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The "Big 3" is a very easy mod to your car’s electrical system that will help it maintain higher voltages for more power hungry amplifiers. If you’ve ever measured your voltage drop when playing music with the volume to the max with your engine running, you’ll see that instead of reading 14.4v or 13.8 (depending on car), your voltmeter will read 13v, 12v, or even lower! You can easily tell if you’re experiencing these voltage drops by watching your headlights. If they dim while playing your system, you most definitely have voltage drop going on.  This voltage drop could potentially cause harm to your amp if it is significant enough.  I had a Treo SSX 1500.1 blow because I was letting my voltage drop to about 9-10v, which the amp didn’t like very much.

What causes this problem are the stock, small gauge wires used to connect various electrical components. The stock wire is usually 8 gauge, which is sufficient enough for roughly 50 amps. Large amplifiers can pull up and over 200-300amps, so now you see the problem.

When doing this mod, 3 runs of wire will need to be installed. They are:

1. Battery positive (+) to alternator - From the positive terminal on your battery to the alternator positive (+) post
2. Engine block to chassis ground - From engine block to chasis. This is to strengthen the ground.
3. Battery ground (-) to chassis ground - From the negative terminal on your battery to your car’s chassis.

Here’s a picture of the "big 3" when completed. The colored lines correspond to the colors of the description listed above.

I recommend using 1/0 gauge wire. You could use 4 gauge wire if that’s all you have laying around, but you might as well use 1/0 the first time so you won’t have to go back if you decide to upgrade your system later on down the road. The wire I used was Knu Konceptz 1/0 Kollosus Kable You will also need 1/0 ring terminals to terminate the ends of the wire.

Before you do anything, make sure to be safe. Disconnect the wire from the negative terminal of your battery before you begin. This makes an incomplete circuit and keeps you safe from sustaining electrical injuries.

First, measure a length of wire to go from your battery positive (+) terminal to your alternator.  Make sure to leave a little bit of slack, around 6 inches, so you’ll be able to position the cable freely.  Terminate the ends of the cable with ring terminals, then connect the wire from battery positive (+) terminal to your alternator.  There may be a plastic tab on the alternator post.  If there is, go ahead and break it off; it’s what I had to do.  If you don’t remove the plastic tab, you won’t be able to remove the nut off of the terminal post.  Here’s a closeup pic of the run of wire at the alternator.

Adding a fuse to go in between the battery positive (+) and the alternator is highly recommended, but not necessary.  There is a small chance that the wire will come lose and short out, but it’s a chance some people do not want to take.  On the contrary, I have had no problems in the 2 years I’ve had the big 3 installed while running an unfused wire.

The next step is to run a wire from your engine block to your car’s chassis.  This step may be difficult because you may have a hard time finding a place on the engine block to attach your wire.  Look for a non-essential bolt; do not use a bolt that holds fluids back.   Below is a close up pic of where I attached my run of wire to my engine block:

From there, you then need to attach the other end of the wire to your chassis ground location.  This ground can be anywhere on your car’s chassis/frame, but make sure that you have metal-to-metal contact with the terminal and your ground location. A good start is to follow your stock ground wire back to its grounding location.  If there is paint on the ground location you have chosen, you must sand it off until it is bare metal to ensure minimal electrical resistance.  Below is another closeup picture, this time it is showing the ground point I used for both the engine block, as well as the battery ground.

The location is a little rusty, but you can see how I sanded off the paint until it became bare metal.  The rust is because of time; I did this big 3 installation about 2 years ago.  To prevent rust, use a rust inhibitor product around the contact points.

Lastly, the final step is to run a wire from your battery’s ground (-) terminal to the ground location on the chassis.  Measure the wire and be sure to leave a little slack in case you need it.  Then terminate the ends with ring terminals and attach one end to the negative terminal and the other to your grounding location on your chassis (as seen above).

Once you have made the new, beefier battery ground, you can cut off, disconnect, do whatever you want to the stock ground wire because it is not needed anymore.  When you think you’re finished, go ahead and double check all of your connections making sure that they are snug and tight.

That’s it!  The "Big 3" is now finished.  You should notice a difference in voltage when playing your system at max volume.  Before I did this upgrade, my voltage was at about 10v under heavy load.  After doing the "Big 3" upgrade, my voltage under heavy load was stabilized at about 11v.  Quite a large difference for how much you spent on the wire and terminals.  That’s why the "Big 3" is considered the first electrical upgrade you should do to ensure consistent power to your amplifiers.

If anybody has any questions, leave a comment and I will leave a prompt answer.

In my experiences, many newbies think they need a capacitor installed along with their amplifier and subwoofers because of the reason that a capacitor will provide power when the amp needs it. Here’s the problem: The amp always needs power, and whatever “extra” power it needs will be sucked out of your capacitor in milliseconds. After you have discharged the capacitor due to heavy power draw, the capacitor will need to recharge.

How does it recharge? Well, the capacitor sits in between your battery and your amplifier. Once the capacitor is discharged, it will attempt to charge itself by drawing power from your battery. Then, when the amp needs power, the capacitor will supply current from the battery as well as any “extra” current it has saved up. Once its discharged, the vicious cycle continues.

Most common car audio capacitors are rated at 1 farad, while I’ve seen some reach as high as 5, 10, 20, and higher. No matter how high the rating, a capacitor will still hamper performance. This is because capacitors cannot supply the needed current for any extended duration of time. When your amplifier needs current, it will suck the capacitor dry in less than one second, leaving your capacitor to use your battery to charge up again. Once the capacitor is charged, that extra current can then be transferred onto the amp.

See where I’m going now? If a capacitor can only hold a charge for less than one second, while drawing substantial amounts of current from your battery in an attempt to charge back up while delaying power the amp, then what is the point? There is none. Capacitors are known in the car audio community as a marketing ploy to make people think they need something, when in reality, they really don’t. Take your money and invest it in a second battery. A capacitor these days runs between $50-$80. Add a few more dollars and you can get a second battery, which will supply your amplifier with much more power than a capacitor ever could, while not straining your electrical system.