[liljlandon]

I have had 2 12" Pioneer subs in a custom box ran by a Sony XPLOD 400watt amp in my standard cab 84 for a while, but just recently (tonight) discovered my stereos true potential as i accidentally set it on LOUD... And suddenly i couldnt see??? But my battery gauge was doing something very bad and jumping around alot. Am i draining all the juice out of my system? I could run it on 63% and my lights were TONS dimer than usual. I like the 'Thump, but also value my life and would like to see again. What could be causing this? Is it just a ground and i neednt to worry to much or is it really bad for this to happen?

[WristPin]

do you have one giant wire running from your positive side of the battery to your amplifier?

and just the stock weenie wire ONLY for the ground?

mmm-hmmm


fix that.

and clean and re tighten the battery terminals.

[liljlandon]

1 gigantic wire, the gauge higher (smaller wire diameter) than the battery cable itself I wanna say 8, but dont member right. Its gotta fuse going through it and its set up farily decent. I mean, i had the same set up in my old k-5 but withouth the cool "Loud" setup

[WristPin]

when you run a over size gauge wire one one side, its not doing any good. the battery is a circuit, and you must make both terminals of the circuit equal. make sure you install the same size wire on the negative side

[liljlandon]

Its directly grounded the frame, with the same size wire. Would the acc. wire do it? I dont think it would considering its only there to tell the amp to power on and off.

[Bogo]

You need to also increase the wire size from the frame to the battery negative (-) pole too. It should be as large or larger than your largest positive (+) wire.

As for the dimming of the lights. Yes, your new amp is sucking down tons of juice. Likely more than the alternator has spare when the headlights are on. You may need to limit the volume, install a higher amp output alternator or add a second alternator.

[liljlandon]

The biggest wires in the truck are the pos. and neg. battery wires. I know to keep everything smaller than those. How would i go about wiring 2alts? I read somewhere its pretty hard.

[KLF]

Some basic math:

If your amp is truly producing 400W of sound output, then it will probably be drawing at least 35-40 amps of current. The stock OEM alternator in that truck is only rated for 40-45 amps MAXIMUM. If you are running stock wattage sealed beam headlamps, then they are drawing 55W at low beam. Two headlamps will draw almost 10A of current. We haven't even included all the current that it needs to run the engine and run the rest of the accessories and lights. See where this is going?

You can either:

* Upgrade the alternator to a much higher output unit. I've seem them on eBay. You can convert your truck to the slightly higher '85+ OEM alternator (I did this on mine), but be advised that it requires significant upgrades on the output wiring between the alternator and battery to handle this higher current. You will also need to change out the lower mount brack that bolts to the side of the engine.

* Add a second battery, and "caps" to the system. This is only a short-term fix, if you run the sound system at high volume for very long it will draw this battery down too.

* TURN IT DOWN

[liljlandon]

It is "Turned down" i dont know what would happen if i turned it all the way up, besides major distortion. Could i make a bracket for another alt. and run it to a 2nd battery that i could run primarily my stereo/cb off of?