how to cure headlight dimming...

cgneon · Post by **cgneon** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 1:33 am

been so preoccupied with exhaust, and other stuff on the car, i havent had a chance to mess with my stereo setup,., driving home tonite, i noticed my headlights dim with the bass.. what can i do to alleviate this?.. a: better battery grounds.. but what else? its not like im running a huge system.. 350watt rms amp, 350 watt rms 10" sub......... i plan to put an UDP on soon, and would hate to sell off the amp and sub i just bought, if im gonna have problems..

Ifixyawata · Post by **Ifixyawata** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 2:34 am

Do you have a lightning cap? A lot of times a .5 or 1 farad capacitor can help absorb some of the stress put on the electrical system.

2003silverneonsxt · Post by **2003silverneonsxt** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 7:34 am

upgrade all ur gounding wires (stock ones for the car) from the stupid metal strap to some nice 4 gauge wire, and get a better battery

03sxt · Post by **03sxt** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 8:07 am

Ifixyawata wrote:Do you have a lightning cap? A lot of times a .5 or 1 farad capacitor can help absorb some of the stress put on the electrical system.

A capacitor is almost a must with any stereo system pushing more than 500w.

nodestiny · Post by **nodestiny** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 10:04 am

03sxt wrote:
Ifixyawata wrote:Do you have a lightning cap? A lot of times a .5 or 1 farad capacitor can help absorb some of the stress put on the electrical system.

A capacitor is almost a must with any stereo system pushing more than 500w.

Lesson #1: A cap is near worthless.

Why? It discharges all energy within 1/8th of a second. IT takes several seconds to recharge. $100 on a cap is a waste of money. Trust me, i co-own a stereo shop! I have had lots of experiance...

Your best bet is to...

First: Upgrade all grounds and power connections. This is: battery to ground, alternator to ground, alternator to battery. Also, amp should have good grounds and power cable (500 watts should be 6 awg or larger all around). All grounds should be sanded and bolted tightly. solder if possible on wire to ring terminal.

Second: New battery. A new battery is pretty close to the same price as a cap. Spend a little bit more and get yourself an Optima or Oddyssey. The yellow top did wonders in my old car (88 pulsar) and was worth every penny. Modding the battery tray will let you put a yellow top in your ride. GAURANTEED better results than the largest cap available on the market (like 250 farad or whatever).

Thirdly: New alternator. If you have replaced wire and battery, and still have dimming, then that is the most unifficient 500 watt amp i have ever seen! I dim pretty well off the stock battery and alternator when cranked @ 1600 watts RMS of power. Any case, a 140 amp or higher alternator should help a lot to keep your battery voltage up.

Fourthly: OK you have done 1, 2, and 3 and still dimming? Get a better amp.

Like i said, follow that order and you will have little to no dimming. I had a 600 watt RMS amp with just cable upgrades (grounds, etc.) and i had a very-hard-to-notice dimming.

caps will only help on little punches and mild bass notes. Throw in a bass mechanic CD (or lil john) and watch any cap fail misserably.

cgneon · Post by **cgneon** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 12:13 pm

dont know where the 500watt came into play.. only runnin a 350 rms mono amp to a single 10..
but thanx for the step by step.. ive heard caps are worthless, so wasnt even gonna think about that one, amp power cable is 4gauge, and is grounded to the rear strut mount bolt....... i'll have to work my way down the list....

chinny · Post by **chinny** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 4:55 pm

A cap is worthless, it will just make things worst if your already getting dimming, it will just steal more electricity to store it in the cap incase its needed... so dont waste money in a cap.

I will be running 2200w to my XXX15 in a horn loaded compression boxwith my modded rf bd1500. I already bought my H/O Alternator and put it on and its awsome! Anyways, as to your dimming, their is something u can do and it does work.. it was charged at 13.4 with car on and after doing this i jumped to 14-14.2v.

Alright, this is a How-To that will increase your car's voltage by just adding(not replacing) wires, ALL these wires must be 0 Gauge wire.

This can lower the overall resistance of your entire electrical system. The effects of the lower resistance are typically:

1) Reduced dimming and smaller voltage drops
2) More stable voltage and better current flow
3) Less strain on your vehicle's charging system

So for those of you looking for a cheap and easy way to upgrade your system and help out your electrical system without adding a high output alternator or an aftermarket battery, this is the modification for you. If you have heavy dimming or are getting large voltage drops during loud bass hits, but you don't have the money to spend on a high output alternator or a battery, upgrading your vehicle's "Big 3" will usually help to reduce and sometimes even eliminate the problems. So without further ado, the "Big 3" wires are:

1) Battery negative to chassis ground - Make sure your grounding is VERY tight and make sure you sand the paint off before you ground.

