94Runner4x4

so m drivin around and with my subs on and my battery guage is goin insane, and then my stereo cuts off, i've had this problem before, so i replaced the battery, hen it went away and came back, then i replaced the alt. and it went away for 3 months or so, then the starter went out so i got a new starter, with an all new alt., batt., and starter, y owld my stereo shutoff while drivin? thanks in advance

Brendan

try cleaning your ground contact points...and your keyboard

94Runner4x4

Keyboard cleaning.....check, ground contact points.....?.....Which ground contacts, for the battery, or what?

89macrunner

All of your ground contacts..

please post your audio setup..most importantly your subs..and their resistance ..your sub amp and speaker amp if you have one.

94Runner4x4

i have a 1000 watt powerzone amp with 2 kicker 10's 300 watt rms

AcidicDreams

I'm not sure about how much power your amp actually puts out (EDIT: Crunch amps are a little over rated, probably puts out 700-800w with gains properly set @ 1 ohm) but if it's truly pulling 1k watts you are overstressing your amp/alt at full tilt if you are clipping the amp. Do you have the gains on the amp all the way up? Have you done the "big 3" upgrade. Even if you have your amp gains set correctly and the big3 done your 80amp alt will struggle with the heavy hitting bass notes... which will drop the voltage causing your amp to go into undervoltage protect mode and I beleive if you do that alot you can kill the alt/batt but I may be mistaken.... I would start with dialing back the gains though, I have this funny feeling you have the gain maxed and you are clipping the hell out of your amp...

AcidicDreams

another problem could be using too small of wire from the battery to the amp. But if that was the case the battery and alternator would be unharmed. I would use 4ga wiring for that amp

94Runner4x4

i have the gains turned down, and yes powerzone's are very overated but 1000 watts even 800 watts is straight with me for the $90 i paid for it.......and i have 4ga wiring from the battery to a distribution block and 2 8ga wires coming out of that and into the power....i know what you're thinkin......you're thinkin wtf is this kid doin, he's a dumbass, but i only have the distribution block cause the 4ga wire is too big to fit in the power contact so i have 2 8's runnin into it a hell of alot easier than 1 4ga.......

AcidicDreams

well the battery guage going nuts says you have major dips in voltage... look up a gain setting tutorial to make sure you aren't clipping the amp... my 4Runner dealt with 800w RMS just fine with 4guage and the "big 3" upgrade... in fact you might want to google the big 3 upgrade and try that

TNRabbit

fyi: Two eight guage wires do not a 4 guage make; you have to quadruple to overcome the resistance.

A capacitor would go a long way toward helping your issues. Remember, you only have a 60 amp alternator! I agree with Acidic; you are probably clipping your amp. I'd be very surprised if you get a clean 400 watts out of that amp....

89macrunner

As TNRabbit said... thats a bad idea with the wires... get the 4ga in there...if you use a 4ga terminal ring and grind down the sides it works fine (thats what i did).

My battery gauge also does this when i have my headlights on.

Im running a 1000watt RMS amp a 300watt RMS amp and two 65\85watt lights...My headlights dim and my battery gauge goes nuts at night when the lights are on.

I pull WAY more amps than i should on the stock alt and im waiting for it to die. Im also going to do a dual battery setup soon.

AcidicDreams

First off capacitors will do nothing for this problem. If you don't have the power to run the amps you don't have power to keep power in the cap. It will only cause more strain. Next second batteries do help some but they provide power at 12v while the amp is looking for 14v. The best way to solve this problem is an HO alt. Check out www.ohiogenerator.com or http://www.mean-green.com for HO alts. As for the 8ga you MIGHT be ok since I imagine the runs are under 1ft but the proper way to do that is buy a "reducer" like this one: http://cgi.ebay.com/Sound-Quest-By-S...QQcmdZViewItem

you might even get away with a 0-4ga since you can make the 4ga fit in the 0ga connector with the set screw and having the other end be a solid peice instead of strands of wire it may just fit in the hole....

As for clipping the amp look up a gain setting tutorial that uses a multimeter... it's a bit more of a pain but it's hard to set gains by ear with subs. An osciliscope would be best but I doubt you have one or want to buy on to use it for 5minutes....

94Runner4x4

thanks guys, i ended up takin my system out a couple of days after my original post cause i had to move down to college and my parents didn feel i was responsible enough to take my car, so that night before i was gonna head down to college someone broke into my house stole all my mom's ลลลล,(purse, credit cards, checks) a video camera, and a key to my 94 4runner, all the keys to my mom's mazda mpv, and they stole my sisters blue protege 5, but didnt even touch my dad's 06 4x4 4Runner, i dont know what they were thinkin, but i ended up takin my system out cause of them, but thanks for all the advice