I had a 300 watt amp with a 10" blew the amp and the sub so I upgraded to 2 alpine type r 12"s with an mrp-m1000(600 watt rms) and it now dims my head lights at night when turned up loud pretty classic problem from what I've been reading by the way my car is a 2000 accord coupe EX 4 cyl. Im not sure what to try first, I read something about upgrading your wiring also a capacitor and the other was a btter alternator opinions please? also Im not quite satisfied I wanna return this mrp and get the pdx-1.1000(1000 watt rms) which Im sure is not gonna help the situation.

 

I'd do wiring first, if you don't see results move to a higher output alternator.

600 RMS really isn't THAT much, I would re-do grounds and such with 4 gauge or larger and see if that helps.

 

well first of all the mrp-m1000 is a great amp
600 at 4ohms 1000 at 2 ohms
while the pdx is 1000 at 4 and 2 ohms
then since u have 2 woofers are they wired down to 1ohm or 4ohm? idk if the amps is 1 ohm stable..
regardless dimming lights is signs of a weak electrical system...

 

Well I was'nt sure about the ohms they are both wired direct 1+ and 1- on each sub to the back of the box?

 

first and cheapest thing is to check your wiring. start with a heavier ground wire. most of the systems that i have had that dimmed my lights was simply my ground wasn't heavy enough wire or just in a bad spot. if that doesn't work rather than by a cap i would just upgraded to a heavier duty output alternator since you want to get a bigger amp anyways.

 

yea im going to look into that today so should a 4 gauge ground be good enough?

 

yeah. if its not then it is more than your ground wire man. the alternator in your car should be capable of handling the draw that the amp is putting on it. i hope it works for you

 

First I would do the big three upgrade, Look at the sticky above, Make sure the alternator is charging at it reccommended output. Make sure the battery Is in okay condition. Use true 4 or bigger.gauge wire. If your running that much power. I assuming that you are running a 4 channel amp for your mids and highs too. At that rms sub level I like to run the sub amp on its own line and the mids and high amp on its own line. This way the sub amp does not pull power away from the mids and high amp and makes the 4 channel sound muddy. Or use 0 gauge is you can afford it. Not some cheap swap meet wire or that ebay special wire. Its not the same period! At 1k watts I would start to look at upgrading the factory alternator.

Oyea try this enclosure setup.
sealed box volume: 0.57-1.0 cu. ft.
ported box volume: 0.75-2.0 cu. ft.


Use the ported 2.0 cu. ft.

 

Yea Im gonna get this wiring done Im not so sure I wanna do it myself. The mids and highs are just running from the deck im gonna deal with this issue before I go any further with the audio system. and thanks for the info guys

 

You have a connections problem. Most problem's the earth ground. Do you have any corrosion on your terminal posts. Are you connections tight or lose? Seen you have do the big 3 on the sticky thread here.

 

Well I went to an alternator guy and he hooked up my car to this machine while the stereo was pumpin and said Im not really drawing all that much from my alternator he said to buy a cap and it should be fine also apparently my car already has the big 3 wire setup its 4 gauge all around. need to re wire my subs though they are running 1ohm my amp is'nt rated for that so Im goin for the 2ohms with 1000 watts

 

caps are pretty much useless wastes of money for a system that only pulls as much as you say you do.
dont waste your money on that. Re-do your grounds and go from there.
or ignore it?

 

not an option if I have to I'd downgrade my system if no other options were availible I want my headlights to be full on at all times when needed I like to see at night, its really quite amazing how opinions differ on this subject some say ground wires some say a cap some say new alternator the guy at my audio shop here said my alternator is 80 amps and my car alone is pulling 75 amps and the amp alone is trying to pull at least another 60 amps so mathematically it does'nt add up he said deffinatly bigger alternator which does'nt exsist as far as I can tell I've called everywhere.