2) Alternator to battery positive - Run a wire from the alternator + to the battery positive, in this wire it is recommended that a fuse holder with a 200A-300A fuse is used incase the + grounds or it shorts and this can cause your car to catch on fire but this would be rarely, people have done this without fusing and its worked great, its more of like if you want to be safe or not.

3) Engine block to chasis ground - Run a wire from the engine block to the chasis, again make sure your ground is TIGHT and the paint is sanded for maximun results!

NOTE : DONT replace wires, just ADD the 0 gauge to the existing factory wires that are already wired. While doing this make sure your batteries negative is not connected.

nodestiny · Post by **nodestiny** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 9:57 am

chinny wrote:Alright, this is a How-To that will increase your car's voltage by just adding(not replacing) wires, ALL these wires must be 0 Gauge wire.

You got it all down, BUT 2 things. There is nothing wrong with replacing wires. I replaced my ground wire from battery to ground. There was no need for the stock one after the change over, so i figured save the little bit of weight

.

also, it doesnt HAVE to be 0 awg. It depends on the overall load on the entire car. With a 350 watt amp (sorry if i said 500 earlier, that came out my ass), 4 awg would be MORE than plenty. And with the stock alternator, grounding the alternator (or block, whatever) with anything more than 6 awg would be overkill (unless you plan to run a 10' ground cable

). I used 4 awg on my alternator because it was on hand. And it came out to be less than 6", so im sure even a 150 amp alternator would be fine with the 4 awg run. 0 awg would be WAY over kill.

Nothing wrong with overkill... but overkill costs more money and weight.

chinny · Post by **chinny** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 5:32 pm

nodestiny wrote:
chinny wrote:Alright, this is a How-To that will increase your car's voltage by just adding(not replacing) wires, ALL these wires must be 0 Gauge wire.
You got it all down, BUT 2 things. There is nothing wrong with replacing wires. I replaced my ground wire from battery to ground. There was no need for the stock one after the change over, so i figured save the little bit of weight .

also, it doesnt HAVE to be 0 awg. It depends on the overall load on the entire car. With a 350 watt amp (sorry if i said 500 earlier, that came out my ass), 4 awg would be MORE than plenty. And with the stock alternator, grounding the alternator (or block, whatever) with anything more than 6 awg would be overkill (unless you plan to run a 10' ground cable ). I used 4 awg on my alternator because it was on hand. And it came out to be less than 6", so im sure even a 150 amp alternator would be fine with the 4 awg run. 0 awg would be WAY over kill.

Nothing wrong with overkill... but overkill costs more money and weight.

Your right about some things and wrong about some..

It does HAVE to be 0g for any wattage... the bigger the cable, the best results u will get, trust me i have done tests. UNLESS the length is minimal.

If your going to do 4g dont waste ur time and stay stock.

And just ADD on wires and DONT replace wires... you wont see a big diff but it does help a little.

nodestiny · Post by **nodestiny** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 8:34 pm

chinny wrote:
nodestiny wrote:
chinny wrote:Alright, this is a How-To that will increase your car's voltage by just adding(not replacing) wires, ALL these wires must be 0 Gauge wire.
You got it all down, BUT 2 things. There is nothing wrong with replacing wires. I replaced my ground wire from battery to ground. There was no need for the stock one after the change over, so i figured save the little bit of weight .

also, it doesnt HAVE to be 0 awg. It depends on the overall load on the entire car. With a 350 watt amp (sorry if i said 500 earlier, that came out my ass), 4 awg would be MORE than plenty. And with the stock alternator, grounding the alternator (or block, whatever) with anything more than 6 awg would be overkill (unless you plan to run a 10' ground cable ). I used 4 awg on my alternator because it was on hand. And it came out to be less than 6", so im sure even a 150 amp alternator would be fine with the 4 awg run. 0 awg would be WAY over kill.

Nothing wrong with overkill... but overkill costs more money and weight.
Your right about some things and wrong about some..

It does HAVE to be 0g for any wattage... the bigger the cable, the best results u will get, trust me i have done tests. UNLESS the length is minimal.

If your going to do 4g dont waste ur time and stay stock.

And just ADD on wires and DONT replace wires... you wont see a big diff but it does help a little.

For a 350 watt RMS amp to have a 0 awg battery ground? That is VERY overkill. Say the amp takes 25 amps of current, and the car takes 50 amps to run it. So well round up to 80 amps of current. 8 awg is good for around 75amp, so 6 awg would be fine. 4 awg would be perfect for headroom, and 2 awg is overkill. 0 awg, though... unless its 6' of grounding, its WAY overkill.

