I just replaced the battery-engine, and battery-frame grounds with 2GA, and I really mean I replaced them. I pulled the old wires and used the existing mounting holes, after cleaning them up of course. But I'm still stuck on the whole alternator bit... is there any way I can add thicker wire onto my alt? I obviously don't just want to cut the small wire near the plug and butt-connect some 2GA on there. :P

 

it's a 2g ford alt!!! there is no way of beefing up the alt outputs, stepping up to a 1wire gm or a large 3rd gen ford alt, will allow you to do it...
what kind of ford are you building....

 

Finally someone who knows what I'm dealing with!

It's a 1988 Bronco 2 XLT with "supreme" sound system, power locks and windows and all that.

 

I'm not sure if anyone actually checks this thread anymore but I seem to have fixed the problem.

I ran 2Ga wire for both my power and ground for the amp and voila.... no more dimming.

I'm not sure of the reasoning for this, but the best I can come up with is that the amp wasn't seeing the current it needed through the 8Ga, so it was trying to compensate by drawing more?

Someone back me up on this?

Or correct if I'm terribly wrong. :P

 

You're pretty close.

Smaller wire has more resistance per foot than bigger wire. So current was being wasted as heat and so the amp had to suck more power through the wire and so more heat was generated and on and on and on.

 

Alright, thanks.

And do you have any idea how much 2Ga is actually worth? Cause the car audio shop in my town said 15 bucks a foot.....

Luckily I'm tight with a few guys there and they got me some Audison 2Ga, like 25 ft for $40.00.

 

It varies. I paid $3/ft for my 1/O.

 

That makes $15/ft for 2Ga seem like a major cash grab....

 

I also bought 75 feet of it though :P

Like I said, it varies.

I wouldn't pay more than about 5 bucks/ft for 2AWG

 

Lol, that's a pretty ridiculous fluctuation in price