drop to your amp. Earth wire - This is your most important wire, if there is too much voltage in your amp or if there is a spike you want the electricity to freely escape your amp & not blow your amp. This should be as large a gauge or even larger than your power wire, make sure you ground it to a bare metal chasis point on your car, sand back any paint on your terminal connection & once again use the shortest wire as possible. I had to learn this the hard way after not seeking expert advise the first time. I was running a 1500w RMS monoblock amp with a 1200w RMS rockford T2 12" sub.. not something you want to replace for the sake of skimping on the right size wire ! Also dont confuse rated constant power (RMS) to nominal power (peak). Make sure you are looking at RMS figures as that is what your equipment will constantly run at on average. Peak power is a wank factor to try & sell equipment to idiots who think bigger numbers means better equipment. Peak power means that is the absolute maximum it can hold before it blows up & catches fire.. An example would be like a sony xplod which says its 1200w peak when in actual fact is probably like 200w RMS, If you were to plug a 1200w RMS amp into it, it probably would "explode" Hope that helps a little & if your not sure please PM me, if you have questions about ohms, volts, amps, current etc.. im happy to help.
i stopped reading after that. If you want to convey some advice, there is no reason to be rude about it. If you want to give advice of using a earth the same gauge as the live, then say that. people would be more willing to listen to the advice then. Ive wired up my car amps the same as always, and I've never had a problem, if there is a better way of doing it, im all ears, we are all here to learn things, hence someone asking in the first place. i never said it was the best way of doing it, i said thats how my set up was. i know you probably wasn't directing that comment at me. but i was just saying that being rude about something isn't the best way of giving advice. The fuse from the live thats closest the battery isn't there to protect your amps, its there to protect the car, so it should be just as vital as the earth. if that fuse doesnt blow, then you face the real prospects setting fire to your car if the wire over heats and starts arching.
when electricity travels through a wire, it generates heat, think of the size of the wire as a pipe, kind of like a turbo pipe, imagine trying to push 20 pound of boost through a 1" pipe, compared to a 3" pipe, having a ground smaller then your power cable, is like having an exhaust smaller then your intake. not very efective, and will also cause undesired heat. Further more, there is no point of having a power cable bigger then the ground, as a stereo is a power circuit, and with any electrical circuit, the ground completes the circuit, so the power travels from your battery, through your amp, to your speakers positive, through the voice coil, out of negative wire, back into the amp, then out of the ground cable into the chassis of your car, or wherever you have grounded the amp. The amp's maximum achievable power and stability is affected by a few things. - Voltage: the more voltage you can supply to the amp, the more power it will be able to safely output. - amps: the wire needs to be able to move amps through fast enough to supply the amplifier with enough voltage and amps (which = watts). guages of wire can only supply a certain amount of amps through it, the longer the cable, the more the voltage drop, and lost amps. - heat: amplifiers loose efficiency when at high temperaturs. So they are 3 main things that can affect the effiency of the amplifier, now i will explain why this is important. When an amp is being pushed closed to its limit, which is quite common, because many people run amps which are less powerful then the RMS rating of the subwoofer which they are trying to run. I will just use a quick example, a 15" subwoofer, with a heavy motor, and voice coil set up which is rated at say 1000WRMS being powered by a 500wrms amp will need to run near 100% load on moderate music, if the cable is too small for the amount of amps needed to supply the amp at that load, the amp will continue to try pulling the power it needs to run the sub. What happens is the amp will start drawing current faster, at less amps to compensate, this creates more electric friction in the wire, which causes it to heat. This causes every component of the audio system to heat up, including: - The power wire to the amp - The amps power chips - The amps output chips - Every other component in the amp - The wires to the sub. - The subs voice coil. In this instance, any of those components can and will eventually fail, and any fuse connected along the line WILL NOT prevent equipment from failing. In the case of an amp which is powerful enough for the speaker, and adequate sized power wire is used, and a smaller ground is used, what happens is the amps power supply will keep trying to suck in the power which it needs, and then have to squeeze it out of the smaller ground wire, the same thing happens in this instance, the extra friction builds up in the components, and will cause everything to start overheating, which can lead to any of the components along the line to be damaged by heat. The wires can even melt, and possibly start a fire(this is in extreme cases of course) and yes, this can happen, even with fuses installed. In the case of all wiring being the right size, you can still have problems, if the alternator/battery are on there way out and are not upto the job, voltage drop will cause the amp to be underpowered, for example, my phd5000's which runs at 1.3ohms can push out over 60 amps at any given time, measured on a true RMS multimeter, which is over 5000WRMS output. Most Car amplifiers are less then 50% efficient, meaning, for me to output 60amps, my amp needs to take in over 120 amps from the battery, for my set up, times that by 2 = 240 amps, then the 4 channel amp, which takes in another 60 amps or so imput, meaning over 300amp drain from the battery. So you may be asking, if amps are less then 50% efficient, what happens to the lost 50%+ power taken from the battery? well, its dispelled as wasted energy, which = heat. Now, this is during ideal conditions. what happens if the power isnt adequate? Well the amplifiers become even less efficient, which = more heat once again. and in bad cases, where the voltage really starts getting low, the amp once again will continue to try to draw more current, and become unstable, the result is power surges, which spike through your speakers, commonly refered to as clipping. It is a very fast way to kill a speaker, as the power spikes which travel through the wires, and the speakers coil are very hot, and also the power does not travel through the circuit as it should. Its hard to explain, but the power signal should be a nice even flow to a peak power, then nice and even back down to the power leaving, but what happens is the power will spike up really fast, and flatline at the peak for longer then it should, then cut back down too fast, which causes eratic coil movement. Very fast way to seize up your speakers motor system. I know some of my post might not make much sense to every body, but it's hard to explain these voices in my head some times But i hope it helps to understand why it is very important for the ground wire to be the same size or bigger. And also, why its important to have the biggest wire possible (the bigger the wire, the less heat will build up in the wire under stressful circumstances) and that applies for every part of the system, including speaker wire. If you managed to make it through all that rambling. thanks for reading =]
Well said.. Oh & sorry if i referred to anyone as a "knob", i was just trying to stress the importance of using the correct setup. Anyways, it takes a lot of research & understanding to setup a car stereo efficiently.. it's not so much about what equipment you use, it's about how you set it up that makes the difference. I've seen $500 sony explode stereo systems kick the arse off $4000 rockford fosgate setups, simply because of poor installation, wrong size sub box etc.. Also get yourself some dynamat extreme for your door panels to mount your speakers on. I've got heaps of it sitting here & you will be amazed at the difference it will make. Ever wonder why your car stereo never sounds as good as the ones in the shop ? well thats the secret.
I have actually found the zed to be a great audio machine, in many other car's I have helped set up, or owned, they have needed alot of sound deadening and reinforcement. If you know world DB drag circuit, you will quite well know how successful the 80's model CRX has been in competition as a base for audio cars. Every one knows that when it comes to cars hatch backs will resonate the sound better. So it is no big suprise of how successful they have been, but The old CRX shape of the late 80's had lots of glass area like the zed. Glass while being very fragile to hard sharp object's, is very strong when it comes to audio The 300zx has alot of glass, which helps keep in the energy created by the speakers in the cabin, and because of the targa design, the body actually has quite alot of reinforcement, which once again, makes the car nice and solid as an audio machine. The only place you really need a bit of sound deadening in the zed is in the door's and in the boot. I personally havnt put any in mine, and its been able to take alot of punishment with no rattles(even with well over 1inch of windscreen flex), and holds the SPL pressure very well.
