Intruder

oh yeah, by the way...
I went to the local car-audio shop and they sold me two of those (4 gauge ring termials)



for $5

MisterT

They are 99 cents per terminal at Knuconceptz, but then you have to wait a couple of days for them to be shipped. Plus you pay for shipping. It's still raining, but not hard. Last night I was awaken a few times by crashes of lightning and dreamed of hurricanes and natural disasters the rest of the night! Talk to you later. Hopefully there will be a break so I can redo some wires under my hood and look at the power wire.

I think I cut mine right at the base of the factory terminal and shoved the two in the 4 gauge opening and screwed it down. The 4 gauge wire for the amp and the power wires for the crossover and relay was right above the ring of the power wire going to the amp. I used the knuconceptz kind, but it is bigger than the lightning audio.

MisterT

Intruder

Mine won't reach the terminal... That's what I was going to do, but....

I'll go grab some pics in a while. I hope we can figure this out, so I can finish installing and finally begin enjoying my stuff...

Intruder

I know! How many times have I said that those suckers will skin you alive for the tiniest part... $5 for two of those is ridiculous, but I wanted to do it last night. No other choice... I wonder if Home Depot sells them?

MisterT

Good luck trying to find any thing in Home Depot. I went to Lowes for the gutter catcher and the one they had didn't look all that great so went to Home Depot. Guess what same f--king thing! I went with 4 of them in case I screwed up. Thing was a bitch to cut. My hands are all cut up the thing was hard to contour around the emblem, so after doing 1/2 of it and wasn't really getting any where, I gave up Thing is a pain. I taped paper on the top and on the emblem, but the crap still ended up scratching parts of the grill.

misterT

Intruder

oh man, I'm sorry your stuff didn't work out either.

I hate working on my car. Everything is so dirty and rugged and... needs brute force and... arrghhh... The electrical stuff is even worse! It's not like soldering components on a PCB... *sigh*

I am going out to get a pice of wood now. I'll start working on the rack. I will take a few pics around the battery also.... but there is little hope for me. The cable doesn't budge and there is no way I can bring it up to the terminal. Crimping it to a patch of 4 gauge cable is not possible, is it?

MisterT

A local shop used my power wires in a previous install and crimped 4 gauge together. You would have to go to a local stereo shop. I doubt Circuit Sillies has them. They are huge butt connectors.

Intruder

is it safe though? I can always go to "Race n' Rock" and pay $5 for two of them...

Intruder

PROGRESS REPORT:

How much space the box takes... (perfect!)





Here you can see how much clearance the amp will have when I mount it on the amp rack. I bought some wood today and will cut a 40"x18" piece to use for the rack.





This is where I plan on installing the GAIN control and a volt/amp meter once everything else is finished.

asylum24

hey intruder I was wondering what you plan on using to make the face for your gain control... i mean when i amde my face for my switches by my steering wheel, I used the flat , not bumpy part of an old vhs tape and just sanded it down... wors well and look better than having it mounted on those blacnk spots... but a vhs doesnt have a big enough peice to fit over that hole

Intruder

right now, I will just screw the gain control in there. it has a nice box, so it will work fine for the time being... then I will probably design my own custom "face plate" which will be bolted to the plastic around and will incorporate all 3 components (gain, amp/volt meter).

MisterT

I like your plans esp. the last one with the voltimeter, gain control, and amp temp. In your case with the power wire to the battery, I think it will be okay. I would try it and see how it does and go from there. I like the new head unit too! I know you mentioned in a previous post that you didn't care for it because it wasn't black, but it looks tight.
After redoing my grounds under the hood I headed out last night and my lights are dimming worse! GRRR!! I don't know what the hell to do now. Just when you think you fix something, than this comes up.

Good luck with the rest of the install!

MisterT

MisterT

I checked the grounds <again> and things look okay. I have an extra screw in for a 2 gauge wire that I was able to use another ground wire to mount to the engine compartment, so in all I have three grounds coming off the battery. One is going to the factory location, but is upgraded to 4 gauge; the other going to the intake manifold (just added); and the other is a daisy chain going to various parts of the engine compartment. I also checked the ground on my cap and the wire was kind of loose where it was grounded to the car chassis, so I DC'ed the cap and pounded the terminal ring for a better grasp on the wires and re-installed the cap. Maybe that was causing some of the dimness. I don't expect any thing as nothing has worked yet

As for your install Intruder, let me know how the single sub sounds in the ported box. I am thinking of going with one sub again and am thinking either sealed or ported. At least with the sealed, I can DC one sub, switch amp to "high power" which would give me 400 watts rms to the single sub versus 300 watts in High Current mode when pushing two of them. I have to experiment. That less than one hour deal around noon made me sweat off a pound it seemed. It's hot as hell today to be tinkering with a car.

MisterT

Intruder

Hey man, I'm glad you like, but the last one isn't an amp temp. gauge. It's going to read the current flowing through the 4 gauge wire going to the amp. Basically, how much current the amp draws. The interesting thing is that the indicator will jump up with the bass. cuz the more bass is poundinng through the sub, the more current is being drawn from the battery => the meter will be jumping (and the voltmeter will be showing a HUUUUGE-*** drop ).

Quote:

I like the new head unit too! I know you mentioned in a previous post that you didn't care for it because it wasn't black, but it looks tight.

I'm glad you like my HU. It's not "new" cuz I got it like 3 months ago... I want to finish the sub & amp install so I can change the HU and upgrade its power, etc. Here's a "nicer" pic.

Quote:

After redoing my grounds under the hood I headed out last night and my lights are dimming worse! GRRR!! I don't know what the hell to do now. Just when you think you fix something, than this comes up.

Good luck with the rest of the install!

Good luck with yours! At least I know mine will work when it's done, but yours.... You keep re-doing it to see no result... Good luck!

Intruder

Mine is certainly going to be different! I have a very powerful amp. I also measured the total resistance of my box (the two coils in parallel) and the meter read 1.7 ohms. This means that I will be pushing more than the specified 650W at 2ohms... maybe about 700W (because of the lesser load -- 0.3ohms less ) wow... My gain has to be at 50% all the time, otherwise I'll make my sub explode!

I will let you know how it sounds, you can count on that.