Lawl

I still stand behind the main concept of what i said tho,  given his small amount of draw,for 1000 watts  a 2nd battery and upgraded wiring should solve his issue IMO.  I just always hear the 1st thing out of most people is "you NEED an ho alt" which isnt always the case.  Pioneer Saturn explained it way better than I did.

So just 1000 watts, screwed the pooch on that one. My bad but did make for some great talk.  I think he would be good with the big 3, and maybe the Duralast Gold under the hood if the batt. he has now is old. But if going with a pricey batt. as a 2nd that will cost the same as a alt. to get anything bigger than that 70 amp that is there. I just don't go for very small alts. and high powered stereos, just not right.

And I do very much understand the need for batts. when really pulling the power but most of the time those setups can not be played hard riding around like I do without the batts. draining and volt drop gets bad. Without a alt. to generate some amps to feed the beast of batts, and the amps sucking on them you will run low on power. I've read so much on this when I got my 2nd 200 amp alt. and wanted a wall in the truck. But my thing was I had to play maxed out loud at idle in parades and would have needed a BIG bank of batts. without a dang good alt. feeding the stereo.

All this talk has me doing stuff to Ballsy now:) Did after a long time install the 1/0 run on top of the #4 from the front batt. to the back batt. and the big 3 had 1/0 added as well. So adding that 2nd 200 amp alt. may get done if I can keep Kenny around to help me out. Hell I have been away from the net so long with so much BS taking all my time, but I feel like playing with some watts now that life is good so talking about this stuff has been nice.

Game, you need a amp on those mids and highs, I know you know this but had to say after reading that the 493 was not watts going to them. I f-ed up on that one.... You would fall in love all over again with something to go with that 1000 watts of bass.

Sic, you are still cool with me, just gave you a hard time because I knew you could take it. I don't do many on the net like that so we must be cool:) But I still think a 70 amp alt. is to small to run a car's needs and bass. It is what I have in the 85 Toyota truck and think of it as my weak link in doing something in it. Will be getting a Chevy alt. in there when it is time. I do not want but one batt. on that small truck with all the weight in box, subs, and the dang dogs/stuff when we go on a trip. That is one thing I can do in the one ton truck is load it down with batts. and never tell they are there. Now if I only knew someone to buy a crap load of amps off of so I would need a bed full of batts???

I really hoped you would not take that in a bad way, just would love to take your car out one night just to know how it is.....

i sure dont know much about any of this.lol. ive got a 220 alt 0 guage runs the big 3 in 0 guage running two crunch gp-3000 pros amps.i just couldnt afford hi end batterys. so.start laughing now... i went to walmart yes walmart.bought 2 deep cycle marine batterys.big ones.dont remember there specs.they are agms.at idle with no music.i have 14.53 volts.and when i crank it up it drops to around 14.26 on the lowest bass.the lowest ive seen it drop is 14.23.when car wasnt running. but i only played for a minute or to.then started the car i was scared.lol so all in all i say its trial and error.what works for me may not work for others.the marine batts have a 2 year guaranty.dam now i gotta go recheck.. ok got volt meter out started car cranked it. between 14.26 and 14.28.volts at idle.Maybe i did something rite,that usually dont happen..lmao. were all in the same game here and i think you all are great people.hope everyones cool with each other.no one knows it all thats why we ask.  :]

Sure, any time youre rolling through Ohio stop by

 You wouldn't need to spend 300- 500 On h/0. That's not true. It just depend what kind of H/0 alternator you're buying it from. I'm just trying to point out that having a H/0 will give more power to your system for everyday listener and help to power other accessory on you car. It take amp everytime you put something on your vehicle. The stock alternator cannot provide enought amp for you system so where does the amp come from, the battery?

 Having additional battery cannot charge itself for long period of time with single alternator. Eventually the alternator will fail. You cannot put a dead or weak battery for an alternator for long time. As you start pounding your system the amp will draw more and more power to the battery and from it become weak and now the atlernator have to charge it and it difficult. Most peoples don't rely on alternator to charge multiple battery. They use a certain battery charger to charge it.

Like you said," I ran 4kw to my subs and 1000 to my mids on an 85 amp alt with 2 big agm batteries just fine for 2 yrs in a competition car in stock class. THat's just competition but using a everyday daily system's different. Having a H/0 alternator will solve your light dimming. Having additional battery will solve light dimming but not long period of time. If you light are dimming then turn down the volume. Don't play your system hard everday.  Just do the big 3, and put a bigger battery under the thood for now because the system guru have isn't going to kill the stock so quickly.

