Weird problem
Printed From: the12volt.com
Forum Name: Car Audio
Forum Discription: Car Stereos, Amplifiers, Crossovers, Processors, Speakers, Subwoofers, etc.
URL: https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp?tid=44209
Printed Date: May 14, 2024 at 12:46 PM
Topic: Weird problem
Posted By: bdl666
Subject: Weird problem
Date Posted: December 01, 2004 at 12:10 PM
My brother in-law has a weird problem going on on his 97 Saturn SW2. Every time the bass hits the lights and the rpms go down. And this is only with the volume about a 1/4 of the way up any higher and the amp starts to loose power and the meter on the cap goes down to single digits. Now he only has one amp a Kicker zr360 and it's only pushing a single IDQ12. Now the car got a 105 amps alternator with a Yellow Top Optima and a 4 gauge Tsunami wire straight to a DEI 1.5 farad cap and to the amp. And the ground is also 4 gauge. Now when installed the system I didn't cut the power wire to connect the cap I just removed the insulation on a 2 inch section of the wire and twisted the wire into a 2 gauge ring without cutting it to minimize the resistance on the wire in between the amp and the fuse on the front. The ground wire is connected the same way to the cap and is about 15 inches long and it's bolted to the floor with a 1/4 inch bolt and a lock nut then undercoating spray on both sides. We tried the amp on another car and it works fine so it has to be the car. But it doesn't make sense because even with the engine off the battery should provide enough power to run the amp but the amp does the same thing. I'm thinking that it could be the ground on the car and we have been contemplating the idea of running a ground wire from the battery to the grounding point where the amp is grounded instead of connecting it straight to the amp. Now has anyone run into a problem like this before? Or does anyone have any suggestion on how to fix it?
Replies:
Posted By: /R7
Date Posted: December 01, 2004 at 12:20 PM
maybe check that your alternator is running properly, with a DMM. i'd also check the wiring of the alt and the battery as well.
the other car you tried it on, did it have a cap inline as well? i know its probably a big hassle, but did you try running the amp without the cap hooked up? maybe the cap isnt working properly.
connect the ground from the amp, straight to the battery too, it will eliminate all possibilities of a faulty ground, and i can assure you, it helped my car in more ways than 1.
Posted By: bdl666
Date Posted: December 01, 2004 at 12:42 PM
I've tried everything you suggested and them some. I think is the ground on the car, because there are two ground wires on the engine compartment, one looks like a 6 gauge that goes from the engine to the battery and another one that looks like a 8 gauge from the battery to the frame. I haven't checked the rest of the engine compartment for extra wires. All factory wires are connected to the side posts of the battery and the amp wire to the top post. And this is a Yellow Top which should provide more than enough power to run the amp with the car off. And no is not the radio I also tried an mp3 player straight to the amp and still the same.
Posted By: jeffchilcott
Date Posted: December 01, 2004 at 5:09 PM
grounding stright to your battery from an amp in the trunk??? sounds like a problem waiting to happen to me
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Posted By: bdl666
Date Posted: December 01, 2004 at 6:12 PM
Maybe I didn't explained this right I would keep the factory ground but run a wire from the battery to the point on the car floor where I grounded the amp(or a point near it). Not run a ground straight to the amp. It's got to be the ground because the power wire is new and so are all the connectors the only thing that is used is the car.
Posted By: sopedish
Date Posted: December 01, 2004 at 6:51 PM
I had this exact problem and it was just a loose ground on my amp.
Posted By: Ravendarat
Date Posted: December 01, 2004 at 7:17 PM
That undercoating may be doing more harm then good. I would suggest cleaning it all off the grounding point and try it with a clean ground. See what happens
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double-secret reverse-osmosis speaker-cone-induced high-level interference distortion, Its a killer
Posted By: /R7
Date Posted: December 01, 2004 at 7:38 PM
jeffchilcott wrote:
grounding stright to your battery from an amp in the trunk??? sounds like a problem waiting to happen to me
clarify? i dont see how this is a problem
Posted By: bdl666
Date Posted: December 01, 2004 at 7:42 PM
The undercoating was applied after I attached the ground to bare metal ( I used a wire brush on my drill to get it down to bare metal) to protect both the car from rust and the connection from oxidation.
Posted By: OCURIEL
Date Posted: December 02, 2004 at 9:44 AM
Have your charging system tested or check it yourself with a cheap $10 volt meter. should be @ 13.6-14.0 volts with the engine running. If your alternator is ok, i would suspect you have a bad ground.
Posted By: SierraP615
Date Posted: December 07, 2004 at 1:06 AM
bdl666 wrote:
I think is the ground on the car, because there are two ground wires on the engine compartment, one looks like a 6 gauge that goes from the engine to the battery and another one that looks like a 8 gauge from the battery to the frame. I haven't checked the rest of the engine compartment for extra wires.
i'm not to impressed with the stock saturn battery/charging system cables at all(the one from the starter to the alternator is TINY), i'm planing to upgrade to 4 or 2 gauge and i'm not even running a amp.
Posted By: DYohn
Date Posted: December 07, 2004 at 8:31 AM
Besides the mentioned ground problem probability, a few other things: when you installed the new alt, did you install new belts to drive it? Did you upgrade the wiring from the alt to the battery and the engine ground strap? And you say you stripped a window in your power and ground wire and "twisted" a lead on for your cap, right? This is a very bad high-resistance connection. Solder that thing at the very least! The far, far better thing to do is to cut the wire and use proper connectors. ------------- Support the12volt.com
Posted By: bdl666
Date Posted: December 07, 2004 at 9:46 AM
I haven't replaced the alt . And when I twisted the wire all of the exposed wire went inside the the solderless ring terminal and then crimped with a pneumatic crimper to mil specs ( I work at a company that makes solderless connectors and crimping machines) . Also I haven't had time to replace all the stock ground wires on the car. I can make custom wires at work but I haven't had time to do it. And yes my brother in law had the charging system checked. And I did check the voltage with a dmm, but it only goes down in the rear and not at the battery. That is why I was asking about the extra ground wire to the back to maybe complement the car's( think about resistors connected in parallel). Think I should run it? Not to the amp but to the spot where I grounded the amp on the back)
Posted By: supradude
Date Posted: December 07, 2004 at 11:10 AM
It could be the cap is bad. My car was doing the same thing, the voltage was dropping in the rear, after the cap. I done away with the cap and that fixed my problem.
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'85 Toy
Posted By: Herald
Date Posted: December 07, 2004 at 6:36 PM
jeffchilcott wrote:
grounding stright to your battery from an amp in the trunk??? sounds like a problem waiting to happen to me
why is this a problem? Pleasse explain ------------- A person who carries or proclaims important news; a messenger.
Posted By: Herald
Date Posted: December 08, 2004 at 10:00 PM
Please explain
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A person who carries or proclaims important news; a messenger.
Posted By: dustin_parks79
Date Posted: December 08, 2004 at 11:03 PM
1st of all from reading what i have read, i would bet, that you have the ground from the cap and the ground from the amp hooked up in the same place.....will if that is so that is your problem......i know sounds stupied but move your grounds away from one another and see if it dont fix your problem....i had the same problem not long ago and when i was told to do that i figured some one was a jackass.....but now i take all that back cause some one just seemed to be pretty smart now go out there and move your ground......l8terz hit me up and let me know the results.
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