wiring

beavis240

any suggestions on brands / types of wires to wire a car with momo's ?

MacLeod

All of the major brands are fine. Im kind of partial to Tsunami and Streetwires but Monster and Stinger are also good.

As far as speaker and power wire, theyre all pretty much the same. As for RCA cable try to get the most expensive set you can afford.

neomagus00

i run stinger expert rcas... mac's right, this is where you spend your money. try www.knukonceptz.com for power, ground, speaker, and turnon wire. what momos are you running?

exalted512

i read somewhere that knu's RCAs were supposed to be pretty damn good...
-Cody

beavis240

im runnin MMC6500, MMC690, and then some MM12's.

do i use 8 guage wire for the speakers and 4 guage for the subs?

MacLeod

I assume youre talking power wire. 4 guage speaker wire would be a bit much! LOL

It depends on your amps. A good way to tell is to add all the fuse ratings on all your amps together. Use 8 gauge up to 80 amps, 4 gauge to 120 amps and 0/1 for anything passed that.

Run the main wire to a dist block then from there you would run 8 or 4 gauge to the amps depending on their requirements.

neomagus00

for speaker wire, use as large as the terminals will take... say around 12 for speakers, and 10 for subs? then for power and ground, mac is right, it depends upon the current draw of the amps, but it also depends upon the wire run (longer = more resistance, resistance = badness). Use the chart below to cross-reference your current draw with your cable length. The current draw is, again, the sum of all the fuse ratings on all your amplifiers (incidentally, this is the value of the fuse you'll be putting in the power wire less than 18" away from the battery).

if you're on a border in that chart, there's a tradeoff in stepping up to a larger size. with a bigger size, it's more money per foot (up to twice the cash, but since it's only like a buck a foot it's no biggie), but the bigger issue - as it were - is the storage space a bigger cable requires. a 4-gauge cable can be hidden under carpeting, etc. without anyone noticing. a 2-gauge cable is significantly more bulky, and requires more thought and planning about how you're going to run it. so, your choice, just never go below the gauge in the table.

mac is, again, correct in that you run the main power cable to a distribution block (here and here are good places to look). make sure that the input port of the d-block can accept the gauge you'll be running. then look at that table again, and for each amplfier, cross-reference the distance from where you'll be mounting the block to where you'll be mounting the amp with the current rating of that amp (again, the sum of its fuses). then ensure that the output ports of the d-block accept this gauge of cable (it may be different for your different amps, just go with the biggest of all of them... probably 8 gauge). finally make sure that there are enough output ports on the d-block. you'll need a fuse holder and fuse for the power cable next to the battery, check around the sites those two links lead to. ensure that the gauge of wire you've chosen to go from the d-block will fit in all the amps you're using.

ground cables are simple - use the same gauge for ground as you used for the power. you may wish to use a ground distribution block (exactly the same thing as you've got on the power side, you can just get two of em if you're doing this), in which case you run the same gauge out of the ground d-block as you ran into the power d-block. then put a ring terminal on the end of the ground wire and clamp it down HARD to bare metal nearby; i use a seatbelt bolt under the back seat.

turnon is like 14 gauge wire, no biggie. try to run rca's and power down opposite sides of the car, and speaker somewhere else if you can, if you can't it shouldn't be a problem running it wherever you can.

did i miss anything?

beavis240

im gonna be runnin the C400.4 for the speakers and C300.2 for the subs if that helps. thanks a lot for the help so far. any more suggestions is greatly appreciated. (im such a n00b)

neomagus00

hey, it's cool, everyone is at the beginning (how profound...) did you understand everything i wrote, i did it kinda fast? a couple accessories i forgot to mention - you can get firewall bushings for running the power cable from the battery to the cabin, if you're going to be going anywhere near a sharp edge - you do NOT want that battery to short through to the chassis (but that's what the fuse 18" away from the battery's for). let's see... you can get speaker wire terminals, if you want it to look pretty, probably don't need those. battery terminals might be a good idea if you're going to end up running a bigger-than-four-gauge power cable - they'll take the large cable much easier than a standard battery post. that should be all, any questions?

beavis240

yeah 1 more question.

if i went with getting this...

http://www.cardomain.com/item/STISWKH4

and this...

http://www.cardomain.com/item/STISWKH8RS

would i bet all set for setting up my amps? or would i need anything else? or are these the wrong wires or what?

AustinKP

If you want to get the exact same thing as the second one for like $20 less, go here: 4 gauge kit/great quality.

Joelsbass

http://www.knukonceptz.com/productDetail.cfm?prodID=KOLAK4

save yourself some money and go with this power wire kit... even has RCA's if you want to stick with them, for 6 bucks more you can get a kit with 2 pairs of RCA's. go with knukonceptz.com for your distro blocks, speaker wire, and battery connector (if needed) as well, still good quality but MUCH cheaper than the competitors... Expensive power wire etc. are rarely worth the price difference, if you're going to spend extra money on wiring put it into the RCA's

Joelsbass

lol, i guess great minds think alike austin

beavis240

so if i were to get the 4 and 8 guage kits i still need a distro block? and anything else?

exalted512

yes
id get the 4awg kit if you want to run 2 amps off of it
-Cody

beavis240

any particular 4awg kits catch your eye?

Joelsbass

http://www.knukonceptz.com/productDetail.cfm?prodID=KOLAK44

even comes with 2 sets of RCA's so you don't have to worry about picking up higher dollar ones.. or get the other one i posted earlier and buy better RCA's your call but the power wire here is just as good as what you were looking at before at 1/2 the price

LittleCar_w/12s

The only other way is to know a local guy who will cut it off his spool for you at cost or just above. You can save a good penny doin that, but it might not have pretty colors.

AustinKP

Originally posted by LittleCar_w/12s
The only other way is to know a local guy who will cut it off his spool for you at cost or just above. You can save a good penny doin that, but it might not have pretty colors.

Really? What does/would he charge for 1/0 gauge per foot? Not urgent, just a question for future reference...
-Austin

exalted512

a lot of the smaller shops do it, i think cc does it too...
knukonceptz is still much cheaper 99% of the time
-Cody

LittleCar_w/12s

I dont know the price per foot, but IF you know them it'll be at cost, which is less to them because they ordered 500 feet of it ...
My bud Len gave me my 12ga sub wires for about 2 bucks... and I got about 12 feet. They were R/Fosgate oxygen free too.

but KnuKoncepts will be reasonable if you have to buy at retail, and they will include everything in a kit if you so desire.

Guys, how is Knu on their shipping.. it's great pricing, but it is also heavy...

exalted512

Price Range................Standard............Premium
$0.00 - $24.99..............$5.00................$15.00
$25.00 - $49.99............$7.50................$17.50
$50.00 - $99.99............$9.50................$19.50
$100.00 - $149.99........$12.50..............$22.50
$150.00 +.....................$15.50..............$25.50

LittleCar_w/12s

Not bad 'tal.

beavis240

any specific distro block in mind? or will pretty much anything do from knukonceptz?

exalted512

a distroblock is a piece of metal...go with whatever one is cheapest
-Cody

LittleCar_w/12s

or make your own out of a copper plate... or flatten a 1/2" copper tube and put bolt-holes in it to bolt it and the cables down... anything works... just depends on how cheap, err... creative you are...:D