Big Three Upgrade - Help! Show me your pics!

[Gary Hart]

I've come to the conclusion that I should perform the "Big Three Upgrade" to the power cables under the hood in my SportTrac.



I'm begging for anyone who has done this to a SportTrac to please post up some pictures which show how you routed the wires. Where the Positive connection is on the alternator. Where you connected the ground to Engine Block... Where you connected the Battery Ground to Frame.



And I mean where you found a better.... beefier place to ground Battery to Frame too. That stock bolt looks wimpy as heck for passing current.



Any help is appreciated... and if anybody has possibly seen a YouTube link please post that as well.



===



Your Efforts will be smiled upon by the Karma Gods!



-G

 

[Jacob Dryer]

I only did 2 of the 3.. but I don't have any dimming with 2 amps pulling 800 watts rms.





This is a short ground from the battery to the factory ground location, the only thing I did was clean it up with some sandpaper and use the factory mounting location.

[Broken External Image]:



The silver wire running through the top of the picture is zip tied and is the alt to + battery wire.

[Broken External Image]:



This one kind of shows the connection to the alt itself. Just a ring terminal to the stock location.

[Broken External Image]:

 

[Jacob Dryer]

I have never and will never clean and engine compartment.. :kiss_it:

 

[Doug Roland]

Jacob, now I know why we never saw under your hood @ the Seattle meet!:bwahaha:

 

[Bill Koonce]

Sorry, no pics. I have a Gen2 V-8. I can see that yours is a V-6, and you didn't say what year. So what's right for mine may not be right for yours. But I can help a little.



Where to attach the other end of the cables? Exactly where they were, factory stock. The only exception would be if you have a second, deep discharge battery for your car stereo, which is a pretty good idea if you're serious about the audio system, or just don't want to kill the one battery. Two battery systems MUST have a battery isolator so that the two batteries and the alternator are protected. If this is the case, find a mechanic with experience with dual battery systems.

 

[Gary Hart]

Ok.... that (not so great quality) pic confirms my suspicion about which of the two connectors on the stock Alt is the positive.



@JDBoxes... Dude... for christ sake get some nice after-market battery terminals already will ya!



I was actually hoping that somebody could also show pics of a better location from the Battery Negative to a Grounding point on the frame. I couldn't readily see another good-looking point to connect to. :/



I do have a Kinetik HC600 PowerCell connected out back by my amps, which is connected to the starter battery as well. If I put a battery isolator in-line... would this battery still become charged-up by the alternator?



I'll try to snap some pics today.

 

[Jacob Dryer]

Meh the terminals work and as you can tell I don't really care if it's "clean" under the hood. It's a truck, and it's not a show truck.



The isolator would stop the two batteries from fighting each other. If one isn't fully charged they send juice back and forth to create and equal charge on both. With an isolator both will still get charged but they won't drain each other.

 

[Bill Barber]

MY GAWD JD:throwup:

And I thought mine was dirty[Broken External Image]:

 

[Jacob Dryer]

I'm a dirt collector.. I've got dirt under there from at least 15 different states :bwahaha:

 

[Bill Barber]

and here I thought mods were held to a higher standard ,FAIL:sad:

 

[Gary Hart]

@bill barber : Can you please post more pics of your Big 3 upgrade connections????

 

[Bill Barber]

never did them because they are not needed.

 

[Bill Koonce]

I do have a Kinetik HC600 PowerCell connected out back by my amps, which is connected to the starter battery as well. If I put a battery isolator in-line... would this battery still become charged-up by the alternator?

IMHO you made the right move by going with an actual battery instead of a capacitor. Those 1 Farad caps are a kludge when what you really need is better wiring. If you're running thick enough cables, there's no need for a capacitor. As a long-time customer of High End audio boutiques, I'm guessing that you paid way too much for your battery with fancy claims. Don't worry, it will still work. MOF if it's as slim as it looks, you could tuck it behind the back seat.



IIRC, each of your batteries should be connected to nothing else but the battery isolator and the loads. So if you're running the two batteries in parallel, you're defeating the battery isolator's purpose. The battery isolator should provide charging current as needed to each battery, separately and as needed. It should also keep the two batteries electrically separate when it comes to discharge. So your starting battery should power only your starter, headlights, ECU and other normal electrical accessories. The other battery should only power your stereo, and nothing else.



P.S. Those wires with clear insulation that gets to the consistency of Gummi Beren when warm are not suitable for under-hood use. Get SAE approved automotive wiring for all under-hood use. Don't use Monster Cable, and don't use welding cable; use automotive cable.

 

[Gary Hart]

I buy everything from SonicElectronix. And do all the work myself, thus save a pretty penny... and learn by doing and researching everything online. (Have already constructed 4 successful subwoofer enclosures, and been thru 5 amp installs between our 2 cars)



Wouldn't using Monster Cable be fine as long as I run from alternator...back to the firewall... then over to the battery side? To keep it away from the hot stuff? It can actually take quite a bit of heat before anything bad happens. On a few of my connectors I've soldered them carefully using a FATBOY propane torch and it worked beautifully.



