i notice alot of you guy have more mod on there system than engine. one of the problem alot of pple face is not enough power or headlight dimming. Buying a capasitor would help out with the dimming but if a more cheaper and inexpensive way to go about this is to upgrade your wires.
The Big 3 are
1) alternator positive to battery positive
2) battery negative to frame
3) engine block to frame
here some pic of a completed upgrade
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I miss my camry....................
My car's lights don't dim or anything even when I turn upo my system, or as people were talking about before about slowing windows and stuff when they try to put up all their windows at the same time....so why does it happen to some, and not others? aren't the cars of the same model made with the same parts...the same capacitors, same alternators, and same wiring?
just curious....and glad that mine is fine... :-?
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HaHa
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"Life is a deep sleep, of which love is the dream..." Ripped...and the girls are loving it.
Car's with aftermarket stereo components are the ones who have problems with dimming. Most cars from the manufacturer don't have amplifiers which pull large amounts of power from the battery to pound a sub over and over. Once you add an amp, you should ground your alternator, add a fuse block, and if its a big amp, use a cap. (also use thick guage wire to get teh most out of the setup) If you have an aftermarket setup and you still dont get dimming, its because your amp is not drawing large amounts of power. Which means you suck.
The capacitors being spoke of here, are not regular caps. They are made for stereo aplications, and store large amounts of power for the amp to feed off of, which lets your battery do its own thing. Sometimes its good to buy a dry-cell battery for your stereo as an extra.
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There are those who do things, and those who take credit... The trick is to be in the first group, there is a lot less compitition.
My car's lights don't dim or anything even when I turn upo my system, or as people were talking about before about slowing windows and stuff when they try to put up all their windows at the same time....so why does it happen to some, and not others? aren't the cars of the same model made with the same parts...the same capacitors, same alternators, and same wiring?
It has allot to do with the amperage your alt is putting out
Let's say your alt put out 125 amps and your batt is 1000 amps
now if your runnig your all lights drawing let say +/-100 amps this leave you 25 amps to your battery now you hit the power windows, stereo, heater fan ect.. what do you think is going to happen? The numbers aren't exact but you get the Idea. I had the same problem with my sentra and I tried to get a hight output alt and a guy I know who does custom alt rebuilds ect... said a higher alt could fry my comp becasue a sentra is an economy car and doesn't have a voltage regulator to prevent this from happening. He said if it was a luxury car with all the electric bell and whistles I could upgrade. Now another misconception is to get another battery which will help some but not if your drawing more than the alt can put out then its only a matter of time before you ruin a battery.
I also heard if you beef up the ground wire from the alt this helps also.
i have a question too...who the hell uses a 4 gauge ground and a weak 8 gauge power?.....
also where did you here that biger wires will help dimming?....
actually this post is pretty much all wrong....wires matter in delivery and consistancy but not current and not production. a better wire dosn't make power it conserves it by being more efficent.
some say another battery is the way to go but this is also bullshit because another batter truly only helps the car by storing more juice for situation like idleing and sitting with the engine off.
and as for a cap this wil lnot help you PRODUCE more power it will just boost the amount of energy avalible to your electronics (most commonly your amps) s othey can recive a more consistant charge with a slight increase in burst out put (a batter can't let go of power as fast as a cap)
THE ONLY WAY TO FIX THE DIMMING PROPERLY IS TO WORK ON THE ALTERNATOR.....it is what charges your system and it is what runs your electronics when the car is on NOT THE BATTERY...NOT THE CAP...NOT THE WIRES....only your altenator..all those things are only really acting as your power sourse if your alternator isn't working properly...
ALSO...who uses a mopar battery with GIANT TERMINALS on the negative and only a wrenchon on the positive...seeing that the ground of the stereo is usally not a direct ground to the battery terminal only ONE VERY VERY GOOD ground ing point is really nessary any others should be made DIRECTLY to the frame by placing too many grounds togther you risk gettin a negative loop in the system and causeing distortion.
AS FOR THE BIG THREE....yes these are very inmortant bonds and must be made with strong conections but please...4 gauge...i mean unless you are using an upgraded alternator 4 is a bit over kill dont you think?
and as for price...that terminal alone would be 40 bucks then the wiring would be another 20 and rings or crimps would run you another 10-20 bucks depending if you chose to keep the integraty of you gold fittings so right there you spent 70 bucks which is one step towards one of these babies.....
trust me i have done too many systems and i also do performane stuff and in BOTH CASES there are gains to be found from wiresbut my money is on the alternator 100% of the time when it comes to systems dimming lights
your right a alternator will help a great deal but to get a HO alternator cost alot of $$. but its money well spent. for minor dimming i think i go with the big 3.
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I miss my camry....................
after i upgraded my battery to the rockford deep cycle and ran 4 gauge instead of 8 it solved most of my problems. When i just had the cap and the old battery the dimming was terrible.The olny time the lights dim now is when i turn the bass boost and volume up on my receiver while at a stop.
The battery is awesome.
Car's with aftermarket stereo components are the ones who have problems with dimming. Most cars from the manufacturer don't have amplifiers which pull large amounts of power from the battery to pound a sub over and over. Once you add an amp, you should ground your alternator, add a fuse block, and if its a big amp, use a cap. (also use thick guage wire to get teh most out of the setup) If you have an aftermarket setup and you still dont get dimming, its because your amp is not drawing large amounts of power. Which means you suck.
The capacitors being spoke of here, are not regular caps. They are made for stereo aplications, and store large amounts of power for the amp to feed off of, which lets your battery do its own thing. Sometimes its good to buy a dry-cell battery for your stereo as an extra.
hahaha....that may be true...I know I've got 4 guage cable, so I dunno, that's supposed to help?
and, oh, yeah....the jbl amps were made to pull very little power and still get big results...
but still, thinking either getting another one so that I have one for each sub, or upgrade to a 1000w jbl.....oh, god...that would be....be....orgasmic!!! oh, no, my pants!
haha....yeah...well...if anybody's ever read up on the jblamps or used one, they'll know what I mean!
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HaHa
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"Life is a deep sleep, of which love is the dream..." Ripped...and the girls are loving it.
i had some RF amp before and those guys thump! but the overheated really fast. that why i decided to go with the alpine with the cooling fans. next stop would be jbl.
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I miss my camry....................
I've buddy of mine's got a couple of friends who run some hardcore systems with 2 jbl 600s, and I've never heard of them overheating even when they crank it and draw some crazy current thru them....
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HaHa
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"Life is a deep sleep, of which love is the dream..." Ripped...and the girls are loving it.
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