i have a 10" kicker L5 in a ported box powered by a kicker zx400.1 amp. 8 gauge wiring with all proper connections...

my problem is that the lights flicker like a bastard (even though my gain is in the middle of even below half)

im going to be uping my system to two kicker L5s and a 1000 watt amp. im going to do a red top battery and a CAP but i really shuldnt need a CAP at only 400 watts right?

 

Adding a CAP is never going to hurt, it gives you extra stored power for the amps. In my old truck i was running an alpine MRP-450, and had all kinds of dimming. I added a cap and had no issues. One other thing you could do is upgrade that 8 gauge wiring to 4 or larger, it lets more power to pass quicker, so there is not as long of a draw on the charging system. Also go with a Yellow top, they are more expensive but made for sound systems, red tops are generally a starting only battery.

 

believe me, caps are ok... they juice up, then send out power, but they have to juice up. I would recommend going the BIG 3 upgrade, or by a Kinetik HC 600, recommend the 600 by the amp rms, well hope this helped...

 

whats a kinetic HC 600?

 

Its a sealed battery. I decided to go with this over the cap on the monte, the caps are not batterys, they just hold power. The kinetic's are true car batteries. Kinetic HC 600

 

http://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp~TID~73496~PN~1

Try that link! It'll tell you most of the things you need to do to your car to better the electrical system, as well as minimize/eliminate the car's current problems.

 

You might want to make sure your battery isn't getting weak, and consider an alternator re-wire or an overdrive pulley - but with that small of a system, you shouldn't have any issues with lights flickering... Unless your battery and/or alternator is going bad.

 

my battery was tested at autozone and the guy said everything was running the way it should

 

Probly just the small 8g wire..
But if your going with to kicker l5's your for sure no doubt gonna need a new alternator..speaking from experience

 

well i replaced my stock speakers with polk speakers that sound GREAT! and their being powered by an alpine 4 channel amp...the subs will hopefully be going in by summertime =] but i cant decide weather i wanna put a CAP on the sub amp wire or mayb run a smaller audio battery in parrallel and jst stick that one in the trunk? or a new alt