BTW... Kintek actually recommends running the PowerCell in Parallel with the starter battery... both the Positives AND Negatives. With 2 in-line fuses... one near each batteries positive termial. (I personally don't see the sense in that. There'd be no beneifit of having a 2nd fuse on the same line. wierd)



I have the positives of both batteries connected to each other.... but the Grounds are separate on mine. It's just easier. (It also allowed me to have a much better grounding spot for the battery behind my back seat, went to the big ol' honkin' bolt that holds down the rear bench seat). I just have to always disconnect both grounds before fussing with my system connections is all.



=====



Question for JDBoxes... is that positive on the Alternator just a nut tightened onto a bolt? What does it look like underneath the rubber boot cover it has on it??

 

[Jacob Dryer]

It is just a nut tightened on a bolt like you described.. There is just a stock ring connector and I stacked mine on top.



As far as two fuses.. the reason for that is if the wiring gets damaged. Right now you are going to continue to throw sparks because both sides won't be disconnected from power. In other words this is a fire hazard. It's a good idea to have two fuses on the battery to alt wiring too..



Even if you use an isolator you are still running them in parallel, and the reason for the negative is I read that in large systems it can make a difference because copper is a better conductor than steel or whatever the chassis is made from. And in some cases you don't get a very good ground at the rear of the chassis because of all the unibody construction crap that is going on now (wouldn't be an issue with ST)

 

[Gary Hart]

So JD.... the extra wire you ran from Alt to Battery Positive.... that's just your typical High-Current audio powering cable right? I shouldn't have to worry about heat much as long as I route it along the back near the firewall... right?



P.S. Just took pictures of it all... so yeah.. I guess I did put the two fuses as they recommended. Sorry... it's been a demanding week mentally with my work.



I'll post up pics of it all in a second.

 

[Gary Hart]

Monster 300 series Battery Terminals.



Ground.

Positive.

I pierced thru rubber boot around steering...

then zip-tied over to the side to prevent it getting caught in any of the moving parts.

Out back behidn the rear seats. 2nd in-line fuse. Monster True 4 guage...

...to a distribution block. Out of the block a no-name brand 4-gauge (not true spec) and an 8 guage. 4-gauge to the Hitron amp ... 8 gauge the Pioneer Amp.

just a shot to show the layout. (Yeah I know, I should clean-up the speaker wiring a bit, so sue me.)

3-D perspective shot.

1.75cf 4" ported box. Had to graft a 2nd baffle on top of it when I rec'd the ALPINE SWR-1242D because it wasn't 11" cutout like they said it was on the site... it was 10+7/8'ths... GRRRR!!!!

"The Back Massager"

Awwww Yeeeeeah!!....:supercool::banana::supercool:

 

[Jacob Dryer]

What is the box tuned to?



I've had that plain old 4 gauge stereo amp power wire under the hood routed where the pictures show for almost 5 years with no issues. Just make sure you secure it in some way so that it doesn't move. Heat hasn't been an issue at all. Cable looks the same as when I put it in.



As far as fusing goes, any and all positive connections should have a fuse. It needs a fuse on both ends if both sides are capable of providing power. So from alt to bat, and bat to bat should have two fuses. Bat to amp should have one.

So it looks like the monster distro block isn't fused, and then from the front bat to the back bat should have one within 18" of the back bat.



Might be overkill.. but it's technically what is supposed to be done.

 

[Gary Hart]

Yeah.... like I said.. I misspoke myself earlier... I do have 2 fuses on the battery-to-battery line.... like you can see in the pics.



====



Cool... glad to hear about the Alternator to positive Battery terminal cable being a no problemo situation.



My only issue now is that I'm currently already using all 3 spots on the positive terminal.



Hmm... thinking maybe I'll buy a another Monter 0 gauge Allen-wrench termnal connector and shove both of those 2 reds into it together to free-up one for coming straight off the Alternator. Couldn't hurt anything.... might even help.



Port is tuned to 35-36 Hz if I recall. The box works beautifully. There used to be some chuffing at the port because I used a collar connector to give it more support on the outside of the box there to give another surface I could glue to as well. The collar had a lip inside of it for the inner tube to butt up against and that was the source of the chuffing... I took a Dremel Multi-Max with the flush-cut blade and trimmed-it nice real nice, then sanded it a bit too to make it smooth to further prevent any more wind drag/resistance.



My only sorta issue I have now... and I believe it'll go away once i finish the Big-Three-Upgrade.... is that on certain bass-intensive songs.... when playing at high-volume (and I often maximize the MP3's to squeeze out all the output they are worth)... sometimes the highs/mids (aka my 4-ch amp, which is the newest addition to the equation) will start to "dim out" after a certain amount of time of playback into the song. Varies depending on song. I can turn the volume down a notch or two... and wait... and the highs/mids will creep back out of this "dimming" effect.



My assumption is that it's probably something the 4-ch amp purposefully does to protect itself from damage from clipping, or something like that. I further hypothesize that it's because of voltage somehow. It seems to take a lot longer for this "dimming" to occur on those tracks where the encoding is very clean and crisp.



anyhoo... I'm slowly working on all the connections... redo'ing them... soldering the crimped-on connectors as well. I've already noticed a hair of difference audibly with the wires I've already redone.

 

[Jacob Dryer]

Sounds like the kenitik isn't keeping up with a charge, have you checked the voltage when it's happening? Finishing up big 3 might fix it though :grin:



In general amps are pretty dumb they either work or don't, so if output isn't right its more than likely because it isn't getting the juice it needs to be right.



Are you grounding the amps back to the battery or chassis?