1) I got an 800watt amp, what gauge wire do i need to run?

2) There is a 40A fuse on the amp what should my fuse from the batt be?

3) Cheaper buying the wiring kit or all the wires seperate?

4) What size is the remote wire?

5) Wiring is:
Wire from the batt thou fuse to the amp
Remote and Rca from the head unit
Ground the amp (to the body under the carpet?)

Thanks a bunch. Hopefully doing this myself will save me from bending over at circuit city.

 

1) Ignore the "800 watt" specification, always go by the fuse on the amp. Who makes the amp? If we go by the fuse, you want 4 gauge wire.

2) I'd say put a 60 amp fuse near the battery. That'll protect the wire to the back of the car, and your amp's fuse will protect the amp.

3) Depends on the quality of what you want! Like I pointed out before, usually the patch cord that comes with a packaged wiring kit is cheap. Try to spend at least $30 on a patch cord. If the packaged wiring kit comes with a patch cord, chances are it'll be the same kind of patch cord that is sold separately, so see how much the included patch cord sells for by itself. Power wire and fuses are pretty much generic; amp power wire will have finer copper strands, generic "car battery" or jumper cable wire will have thick strands. Thinner strands is better for a few reasons; more flexible, more surface area for electricity to flow through.

Now it could be that you find a great deal, a 4 gauge wiring kit for $30, but it has a $10 patch cord. Maybe buying 20 feet of 4 gauge, a fuse holder, a fuse, and 20 feet of remote wire separately winds up to be $40. So buy the kit for $30, but spend another $30 on a separate patch cord. Give the $10 cord to your friend as a birthday gift.

4) 18 gauge is fine. Blue is the "usual" color for remote wire...at least, as far as I've known!

5) Yep. Put the underhood fuse as close as possible to the battery. Don't run the remote next to the rca patch cord. The best wiring scenario is: Power wire down the side of the car that has your battery, speaker wires down the opposite side of the car, and rca patch cords down the middle of the floor. Never use a remote that's built in to the patch cord!! If your patch cord has a wire in the middle and you've spent $30, chances are that the little wire is meant to enhance the shielding capability of the patch cord. If you're amping your inside speakers, consider skipping the factory speaker wires, and running new 18 or 16 gauge speaker wire to them. Again, the factory wires have coarse strands, your speaker wire will have fine strands.

Ground for the amp should be as short as possible, use the same gauge as the positive power cable, and yes it should ground to the body of the car. Be careful where you drill (don't pop your gas tank, etc), scratch the paint off around the hole, use a star washer between the body of the car and the ring terminal of the ground wire.

Good luck!!

 

Awsome! I will let you know how it goes.

 

What the H3LL is a patch cord?..are we installing a guitar amp?..quarter inch cable?..or do you mean rca's?

 

Any cable that connects two pieces of equipment is a patch cord. If you want to call them "RCA's", go right ahead. Of course, the term RCA describes the connector itself, also known as a phono plug.

 

Hey TomP, small correction. RCA and phono jacks are different. RCAs like on the back of your radio, phono is like a guitar amp (or in the case of a guitar amp a ¼’ phone jack/plug).
Now it is vary common to call any cord that will carry only one channel a phono cord. But if your talking to someone that fabs up large scale tested panels they will recognize the difference and reefer to them in that way.

 

Actually, a correction back on you!

A phono plug is the correct term for an RCA plug.

A phone - not phono- is the term you're describing, in 1/4" plugs, or 1/8" plugs, mono or stereo. These are the ones used for headphones and guitars.

I haven't called any cord a phono cord. I referred to patch cables. KCobain never heard that term before, and called them RCA's. I pointed out that RCA's are also called phonO plugs. That's from the old phonographs (record players, of course) by RCA in the 50's.

I bet you want to know why it's called a phone plug? These were used for the old, original telephone switchboards. (Think about old Looney Tunes cartoons or Bettie Boop cartoons) And going a bit more into it, anybody remember the terms "tip" and "ring" for phone wires? Or, "Red Ring Right"? Well that was to help the wiring guys out. "Tip" was the extreme end of the phone plug (guitar 1/4" plug). Ring was the rest of the plug. "Red Ring Right" means the red wire goes to the ring of the plug, and these were commonly found on the right side of terminal blocks. Now what they would've called the "ring" is called the "sleeve"... a mono phone plug is "tip/sleeve", while a stereo phone plug is "tip/ring/sleeve".

How's that for some useless knowledge?

 

Im impressed..thats pretty correct..another way to think about them is the "Stereo" cable you refered to as a balanced cable, and yes, trs (tip ring sleeve) where tip sends and ring returns. i actually work in live sound, and your cables that you refer to as patch cables are refered to by most audio people as "rca" cables, your "phone" plug as 1/4 inch..(headphone jack on a discman being 1/8" jack), and so on.

 

You guys have way too much time on your hands.

 

Sorry needaz, but you got schooled. Tom is correct as usual.


And I agree... way too much free time on your hands!

 

Ok well to follow up. I got the amp and sub in with no problems. It was almost too easy (knock on wood). You all were alot of help! Thanks a bunch!!

 

got schooled, old school style.

I heard of the phon"o" term before but never actually knew what it was.

Cheers for the lesson of hard knocks.

 

Damb that E. I've got to stop replaying to threads on less then four hours of sleep. I did know that, just a major brain fart. I’ll have to start re-reading my post BEFORE I post then and not after the weekend. My bad.

 

(laughs) Yeah, nothing like a reminder of the old stuff to see how lucky we are today that music sounds so much better!! (What ever happened to stereophonic? ) My apologies, KCobain! I thought you hadn't heard of the term patch cord before!

JiggaJiveTurkey, glad to hear your system went okay!!