Suprised not to see a "Big 3" specific thread in here...

[jdtc]

I don't think I've ever seen an electronics section of a forum not have a stickied thread for the Big 3 upgrade. I did a quick search and looked through the five pages to only see it mentioned once. (Note, I'm a newb to this forum and my search skills aren't that great)

If you don't know what the Big 3 upgrade is and you are super concerned with getting a better battery, adding capacitors to your system, upgrading your alternator, dimming headlights, etc... You absolutely need to look into this upgrade before you add anything to your car.

A smooth flowing electrical system is the best fix to many a common problem with car stereos that utilize amps to up the volume. Your alternator's ability to recharge the battery and keep up with your demands is key in having a reliable and supportive system. On a stock car the wiring is standard and is all you need to keep your stock car in good working order but, once you start upgrading you will notice problems with this setup.

The Big 3 consist of replacing your negative battery terminal wire to ground, positive cable from alternator to battery positive terminal, and most importantly your engine ground wire to chassis connection.

There are a few rules to go by here, I’m sure there are more but these are very important:
1. Use high-strand count, high capacity wires. Do not use solid core wires; they won’t stand up to the abuse of your moving parts.

2. If you run a 4 gauge wire to your amp, using 6 gauge wires for the Big 3 will not suffice. Always go with either equal gauge or larger wiring than what you use for your amp(s) for the Big 3.
3. Never do this with your battery connected or with charged capacitors, if you have them.

You will be surprised to see how much of an improvement this will have on your system at a fraction the cost of buying upgrades you simply don’t need with the average aftermarket system. With that being said, just because you have high end electronics in your car doesn’t mean you should go ahead and spend all the cash and leave this upgrade unattended. The Big 3 upgrade is the first and most important upgrade when building a car stereo system no matter what you need the system to produce.

[navylife59]

Very good point. I am a bass head from the earliest days of high end car audio here in Texas. I was there through the golden years and laid-off after the big tumble. I have never heard it call the Big 3 but it is the same solid advice and rule that we lived by in those formative years. Remember IASCA? Everything you stated is absolutely true. Good call bring this up.

In the import scene, people buy this "grounding kits" to up the performance on the factory ignition system. Pretty much the same that you are talking about. Always start by upgrading the factory grounds. OEM wires are designed to handle a certain load with little overhead for add-ons. That is why you see most new Toyotas/Scions/Lexus vehicles come with separate wiring/relays for each headlight and it is prewired with a positive lead for the fog/driving lights option. They employ this method to save costs and that of extra weight in the vehicle. Therefore, the grounding system is inadequate for more than amplifier pushing more than 100 Watts RMS total.

Here is a little brain teaser for you. Back in the mid '90s, I used to work for Metra Electronics. I was considered very knowledgeable by customers and sales staff in other regions. One day I receive a call from an exasperated Distributor that had been trying to help one of their retail customers out. This retailer had upgraded a customer's power and ground wires with our new Metra Wires line. The car was a Pontiac Firebird that was fairly new. The customer had 4 separate 8GA power wires running in a very uniformed parallel path from his battery to the firewall then across to the passenger side where he had room to run them thru into the passenger compartment. The Distributor sold this Shop on taking the Metra Wire and Speakerworks product line. This was the Retailer's first install with our product.

OK, so the Shop changed out these four 8GA wires running in parallel for a single 4GA power cable. This is all that they did. Now the customer began complaining about electrical noise whenever the engine is running and varies with RPM. So what went wrong here? This is something that was not well understood by audiophiles (bass heads) back then.

On a side note; the Metra wire was one of the first in the US to use very fine 36GA (I believe) wire multi-twisted together. As a sales gimmick when I went on promotion with Distributors and Retailers, I would make a bet with them that I cut cut the 4GA wire in one fell swoop with just a regular pair of Fiskars office scissors. Chop! They could not believe I did that and started rationalizing how I played a trick on them. Truth is, I did not. You see, they were all used to the wire on the market at that time which was just short of being like thick gauge wires, single twisted as are battery cables. The cut was nice and clean. To egg them on further, thus cementing a sale, I would offer to do the same to a piece of 1-0GA which is roughly twice as thick as 4GA. With a slow steady cut, the 1-0Ga cable was cut in two by the same office scissors. Although not as clean a cut as with the 4GA before, it was, nevertheless, was severed with single cut. Not till Monster Cables came along that you could actually do this with any other cable on the market.

[paperlegacy]

Totally have to run power opposite from RCA. Opposite sides of the car is best. IMO... That'll eliminate that SEXY Buzz-with-Gas in your system!

[CadenceScion]

I already got these covered with my system, which is very demanding as it is, pushing 3000watts.