 I'm not professional but i had install H/0 alternator, big 3, and multiple battery bank before and it notice something different about it. I understand that Si was trying to make Guru electrical eazy on the budget.

I put a 120 amp alt. on my Trans Am and two big 1100cca batts. The first time I played the stereo without the eng. running and ran the batts. just a little low when I started the car and the alt. had to charge them back up the alt. died. The guys that build alt. will tell you like  Kenny just said if you have low batts. do not use the alt. to charge them, use a charger so the alt. won't burn out. So that tells you that a overloaded alt. is a lucky alt. everytime you hammer it all day. The big thing being that a hot alt. will not put out the volts/amps of a cool alt. that is not having it's max amps pulled all the time.

Cars are made cheap as hell now days and they only use the size alt. the car needs in most cases. When you add large loads it really make sence to add power by way of a alt. to take up the added load, not just batts. to add to the load on the stock alt. Alt. that are bigger than stook are everywhere and cheap. Well under $150 in a lot of cases, so easy to change out, and will last as long as stock alts. and I have seen alts. last years and years. The alt. on my Toyota is going on 25 years old, and I have never seen a batt. last that long so don't see how you say that these batts. will out last these alts. A 6 year old batt. is a very old batt. and will soon have to be replaced.

I still say a 70 amp alt. should up upgraded if after you do the big 3 the lights still dim out. Now if it were a 120 amp alt. then a batt. to help out on the bass hits would work for me just not that poor 70 amper that is doing everything it can to just keep up with the car's needs.

Wal-Mart batts. are doing damn good for you, well that 220 amp alt. is helping some I guess.

if I can do 5kw daily on a pos 85 amp alt and 2 hc800 batts he can do 1000 rms easily w/o the ho   if he still has issues after the big 3 and a decent main battery he has an electrical issue that i do not think an ho alt will cure.  also something all of you are forgetting is that to do an HO alt, his car may need a secondary module to override the ecu.  alot , but not all jap cars  mostly honda and toyota, the ECU controls voltage from the alt.

when i said agm batteries outlive alts, i was talking about the small case nippon alt that is rewound for HO,  they burn out very fast trust me, my neighboring shop gets them in all the time that are usually less than 2 years old, and everytime they fail is due to heat.  if you really want to do an HO alt buy a stock 130 amp cs130 1 wire chevy alt from the parts store and retrofit it for the car.  it will last 100 yrs and has a lifetime warranty for about 100$  I will never recommend rewound japan alts for the small cars.  I sell HO alts fairly cheap, but refuse to sell the nippo styles due to far too many returns on them.  cars like Pumpkins are fine  they use a 5 1/4" case  but the toyotas use a 3.75" case for the same stock output and then they double it and it just causes far too much heat to be reliable IMO.

I am with you on the cs130 being put on anything you can get it to fit on. Now the 144 (I think that is the #) looks real nice and when their price comes down they will look even better. Lots of cooling ability in those.

Back to the batts. I know shut the hell up!!!! You say only 10 amps of pull from a 2nd batt? That is one of those things I can't understand. The batts are made to dump power and charge fast, that means if you pull power faster than the alt. can put out the batts. can dump the power to keep up with the load. But then the batt. wants to pull the power from the alt. to charge back up, and it will have to pull more than 10 amps or the batt. would suck because it takes so long to charge. A 10 amp charge is a very slow.

The batt. charger is only needed when you run the batts. down to the point that they are low and need a lot of charge to get them back up to full charge. Alt. shops beg people not to charge a dead batt. with the alt. And I bet they would call you  bad names if you told them you used one to charge a bank of low batts.

Just went out and with the A/C on high and the lights on I pull a 40+ amp load on the alt. in my truck before stereo. Damn those amps go fast.

My voltage drop was 12.8 with just the one 225 amp alt (154 amps output at idle it was dyno'd at) running at idle but ive always been more focused on the scoreboard to notice the voltage during burps : (

I just know with the 2nd alt hooked up and sitting at idle my car will darn-near stall out if I turn it up and if it's bad enough I'll shred a belt due to the lack of friction and it just non-stop slips all the way around the pulley setup till it heats up and shreds...real fun. But on the highway with the 2nd alt running I have very little voltage drop, it's rediculous...pretty much full-tilt I get very little drop and it's suckin a ton of current at high levels. Right now though I just run the 225 amp alt daily because the other alt (250 amp) ontop of that is just too much for the 1.9L to handle unless it's really moving. Btw, I will never run anything except Mechman alternators from now on...worth every penny