installing audio system in a '94, help very much needed

[Professr]

I've got a '94 GP 4 door, V6 engine (used, naturally). I also have 2 1100W 10" Sony Xplod subs, and a 1200W Cuspid Xtreme amp. Any idea how to get a wire from the battery to the trunk? The only grommets through the firewall that I can see are hard plastic... no room to push an 8G cable through. Will my stock alternator be able to handle this? The subs are only 600W RMS total, and I doubt I'll be running them even near peak cap, but powering them with a 20A accessory socket just doesn't really add a lot of oomph...

I've also got 3 Logitech Z340 computer speaker sets running off a 100W inverter for the midrange...

[vengebear]

-If I cannot find a grommet in the firewall, I will usually drill my own hole. I have a very long drill bit that I specifically bought to do that awhile ago. The drill bit was like 18 inches long. Is the battery on the drivers side or the passengers side under the hood? I can usually find a spot in the firewall to drill. Just be very careful!!! You do not want to drill into something that you shouldn't be drilling into. One time, it took me almost an hour to just find a spot to drill. I have to make sure that the spot I am drilling into is accessible from the inside of the vehicle near the firewall.
-Your stock alternator should be fine. If your lights dim when your subs thump hard, buy a capacitor - 1 Farad should suffice fine.
-When you say "powering by a 20A accessory socket", what do u mean by that? You should have an inline fuse in the 8G power cable running straight from your battery to your amp. You then also have a remote turn on wire (12V) which turns on your amp.
-Ben

[Professr]

The battery is on the driver's side... Looking at it yesterday, I noticed that there's a way to bring the wire up into the groove beside the hood, and down into the door-hinge area. There's a rubber flextube around there that carries wires from the door into the car near the dash. Perhaps I could lift up the edge of the tube and slip the wire through there? I'm not sure if that would let water into the car when it rained or not... :\

[vengebear]

You could try that. It seems as if it could work. Just make sure when you close the door that you are not crunching any wires.
-Ben

[Professr]

'K, thanks I wonder if I have to connect to the battery terminal itself, or if I could just use that nice terminal post on the main fusebox... It's fed by 8G wire too, I think (scratches his chin thoughfully)

[anelder1]

Originally Posted by Professr

'K, thanks I wonder if I have to connect to the battery terminal itself, or if I could just use that nice terminal post on the main fusebox... It's fed by 8G wire too, I think (scratches his chin thoughfully)

I used the post, thats actually one of the reasons that it is there - silly sidemount batteries suck - and ran my 2g underneath, just clipping it in every once in a while with zip ties to different existing holes, then I came up in the middle of the spare tire recession, it's a big honking drain hole right in the middle- works like a champ!!

[Professr]

That would actually work pretty well too... I managed to route the cable the way I described though, and there are pictures here: http://gsfx.file-radio.com/car/index.html
The sound isn't as powerful as I'd like... but I'm beginning to think that's because my amp is cheap. My trunk is pretty well sound insulated too.

[anelder1]

Looks like that works pretty well, but I ran the heavy stuff (2g) that is about 1/2 inch thick with insulation and all. I do the heavy wire because there is less impedance in it and allows a "cleaner" power to get to the amps - 2 of them, one 4-channel for speakers, and one 2-channel that is bridged and run as mono to each sub, this allows a lot more power to push each sub, you might try it if you haven't already, I made a buddies cheap rampage amp thump pretty hard when I snuck that little trick in on him, he said that he didn't know what happened, just that all of a sudden one day his bass was to loud and he actually had to turn it down, LOL.

[Professr]

Originally Posted by anelder1

Looks like that works pretty well, but I ran the heavy stuff (2g) that is about 1/2 inch thick with insulation and all. I do the heavy wire because there is less impedance in it and allows a "cleaner" power to get to the amps - 2 of them, one 4-channel for speakers, and one 2-channel that is bridged and run as mono to each sub, this allows a lot more power to push each sub, you might try it if you haven't already, I made a buddies cheap rampage amp thump pretty hard when I snuck that little trick in on him, he said that he didn't know what happened, just that all of a sudden one day his bass was to loud and he actually had to turn it down, LOL.

Mine's either 8 or 10G, but the amp is 4 channel. I've got 2 channels bridged for each sub, with both left and right channels of audio going to each sub (that way it's mono... i've heard stereo doesn't do so well with subs).

I'll look into getting some 2G, but it's not easy to find stock wire with good enough insulation to take the beating that long trips will offer...

[anelder1]

yeah, you actually don't "hear" the bass, it is to low a frequency, but it creates pressure waves that your body feels and interprets as sound. Because of this, there is actually no stereo sound produced by subwoofers, you have to have two definite sound sources to get a stereo sound.

I spent quite a bit on my 2g, I decided to go with 20 feet of "Monster cable" (I think it was like $4/foot) but I bought it originally for my fullsize dodge van, and just keep moving it from car to car, hehe.