Battery advice

[ajoliver2010]

Hey gp heads!! After a year and a half of nothing but mids ans highs, my 2 12's are finally going in the 97 gp!!!! My subs are Xplods too but they kick ass...trust me lol. Anyway, my problem is i need the right battery to keep my bass tight and keep my car running (since its an everyday car). I need a battery that has dual terminals so i can have the original wires and my car audio wires separate. I've heard that the Optima yellow tops are horrible but everyone has their own opinion. Help would be much appreciated

[boostedcompg]

Costco for the win.....

[chamilton89]

Well this is an interesting thread. I understand you are upgrading your stereo just like many other people on GPF. Without trying to be mean, unless your battery is already on the way out, or you are just looking to spend hours with the car off and the stereo blasting away, then a new battery is really unnecessary. You are going to get no better performance from a new battery than you are on your current one. I think there is a ton of confusion when it comes to car electronics and "upgrading" the battery. A bigger/better battery will not make it any easier to power your system, regardless of the size, intact it will actually make it more difficult to power your system as your alternator will have to constantly charge a larger battery. That being said, if you plan on having a show car or parking it for long periods of time and running the stereo, by all means, a larger battery will accomplish this goal while still being able to start your car when your done. I really hope I havnt come off as a dick, just trying to make sure people doesn't waste there money because they don't have all the information. Hope I have helped and I will keep an eye on this thread to see if you have anymore questions!

[ajoliver2010]

Well this is an interesting thread. I understand you are upgrading your stereo just like many other people on GPF. Without trying to be mean, unless your battery is already on the way out, or you are just looking to spend hours with the car off and the stereo blasting away, then a new battery is really unnecessary. You are going to get no better performance from a new battery than you are on your current one. I think there is a ton of confusion when it comes to car electronics and "upgrading" the battery. A bigger/better battery will not make it any easier to power your system, regardless of the size, intact it will actually make it more difficult to power your system as your alternator will have to constantly charge a larger battery. That being said, if you plan on having a show car or parking it for long periods of time and running the stereo, by all means, a larger battery will accomplish this goal while still being able to start your car when your done. I really hope I havnt come off as a dick, just trying to make sure people doesn't waste there money because they don't have all the information. Hope I have helped and I will keep an eye on this thread to see if you have anymore questions!

You're not being a dick at all lol. I just figured a battery upgrade would be the right choice. Right now i have a Duralast red top battery, but its just a pair of post terminals so i have my car audio wires coming from the positive part on top of the fuse box. Im not sure if thats safe or not but i havent had any problems so far : /

[chamilton89]

You're not being a dick at all lol. I just figured a battery upgrade would be the right choice. Right now i have a Duralast red top battery, but its just a pair of post terminals so i have my car audio wires coming from the positive part on top of the fuse box. Im not sure if thats safe or not but i havent had any problems so far : /

Well Its not the best way of doing it. I would look into a battery terminal that supports not only your cars electrical system on the positive terminal but also accepts whatever gauge wiring you use for your audio system (8guage, 4guage, ext) Thats the best way of doing it in my opinion, or a terminal extension for a side mount battery that features a simple bolt to screw on ring terminals (this is what I'm rocking) looks great, works great, simple to use. Made by stinger if your interested, maybe 25 bucks. And I understand that battery upgrade thing, makes sense right, more subwoofer= more battery right? Your car will be just find with your red top, thats a great battery. I have a yellow top dual cycle, so I get both cold cranking amps and some aspects of a deep cycle battery (able to be discharged without killing the battery). Anyways, the only real way to upgrade your electrical system to support systems really greater than ~1K watts is an alternator upgrade and battery grounding wire upgrade. The alternator is very expensive (200+) and the batteries grounding is well unnecessary if you stay under the ~1K watt threshold. So if your under that, upgrade your battery post/terminal to accept your positive wire to your amplifier and enjoy!

[ajoliver2010]

Well Its not the best way of doing it. I would look into a battery terminal that supports not only your cars electrical system on the positive terminal but also accepts whatever gauge wiring you use for your audio system (8guage, 4guage, ext) Thats the best way of doing it in my opinion, or a terminal extension for a side mount battery that features a simple bolt to screw on ring terminals (this is what I'm rocking) looks great, works great, simple to use. Made by stinger if your interested, maybe 25 bucks. And I understand that battery upgrade thing, makes sense right, more subwoofer= more battery right? Your car will be just find with your red top, thats a great battery. I have a yellow top dual cycle, so I get both cold cranking amps and some aspects of a deep cycle battery (able to be discharged without killing the battery). Anyways, the only real way to upgrade your electrical system to support systems really greater than ~1K watts is an alternator upgrade and battery grounding wire upgrade. The alternator is very expensive (200+) and the batteries grounding is well unnecessary if you stay under the ~1K watt threshold. So if your under that, upgrade your battery post/terminal to accept your positive wire to your amplifier and enjoy!

The terminal extension sounds interesting. Can you take a pic of it so i can get an idea??

[ajoliver2010]

Oh and another thing lol, when you said a system over 1k watts, did you mean rms watts or max watts?? I just have a Eclipse 4 ch amp thats 800 max watts but 400 rms watts. Just wondering

[matt5112]

That number was made up to deter you.

Regardless, its RMS.

And if your amp puts out 400 W RMS and its a class D: its probably 80% efficient or so thus it will draw 500 W.

But thats RMS, peaks will be higher, average will be much lower.

[chamilton89]

Yes I was referring to rms power, which in all honesty, still isn't a very good measure of power output but it's the best we for without going into a bunch more math. And yes, Matt is right in talking about efficientcy. Class d mono block amps can be much more efficient than say a class a/b amplifier which can in some cases be less than 50 percent. So like Matt said, when the "rms" value of an amp says 400 watts but say its only 50% efficient than it wi be drawing closer to 800 watts on your cars charging system. That's why I said, as a rule of thumb without knowing any other info, try and stay below 1000 watts. And yes, tomorrow I can share a link to what I am talking about.