So since ive finally finished my stereo and gotten everything tuned Im just tinkering with little things now, im running a SPA600.1 DB Drive amp, and normally its good practice to swap out the grounds when running anything over a 500, im aware that its not a true 600 but im feeding it to an older type R which is one of the most power hungry subs ive seen in a very long time, so if ive got my system at a pretty good listening level and im listening to a deep bass song my voltmeter goes nuts, its an aftermarket gauge tied into the system because my factory one was junk, itll bounce between 14 and upper 12's so i decided to swap my grounds with some extra parts we have around the shop, i used 0 gauge on the battery to chassis ground, i was gonna use 4 gauge but i couldnt find any terminals large enough so it was 8 or 0, so of course im gonna go with the 0 lol

now to the real question, since ive done my battery ground with 0 gauge, is it really necessary for me to do the passenger side head strap? i was planning to use 4 on each location but since that didnt work do you think the 0 will be good enough? Its a real PITA to get to for one and the 0 gauge will be pretty tough to work with back there

anybody have some input on this?

 

im not use what you mean when you say pass side head strap but i do know when upgrading wire(BIG 3) your suppose to do atl to batt, batt to engine block and batt to chassis but i believe the alt to batt is the most important 1.

on my blazer i did big 3 in 2 gauge and it stopped all my dimming until i got a mojo

also get your batt and alt check out you really shouldnt be dimming on such low power

 

Its the type R that's killing me, I swapped it out for a W3 and I had zero issues on the old wiring, the alternator is a known good part and so is my battery, there is a ground strap going from the passenger side head to the firewall and I figured 0 gauge would be sufficient enough for the system, the power wire from the alternator to the battery is my next project when I get bored

 

I don't see a need, although I'm no stereo (or electronics) expert. But the head-firewall groundstrap just completes the gound circuit basically. Your stereo is looking fo a ground from the body (I assume it's grounded close to where the amp is). So increasing the size of the ground from battery to fender makes sense - that's where I'd think the 'bottleneck' would be. Electricity follows path of least resistance, so from body to battery through your new fender ground would be alot less resistant than the ground seeking it's way back to the battery through the motor if that makes sense.

If you thought the need arises, I would think you could add another same type ground strap in the same location, or in any location even between motor and body - you could hide another groundstrap (or wire) on the underside, say from a lower p/s bolt or something.

And this is very interesting - I would have never thought of increasing the ground between battery and fender because of an amp drawing juice and thus needing more grounding as well.

 

Ok awesome just wanted to make sure it made sense to someone else and not just me lol I'm gonna be tossing this type r soon anyway, too much power draw for my tastes and a W3 runs at about half the power with the same output lol I just clipped my mini ground wire at the battery and used some 0 gauge ring terminals, and then used our car audio side posts, much like the original bolts but its got a threaded bolt inside the one connecting to the battery, so you never actually disconnect anything if you're removing the stereo

 

I would recommend that all the wiring for the Big 3 be the same size. However, go with 4 ga to see if that solves your issue. If it does GREAT. If it does not, then just add a second 4ga wire.

Glad to see you enjoy the w3. Have a look at the JBL GTO series. They have a fairly high sensitivity rating and get loud with minimal power.

 

If I had to choose one of the grounds to be more important to upgrade than another, I would have to say the ground from the engine/alternator to chassis would be the one to upgrade. The reason being, the car runs off the alternator, not the battery. The battery is only there for starting, and it also helps filter the AC ripple caused by the alternator.

Really you should do the "Big 3" upgrade, lots of information on the interweeb about this, but basically, you upgrade the charge lead between the alternator and the battery, the ground between the battery and chassis, and the ground between the engine/alternator an the chassis. I will often ground the engine ground and the battery ground to the same point on the chassis.