 

To be honest i would recommend using a cap 0.5 or 1.0 farad is good enough trust me you wont be disapointed and it`ll be much cheaper than a new alternator

 

yea I've read 1 farad for every 1000 watts so I bought a 1 farad kind of confused on how to charge it before using it might pay someone to install its really simple I know but the charging it has me a lil confused, the majority of people have told me go with a cap their pretty well manditory from what I've been told with car stereo systems saves your battery.

 

Well install of a cap is stupid simply you just plug positive to positive and negative to negative. The charging instructions just have you use a resistor the first time to prevent charging it too fast.

All you do is hook just the negative or the positive up, then put the resistor in between the other connection so it only lets it charge slow (use a multimeter or the display on the cap to see how full it is, 12v = full, but you usually only have to let it charge to 8v or whatever before you can just hook it up).

If you already have true 4 gauge wire from negative to chassis, chassis to motor/alternator, chassis to amp, AND positive straight to amp, I don't know what to tell you other than getting a higher output alternator, I doubt the cap will do much.

 

just to note, in any stock car i have ever owned, honda, toyota, etc, all my stock power setups, battery, alt, etc could support a 1000w class d amp with no big problems.. now class a/b amps, usually around 500w without major dimming, but for good measure, once you hit 1000w rms i would up the alt or add a batcap 800 or something.

 

i used a capacitor on my systems and that usually stops the dimming. i also have 4 gauge wire so that should work for u

 

please please just dont go slap a capacitor on and call it a day, it will do more harm than good



the way i try to explain this classic problem to people is this:

if you have a gash in your arm and you cover it up with a bandaid (read: a capacitor on a weak electrical system) then you wont see the gash right? but that doesnt mean you just fixed the gash, that bish could get infected


what if you were to properly clean and stitch up the gash (read: better battery/wiring/alternator)? that would be a much better option

you've got a few options, most of the time when people come to me with this problem (specificly in unibody cars like hondas) i run a ground wire alongside the power wire all the way up front and ground directly to the battery (after doing the big three/five of course)

i do this because the glued together pieces of the unibody vehicles (read: honda/acura) can sometimes slightly seperate causing more resistance in the ground and creating a nasty ground loop


...


so in conclusion, upgrade in this order

wiring: (big three/five, larger gauge wire, seperate ground wire all the way to the front)

Battery: (either add a small supplemental battery into the charging system or upgrade to a larger starting battery

Alternator: this is one of the last and most expensive options on the list, but pretty straightfoward... upgrade to an alternator that can output more amperage

 

I do not reccommed running the ground wire all the way to the battery. Keep it short as possable.The longer the wire, the more resistance it has and this will cause a voltage drop!
I do agree that a cap can be a band aid in most systems. Caps can be a great help to most planned out systems. The last stereo shop was right. You need a bigger alternator

 

 

have you ever tried it vs the resistance in most unibody vehicles?

ever noticed how most of the guys running CRX's in any type of SPL comps have their ground's setup?

the only think i would ever use a cap for is a Power Filter, but thats just me

 

Before I just ground anything to a floor pan or anything I allways measure it with a multi meter. We are not talking about a spl car with the amps 2 feet away from the battery and more then enough alternators and current to light up a small city.

 

im not saying that grounding to the floor pan doesnt work... it does, im saying it doesnt work as good, there is a reason the SPL guys do what they do... weather its on a larger scale or not

 

I dont know if this will help you out but i also had the same problem with my old car and went cheap and just did cap which helped (never just do that again) but instead said f that and went for the big 5 this time with my ek hatch. I did all new grounds off motor, tranny, ect, new 170 high output alternator 4 gauge wire and yellow top battery, and a 3 farad cap. Im running 1 1000 rms JL class d amp powering a 12" JL W7 and a JL 500 rms 4 channel amp powering JL 6x5,6x9 components and a 200 watt pioneer n5 head unit. Make sure you take into consideration your head unit and the draw it will also put on your car while adding up all your extra goodies you installed. Every little install you do wasn't meant to be charged by that stock alternator. Never had a dim light. Also went straight 0 gauge wire with a 300 amp fuse to the cap then off the cap to two distribution blocks feeding out to 4 gauge wire which then goes to both amps. Hope it helps.