awww lucky!

an elctrician friend of mine (he owns a ford explorer sport), as well as many of you on here in previous post's sugested a cap should fix my probelms... so as an experiment i'm going to try to find either a .5 farad or 1.0 farad cap, install it and see what happens. hopefully all should be good.

 

OH snap i just realized another problem... i've been running my subs wired at two ohms instead of four ohms like I should be... which means i'm running too much power through them...

 

Yeah, subs are real battery killers. My brother installed 2 ohm sub in his skoda and can listen it on run only. 1 hour of music with engine off and his friend push his car to start.

 

Oh I've been down that road... killed my dad's car when i was driving it with my system with out a sub, just new everything else in two hours... who knows how long it will take to kill my batt. with subs...

 

Well, 100 A*h battery, measure average draw of your stereo and do some calculations. BTW, you need about 40-45% min carge battery to start hot engine and about 100% to start frozen one.

 

Here is something that I can add that actually has some value :-)

If you have a system in your van, get a Large Cap. This will not only make the music sound better, but more importantly, will save the electrical system from having to work extra hard for that drain which was never expected in the original design...

I think I read somewhere that the original radio Ford's "premium sound" only drew like 3 amps or something! and it sounded like it :-)

the Cap would sit between the battery and the amp, and act as a buffer for the larger power draw that a power amp needs, even if it is just powered on (not even cranked up)

my alt is starting to show it's age too.... What? they don't last 20 years? common ford! (hehe)

One question I have to anyone that read this far - and would help too, would you all recommend a Ford Motorcraft alt? as a replacement, or is an AutoZone one fine? (the best one they sell, etc)

What I notice on mine, is that with lights on, wipers, and in the rain esp, I see the Volt gauge dip down to almost 10 volts sometimes at idle, esp if the car is warmed up, and the engine is running at correct mixture....

sometimes, when I give it gas, it doesn't always want to jump back up either...

65 is all AZ sells for it - but I'd love to get an 80amp in there if it will not stress the 3.0L

 

also, you can draw 2 ohms without a problem... I have a 2ohm load to my 4 10's, and a 1 ohm load to the other 6 speakers in the van, and the amp can handle it, but it's also an Adcom 4 channel amp that I bought for this purpose - it's not a kicker :-)

.5 ferrod is all you should need - 1 ferrod caps are pricey :-)

 

How come nobody here talks about running an under-dash 8-Track player on a high tech "slide mount" for removal? Don't you people know classic rock and how it should sound??? Sheesh...! 8-Tracks, 4 programs of click-on tunes!!

 

my Dad had a CB that did that, where you could pull it out on a slide mount... it was kind of cool actually... I had a GMC van as a kid that had an 8 Track built into the stereo - it was sort of neat, as you pushed the volume **** to change tracks...

the car he had it in? an old Ford LTD wagon with that big 400 in it! would haul, and pass everything but a gas station!!

 

Ed:

We are not that old

 

If you want to install a large capacitor, put it as close to the amplifier as possible, after the fuse. Fuses work on resistive heating, so they will introduce some resistance into your power circuit. Also note that an empty capacitor that big will act like a short circuit when you first connect it to power, so temporarily short out the fuse with a thick wire when you make the first connection so you don't blow it.

The other thing about using a big capacitor is that it only helps with sharp transients, like thumping drums. They don't do much for anything else, unless the amplifier itself has huge capacitors that act like shorts during power-up.

 

this is why they make music sound better, since the reproduction of transients (the attack of any note or sound) is the most important part of good sound.

the reason caps make the amp produce the sound better, is that having power ready for the amp to use like that, shortens the time the amp needs to generate the power needed for the sharp change in wattage from RMS to Peek, whenever it's trying to re-produce a sharp attack (like a snare drum, or guitar picking)

I remember prior to getting the Cap, if I cranked something like Rap, at idle, you could watch the Voltmeter dip a little with every beat - so that is when I knew I had to get a Cap

so, they also act as a buffer for the power drain on the system... so the benefit is two fold.

the other idea is to run dual cells, but finding space is tricky in the aeros - I was going to attempt this when I did my whole stereo, but gave up on it, because of that...

but now, they make gel cells that can be placed inside, and are able to get recharged off the system... again, it's all in how crazy you want to get.... I was fine with just a cap.

90 was correct about where to put the cap in line for sure - you want it after the fuse - hopefully, you do have a big fuse on your Pos wire going to your amp, correct? :-) hopefully, also, that is a decent sized wire? (like at least 12 gauge)

I didn't have to short the fuse when I added mine in... but I have a big fuse too - I think it's a 50 amp fuse to be honest, with a nice rubber cover, etc. actually, the place I got mine from, had them pre-charged, so that could have been why... if you get it online, etc, they won't be... but this was from a stereo shop.

 

ewwwwwwwwwwww kicker.... those things are not desined to destroy ones ears... lol

i have this amp: http://www.crutchfield.com/App/Produ...a+EL1500&tp=14
(a bazooka EL1500 mono block amp...) craigslist special... and i like it it sounds pretty good for a bazooka.

i have a 4 g wiring kit with two inline fuses (one at the batt, one at my amp) that are 80 amp fuses. i then run 10g wire from my amp (located under my drivers seat) to my subs (in the trunk area), which are then wired with standard 16g wire.

i re wired my subs from paralell to series paralell cuz i bought them in july, installed them in october, and was smelling the wonderful smell of voice coil when i'd have stuff like girilla zoe's hood figga on... (not to mention i was running off like 9 volts when that song was on...)

I've been thinking about removing my center bench seat and creating a small cabnet that would bolt to the floor for storage... primarily for my amp/cap/w/e... that way i don't have to worry about people kicking my amp or getting shockd.

where do you guys keep your amp? i stuck mine under the drivers seat cuz i was cheap and broke and took my wiring kit out of my friends honda civic hatchback when he bought it (yes i know not the best idea, but i only make about 100 bux a pay check...). this gave me a limited amount of length... altough the fact that it's least visible there is helpfull...