I was able to gain .1 V on one car by doing a 4 awg grounding. I will bet money it would be an unnoticable differance going to 0 awg. The alternator on a neon only runs 80 amps... so once again, 6 awg would help, 4 awg would be perfect for headroom... and so on.

Either way, add or replace

chinny · Post by **chinny** » Sat Sep 24, 2005 12:08 pm

nodestiny wrote:
chinny wrote:
nodestiny wrote: You got it all down, BUT 2 things. There is nothing wrong with replacing wires. I replaced my ground wire from battery to ground. There was no need for the stock one after the change over, so i figured save the little bit of weight .

also, it doesnt HAVE to be 0 awg. It depends on the overall load on the entire car. With a 350 watt amp (sorry if i said 500 earlier, that came out my ass), 4 awg would be MORE than plenty. And with the stock alternator, grounding the alternator (or block, whatever) with anything more than 6 awg would be overkill (unless you plan to run a 10' ground cable ). I used 4 awg on my alternator because it was on hand. And it came out to be less than 6", so im sure even a 150 amp alternator would be fine with the 4 awg run. 0 awg would be WAY over kill.

Nothing wrong with overkill... but overkill costs more money and weight.
Your right about some things and wrong about some..

It does HAVE to be 0g for any wattage... the bigger the cable, the best results u will get, trust me i have done tests. UNLESS the length is minimal.

If your going to do 4g dont waste ur time and stay stock.

And just ADD on wires and DONT replace wires... you wont see a big diff but it does help a little.
For a 350 watt RMS amp to have a 0 awg battery ground? That is VERY overkill. Say the amp takes 25 amps of current, and the car takes 50 amps to run it. So well round up to 80 amps of current. 8 awg is good for around 75amp, so 6 awg would be fine. 4 awg would be perfect for headroom, and 2 awg is overkill. 0 awg, though... unless its 6' of grounding, its WAY overkill.

I was able to gain .1 V on one car by doing a 4 awg grounding. I will bet money it would be an unnoticable differance going to 0 awg. The alternator on a neon only runs 80 amps... so once again, 6 awg would help, 4 awg would be perfect for headroom... and so on.

Either way, add or replace

We are talking about how to stop the voltage drops, thats why im saying 0g would be the best, and if your going to do with 4g then dont do it. If you have a system in your trunk you shouldnt be thinking that u need smaller wire... do it right or dont do it at all. Anyways... the whole point is that with 0g you WILL get LESS voltage drops, and IF you can get 4/0g then it would be best, bigger than that we dont need... I say this because my team competes in SPL competitions and we have 3 runs of 0g grounds in th car and 3 runs of 0g for power in the car.... the more wire you have supporting, the best result in less voltage drops you will get.

cgneon · Post by **cgneon** » Sat Sep 24, 2005 2:09 pm

thanx for all the detailed info.... off to get some 0g...

nodestiny · Post by **nodestiny** » Sat Sep 24, 2005 3:34 pm

chinny wrote:
nodestiny wrote:
chinny wrote: Your right about some things and wrong about some..

It does HAVE to be 0g for any wattage... the bigger the cable, the best results u will get, trust me i have done tests. UNLESS the length is minimal.

If your going to do 4g dont waste ur time and stay stock.

And just ADD on wires and DONT replace wires... you wont see a big diff but it does help a little.
For a 350 watt RMS amp to have a 0 awg battery ground? That is VERY overkill. Say the amp takes 25 amps of current, and the car takes 50 amps to run it. So well round up to 80 amps of current. 8 awg is good for around 75amp, so 6 awg would be fine. 4 awg would be perfect for headroom, and 2 awg is overkill. 0 awg, though... unless its 6' of grounding, its WAY overkill.

I was able to gain .1 V on one car by doing a 4 awg grounding. I will bet money it would be an unnoticable differance going to 0 awg. The alternator on a neon only runs 80 amps... so once again, 6 awg would help, 4 awg would be perfect for headroom... and so on.

Either way, add or replace
We are talking about how to stop the voltage drops, thats why im saying 0g would be the best, and if your going to do with 4g then dont do it. If you have a system in your trunk you shouldnt be thinking that u need smaller wire... do it right or dont do it at all. Anyways... the whole point is that with 0g you WILL get LESS voltage drops, and IF you can get 4/0g then it would be best, bigger than that we dont need... I say this because my team competes in SPL competitions and we have 3 runs of 0g grounds in th car and 3 runs of 0g for power in the car.... the more wire you have supporting, the best result in less voltage drops you will get.

So why stop at 0/1 awg? Why not 0/3? If you are going to do it right, do it or dont do it at all!

