Can someone tell me how far from the battery it is to the nearest grounding spot on the chassis? I have been told by an IASCA judge that the best ground is to ground from the neg. on the battery to the chassis, then from the chassis to ur amp. And I just want to know how much wire I'm gonna need to order. lol Thanks y'all!

 

the battery grounds about a foot away tothe chassis...but you dont want to ground in the same spot as the battery or that close to it [&:] i just grounded my amp about 2 foot away from the amp to the chassis, wherever theres a good solid metal plate not near any wire on the chassis i beleieve is what he was talking about, and in that case theres a whole floorboard or rear back panel that you can screw a ground cable to.
Just take however length you need for power, and add like 2-3 foot for "ground" wire and you'll be set. Really though i just buy scosche amp kits from walmart (like $25 for a 1400 watt 4gauge kit, comes with power, fuse, ground, turn onlead, and a few other things), unless you are thinking of compeating, you wouldnt be able to hear a difference esp when it comes to road noise.

 

I have a 1600W RMS system going in.. so SQ competition is what Im looking for... this guy told me to reground the battery.. which I'ma do with 1/0AWG, and then run from that ground to a dist. block, then run 4AWG into my amps... he said I would notice less ground loop noise, and that I "should" pick up a few fractions of SPL, he also said a main person at JL Audio has been experimenting with this method, and says it is one of the best grounding methods. Unless, he meant to reground the battery, then ground the neg. to another part of the chassis? hrmm..

Thanks Drakkon... NOW YOU HAVE ME WONDERING... lol jkjk

 

A great article i go by:

http://www.caraudiohelp.com/newslett...udio_myths.htm

personally ive seen a few "pro" installs and not one of them has ever grounded anywhere near the battery, or even near the engine compartment at all, its always about 2-3ft away from the amp itself and then to a body bolt or screwed into somewhere on the chassis body floorboard or back panel. That way your creating different ground loops for each amplifier. You run power into dist blocks, not groun,d and the more ground loops you have going to the same point the more distoriton you can get. Think of it as what might happen when you send a 40hz signal to the amps, the mono amps are goign to be drawing power like crazy whereas the regular amps (lets say running components) would be requiring less. if you had them all grounding at the same point in the engine bay your going to be getting different amp ammounts coming to the same point causing wierd power levels that will cause distortion. I think your friend there was mainly talking about power wire, you will deifnately need to reground the battery with 1/0 gauge (you can probobly reground it jsut with a bigger bolt to the same place as its grounded currently) but your amps will still need to be grounded to the chassis in other places in some way.
How are you dealing with the alerternator issue? if your running a 1600W RMS system the draw on your stock alternator is going to be crazy especially at loud volumes...are you goign to be running multiple batterys? upgraded alternator?

 

So, Drakkon... I think I may have to take ur advice here, cuz you told me why it's better to run two 4AWG grounds to two different spots. So thanks for clarifying this man.

 

But wait, I was just thinking, in theory don't I need the same saized ground as my power wire? The way you are saying, I would have 1/0AWG power and 4AWG ground. :-\

 

no, the distribution block still is there changing the 1/0 down to 4 guage for each amp.
the ground lines dont need to be 1/0, the ground will be 4 gauge as well.

sorry for the confusion