as a very general rule how hot can an amp get safley without risking burning up internal componants?....on my old 2 channel amp (that i might use for speakers now) i had it hooked up to a 10 inch sub and i think i had the gains set a bit high anyway the system was going loud for like an hour striaght and it suddenly cut out (which has never happened before, gone way longer than that) and we popped the trunk and the amp was so hot a garbage bag that was in the trunk had melted to the side of the case we shut er down right away and let it cool right off and the amp seems to have survived the overheat just fine...anyway im assuming this is to hot for an amp to get?

since my amp is in the trunk of a black car and it can get reallly hot in there sometimes should i add some relay controllled cooling fans to keep my new amps cool when i install them??

 

the overheat protection circuit is there for a reason. typically it will shut the amp down before the temperature gets to the point where any serious harm is done, but i really woudln't recommend heating it up like that on a regular basis.

fans will help a bit. try to have it mounted in a spot where air can get at the bottom and top of the amp to cool it off.

 

The more important question is, why is your amp running so hot? Melting garbage bags sounds pretty hot which usually isn't a good thing...

 

Way too hot... what other stuff besides garbage bags is obstructing air flow.

Only 3 reasons it should get hot
1. it is working real hard into a low impedance
2. it has poor air circulation to the heat sinks (garbage bags)
3. an electrical fault exists

I am guessing #2
CPU fans are available that run on 12VDC