Seriously, overkill... Unless he needs headroom for a future and larger system, there is no need for that size of wire. It is a waste of money. GAURANTEED no audible and most likely measureable differance for his setup between 0 awg to 4 awg.

In your case, 3 runs of 0 awg... thats nearly 1K amps of current! Obviously you got some hella alternators up front (3 200 amps?) to power some batteries in the back. I can see overkilling as much as possible.

But for a daily driver? Just remember what the average shop charges for 0 awg VS wal-mart for 4 awg (or wherever). Shops in this area charge 6 dollars or more a foot of 0 awg! Plus you have to get crimps... adds up quickly for an unnoticable gain.

Either way, ANY larger ground is an upgrade

79cutlas · Post by **79cutlas** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 1:13 am

ok well not to interupt, but how exactly does a capacitor take so long to charge? It doesn't, a 1 farad capacitor can charge in as little as microseconds, and it discharges just as fast, in fact, when the cap is in line a charged you will hardly notice a drop in caps current.

As far as grounding, yes it does help alot. But before I grounded my car my 1000W RMS amp would literally turn OFF the headlights at night. I added a 1 farad cap and never had a dimming problem agian. I've never understood why people have trouble with caps, cause if they didnt work SPL players wouldnt be using them.

chinny · Post by **chinny** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 1:09 pm

nodestiny wrote:
chinny wrote:
nodestiny wrote: For a 350 watt RMS amp to have a 0 awg battery ground? That is VERY overkill. Say the amp takes 25 amps of current, and the car takes 50 amps to run it. So well round up to 80 amps of current. 8 awg is good for around 75amp, so 6 awg would be fine. 4 awg would be perfect for headroom, and 2 awg is overkill. 0 awg, though... unless its 6' of grounding, its WAY overkill.

I was able to gain .1 V on one car by doing a 4 awg grounding. I will bet money it would be an unnoticable differance going to 0 awg. The alternator on a neon only runs 80 amps... so once again, 6 awg would help, 4 awg would be perfect for headroom... and so on.

Either way, add or replace
We are talking about how to stop the voltage drops, thats why im saying 0g would be the best, and if your going to do with 4g then dont do it. If you have a system in your trunk you shouldnt be thinking that u need smaller wire... do it right or dont do it at all. Anyways... the whole point is that with 0g you WILL get LESS voltage drops, and IF you can get 4/0g then it would be best, bigger than that we dont need... I say this because my team competes in SPL competitions and we have 3 runs of 0g grounds in th car and 3 runs of 0g for power in the car.... the more wire you have supporting, the best result in less voltage drops you will get.
So why stop at 0/1 awg? Why not 0/3? If you are going to do it right, do it or dont do it at all!

Seriously, overkill... Unless he needs headroom for a future and larger system, there is no need for that size of wire. It is a waste of money. GAURANTEED no audible and most likely measureable differance for his setup between 0 awg to 4 awg.

In your case, 3 runs of 0 awg... thats nearly 1K amps of current! Obviously you got some hella alternators up front (3 200 amps?) to power some batteries in the back. I can see overkilling as much as possible.

But for a daily driver? Just remember what the average shop charges for 0 awg VS wal-mart for 4 awg (or wherever). Shops in this area charge 6 dollars or more a foot of 0 awg! Plus you have to get crimps... adds up quickly for an unnoticable gain.

Either way, ANY larger ground is an upgrade

Because anything bigger than 0/1 is an overkill for DAILY DRIVING, bigger would be better for competitions

As for the 0g prices, man go to www.weldingsupply.com they got it for 1.24 a foot and crimps u can get at any loal hardware store for $.69 if not steal them lol..

btw, i got a 170a high output www.excessiveamperage.com alternator that fits any 98-02 neon... i had 2500w powered with this and had no dimming what so ever.. everything was birghter. for $280 shipped.

Loud-e-nuf · Post by **Loud-e-nuf** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 1:21 pm

Try http://www.knukonceptz.com/ Their prices are pretty good and their shipping is fast.
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Vaporizer instructions
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Cs-80

scneonchic · Post by **scneonchic** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 12:00 am

is the alternator hard to replace? im looking into getting one sometime in the spring more than likely and was curious as to if i should have a shop do it or is it something i could do at home w/ the right tools?

Spork · Post by **Spork** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 5:59 am

Don't bother with a cap. Upgrade the three major wires for charging. When I first got my system installed, the car would physically lurch from the power drain. So I ground down to some bare metal and ran a good set of 4AWG wire and viola! No more dimming, no more lurching, and no caps.

