Ok i am running a cadence z8000 and two cadence solo bass 12's...when they hit the lights dim aton!!! i hooked up a cap on monday and its wednesday and its out. It would not allow the remote start to work...ANYWAY i want to do the big 3 upgrade...But im not sure what exactly to do....What all does it include and how big of wire should i go? I have plenty of red 4-gauge wire...Let me know your in put...ALSO sometimes when I start the car my door speakers will crackele but if i shut it off it stops. Is this the first sign of my factory amp going out? I have the factory speakers replaced with alpine type-r's since when i got the car this was one of the things it was missing.

Thanks
Trent

 

Well to give you a reference.... im running 3 amps totalling 3,700 watts and one 12" topping out at 3000 watts. To stop the lights from dimming... I went with a zero gauge wire connecting batteries and then also to the distrubution blocks (ground is the same way). Im also running 2 extra batteries in the trunk, and a 2.5 farad cap.

So if you have the money, get a nice 0 guage wire instead of the four, so the power can flow easier. There not cheap, but def worth it. Another thing.... if you dont have one already, get a second battery. As for your speakers.... since you upgraded them your factory amp will probably not have enough power for it, so run a seperate 4 channel amp and power them that way and leave the factory amp out of it. I have type-s and they sound great amplified!

Hope this helps!

 

alright..my only problem is finding the 0 gauge...at this point im discusted(<Spelled wrong) with the caps i have been thinking of another battery i just need to find one that will work right...WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY DO FOR THE BIG 3??? my only problem with running another amp is im still running the factory headunit. i was going to go pioneer touch but with this 06 Monte it gets expensive with all the different wire harnesses i was gonna have about 1g wrapped up in just the H/U

 

Big Three: https://montecarloforum.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=14369

Another battery won't help your dimming. Simply upgrading to 1/0 gauge wiring won't either, 4 gauge is plenty for that amp. And...a cap also won't do you much good. Do the big three, use wiring that at a minimum matches your main power wire and see if that helps you out. Honestly with that amp, you should have little to no dimming, because it's not very powerful.

If you have bad dimming with just that amp, I suspect that your gain is set way to high in an attempt to get more power out of the amp. This will cause excessive dimming and run your amp into clipping, and that's no good.

If the big three doesn't eliminate light dimming to your liking, the next step is a high output altnernator. But IMO upgrading alternators for such a low power setup is kinda a waste of money.

 

You can find a zero gauge at any local audio shop or check ebay but make sure its long enough. I have Northern EV-31 for the batteries in the back.... there bigger but work great. I believe the big three is upgrading your battery, wiring, and alternator, but Im not 100%. Yeah, its going to be tough to wire everything without an aftermarket player, but maybe just get a cheaper one for now and you can always upgrade later.

 

No offense DBL but my extra batteries, upgrading my wiring, and my cap helped a ton for my setup.... lights dont dim at all. my lights dont dim at all and I run it hard and I dont have a small setup by far, but its totally everyones opinion.

 

yea i know my amp is small its only 500 watts...but i am getting this dimming idk if its because we ran it off the underhood fuze box instead of stright from the battery or what but im wanting to do the big 3 on my monte and my probe...The probe has a little bigger set up....

 

I would def run it off the battery, no question there.

 

Run your amp from the battery with 4 gauge, make sure your ground is 4 gauge and good (metal to metal/not to paint) and make sure you use a good fuse at the battery end with the proper value for your amp.

 

wow i wish you would have said somthing 1 day ago there was around 20 ft of memphis 0 gauge wire for 40 bucks on ebay . thats incredibly cheap i think i paid like 200 for my power kit. i think the older version is still sold by the foot on there http://cgi.ebay.com/MEMPHIS-AUDIO-0-...item1e59de2f20 for 3.5o a ft, its normally like ten. i would do that and get an extra battery. thats what i did running 2500 watts and no dimms. also maybe try replacing the ground wires from batt. up front and the alternator. ALL GROUNDS AND POWER SHOULD RUN THE SAME GAUGE.