Can anyone tell me a good place to run a ground for my amp?

Last night I was successfully able to run 4ga from the battery, to a fuse, through the firewall, under the passenger door step, and drop it to a distribution block under the passenger seat. I ran 8ga to the amp (no fuse in the the dist block yet) which I am currently planning to put behind the passenger seat - what is a nice big drop to put 8ga onto?

If I find I need a Capaciter I'm thinking about dropping it off the same distribution block and running its ground to the same spot.

And there is a small part of me thinking about trying the amp under the drivers seat - but I don't think I need a seatwarmer though <grin>

Interesting sidenote: On my initial installation, I ran 10ga from the battery for my Alpine 9835. The alpine arrived at the same time as the RSX sub I bought on a whim, so I ended up tapping the sub off the same 10ga at the firewall, and runnin 10ga from it to the wee built-in sub amp in the trunk. In this configuration, I could turn the alpine up to @19-20 before it would distort and get dull. Last night I removed the tap and plugged the sub to the distribution block. This morning, I found I could turn the Alpine up to 27 before distortion - aka the sub and the 10ga run was starving it for power!

-JD

 

If it's near the seat, the seat bolts are nice, fat conductors to the frame.

 

DONT buy a Cap there a total waste of money and if anything work against the power a sound system needs.
Just think if you where a Car Audio Manufacturer and could make a 'thing' for 50 cents and sell it for $60 wounld'nt you tell everyone they needed them.....

If you want me to get techy about why there bad i will, but be prepared for a long post...

 

Hmm. I thought Caps were a standard fix if your system makes your lights dim...

Yes, please get techy. I would be interested in learning more. At this point, I don't think my single 170x2 amp, tiny RSX sub amb, and Alpine 9835 HU are gonna hit it that hard - but if they do, I am going to have to work and resolve the problem, so I got a distribution block with an extra drop for a cap if I needed one.

So we have a common starting point, here is my completely inexpert, uneducated understanding of what a cap does in the system... Caps store charge. When drain exceeds supply, voltage drops, and the caps release charge to raise voltage back up. When the voltage drops down, the cap regenerates its stored charge. Incorrect?

-JD

 

no need to rehash old material... do a search with "MacGyver Modifry capacitor" and you'll come across several of our old threads. There was plenty of talk from both sides, but when it came right down to it, Modifry was kind enough to do some bench tests and measure. In the end, his results were surprising to some, but we also agreed that more extensive testing would need to be done to clear up certain misconceptions.

In a nutshell, though, don't dismiss caps out of hand... they have a time and a place in any good system.