If you go to any forum dedicated to car audio as much as 2ng is dedicated to neons, you'll get the same answer from someone else. You will get a different answer from most car audio shops who are just trying to get more money out of you anyway.

The only time you should even consider a cap is if your amplifier does not have a good power regulator and you have a high current alternator. The cap will condition the line to reduce potential spiking. Home audio has a similar system called a line conditioner... it uses the same principals.

lilolneon · Post by **lilolneon** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 5:34 pm

raising the dead here... but... does anyone have any pics of where i need to replace/change the wires at? i foudn the batter-chassis, and engine-battery, but i dunno for the life of me where the altenator wires are at

anyone with pics, w/ or w/o the big 3 install would be helpful

fireantz · Post by **fireantz** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 6:26 pm

I am with chinny on the replace the grounds with 0/1 and not 4 gauge sentiment.

And on the "3 runs of 0 gauge is overkill" that is wrong aswell. A friend of mine had like 2 runs of 0 gauge and he increased it to 4 and he gained .5 dB from that alone.

lilolneon · Post by **lilolneon** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 9:14 pm

well... again im just tryin to find a picture of the "Big 3" setup... or at least where the altenator groudn wires are...

Nick Drake · Post by **Nick Drake** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 3:37 pm

fireantz wrote:I am with chinny on the replace the grounds with 0/1 and not 4 gauge sentiment.

And on the "3 runs of 0 gauge is overkill" that is wrong aswell. A friend of mine had like 2 runs of 0 gauge and he increased it to 4 and he gained .5 dB from that alone.

The kid's got a 350 watt amp! He's obviously not in competition. So it is overkill.

lilolneon · Post by **lilolneon** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 1:03 am

well, i dunno about him, but i have a 1600w amp, and a 600w amp... total... 2200w

cgneon · Post by **cgneon** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 6:30 am

Nick Drake wrote:
fireantz wrote:I am with chinny on the replace the grounds with 0/1 and not 4 gauge sentiment.

And on the "3 runs of 0 gauge is overkill" that is wrong aswell. A friend of mine had like 2 runs of 0 gauge and he increased it to 4 and he gained .5 dB from that alone.
The kid's got a 350 watt amp! He's obviously not in competition. So it is overkill.

the kid?... i got 10 years on you kid..... hahaa.... i cant believe this old post of mine got ressurected... lol

neonlight18 · Post by **neonlight18** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 10:13 am

its best to use 1 farad for every 1000 watts, and since u dont have even that much a .5 farad cap would do u good...

OB · Post by OB » Fri Apr 07, 2006 11:20 am

my stereo/electrical system is bone stock and my lights dim whenever i do anything that draws power from the batt (i.e. roll windows up/down, turn steering wheel, lock/unlock doors) is that all normal? the stock batt is prob booboo huh, i wanna upgrade to a redtop when it dies. about how long should the stock battery be up to the task? i have 14000 miles on it (and everything else for that matter). the headlight deal is annoying as hell, and the guages dim too, same deal. any info would be good, i wanna know if my batt needs replacing.

dblsg · Post by **dblsg** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 11:47 am

dude, the only way you can know if your battery needs replacing is to get it tested... a lot of autoparts stores do it for free.

mileage is not in indicator on battery life.

Floyd · Post by **Floyd** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 12:17 pm

Spork wrote:Don't bother with a cap. Upgrade the three major wires for charging. When I first got my system installed, the car would physically lurch from the power drain. So I ground down to some bare metal and ran a good set of 4AWG wire and viola! No more dimming, no more lurching, and no caps.

Same here, a few runs of 4awg in the engine bay and no more dimming.

OB · Post by OB » Fri Apr 07, 2006 9:29 pm

dblsg wrote:dude, the only way you can know if your battery needs replacing is to get it tested... a lot of autoparts stores do it for free.

mileage is not in indicator on battery life.

yeah i know that but i asked if the dimming was a sign of low life. im too busy to get it tested and im lazy too

lilolneon · Post by **lilolneon** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 9:34 pm

i think it is, i got my car at 14k miles, and it had the stock battery, i didnt have it replaced until about 50k miles or so maybe a lil less, i had the same prob you with the lights dimming, happend when i stepped on the brake, or turned brights on/off or had the radio on. I replaced mine with a YellowTop. And ive also changed the ground wires to 4awg I practically have no dimming at all now, unless i turn my subs to +10dB and crank up the volume... then i start to get some dimming again... but i never turn my subs up that high... too bassy, ususally keep it at +0dB on occasion i might turn it up to +5dB tho... but thats usually when i wanan out thump a ricer beside me

Damn the give me the funniest looks... they playin their rap w/ bumps, and im playin my NIN with bumps