a high out put alt, and good bat. shuld be first, then add a cap. I would get a 5farad alumapro "The C.A.P" it will have a responce time like no other.
get a FD alt and install it or get one from icemark i think it is.
as for the bat. get an optima red/yellow top.

A 2.5 Farad Cap will work... rule of thumb 1 Farad = 1000 Watts

Cap should come FIRST because all that other stuff might just turn out the be more of a hassle than anything... If things are still dimming and using a TON of power then he needs to get a battery... then an alternator

thanx a lot man

um..... its a stiffening cap its made to take pulsed load off the alt and make it a more steady one. not to add power to the system.
look at it like this.
13.5V out from the alt, 75amp = 1012W
2000w-1012w = -988w to run the car off of. and your telling me that a 1.5F cap is going to "fix" this problem.........
trust me and 90% of the other people in competition. it IS more impotent to HAVE the power available than to misuse a cap when it will do little.

Well I should be putting a system in mine pretty soon, not going to do it like some of my last vehicles though.

Some of my last vehicles hav had lots of money spent in them for the systems. Just to put done for the record.

My 1996 Chevy S-10 had $8000 in stereo equipment in it and my 1995 VW golf haf about $6000 in it. I have moved my spending money to other parts of the car as in my 2000 Subaru impreza 2.5RS which has about $6000 right now just in suspension work alone to it.

But I will be working on mine soon and will have pics of it up soon. Go tto get my 18s on first and the fender flares.

I'm interested in knowing how that system came to 10 grand.......

lol my thoughts exactly.. I don't see how you could have spent 10K on that system.. it's nice and all.. clean install.. but you might have gotten ripped off with that.
I got about 7K into my system and it's all Focal speakers and subs and Mcintosh amps.

Good, at least I'm not the only one sensing a little BS. I mean, L7's aren't THAT expensive, I see 3 Rockford Amps which aren't that much, I'll give you some leeway and say the box was a grand which is majorly pushing it, Dynamat in the doors isn't much, I just don't see how that system was over 5 grand. I mean, for 10 grand I could have a sick ass Audiobahn setup.

10 bucks says he wont post in this thread again after the BS flag was raised... unless he reads this then makes somthing up

the life story of my sound system:

about 4 years ago I bought this MTX full-range box from REX (an audio and appliance store) and found a used Coustic 400SE 2-channel amp to push it. It sounded pretty good in the station wagon I was rockin' at the time (1986 Olds 88 Custom Cruiser :cool: ), and becuase the MTX box was full-range (see the tweeters on it) it was a cheap plug-and play solution that didn't leave me needing any aftermarket speakers anywhere else in the car (read: NEEDING).

When I got rid of that wagon, I stored the box in my room, ocassionally carrying it to a house party where I would use one channel of an old receiver/amp to power the whole box as an 8ohm load. Time passed, and one day when I was restless I threw the whole setup into the back seat of my 1985 Monte Carlo where it sounded really good (good enough to effectively waste the back seat of an '80s G-body). During this time, a friend gave me the Max Killa Hertz Bass Mekanik CD, and I realised just how good these speakers could sound.

When I got out of the Monte and into the Seven, I was sure I'd need to find a different audio solution for the little hatchback. The truth is, I still do, but the need for noise (and my shortage of cash)... overpowered my ability to reason, and the $350 sound system found it's way into it's 3rd car (same CD deck and everything!). Again, the box sounds good enough to justify losing my storage bins... but just barely... As soon as I get some cash I'm going to put the car back together the way it should be, and probably get one kick ass 12" (or 15" [???]) mounted neatly in the hatch.

but for now...

http://www.afn.org/~afn35602/var/subs.jpg

and if you face those toward the rear of the car they will sound 10x better

^ the man does not lie...

I still have the cargo cover installed in the hatch, do you still think it would sound better if the subs faced into that instead of the seats? it's a ported box anyway, so a lot of the bass comes out of the ports (up)

I was just thinking, after seeing all those sub boxes in people's hatches. Make sure you BOLT the box and stuff the hell down. I sure wouldn't want a couple of 12's and a bandpass box flying around my car in the event of an accident..... OUCH.

Aaron

kicker
 

I have 1- 12" kicker S12L7 solo-baric in a sealed box just over 1 cu ft in my hatch. It faces the rear and is approx 4-6 inches from the back wall. I have an autotek ss800x mono amp hooked up to it and it is pushing approx 600 watts. I don't have a cap and i am getting good power to it. The installer said i'm prolly hittin low 140's but i'm going to a competition so i'll know for sure soon. BTW, I have an eclipse HU, eclipse coax's, and an eclipse amp for my mid/highs.

you gotta hide it.. unless you have glass insurance. i built this box in an afternoon. it fits under the carpet, a 12" was a little overboard, in hindsight a 10" would have been fine, but i always wanted a 12. my amp and cap are mounted in the other side.



http://www.beefhole.com/jeff/rx7/box5.jpg

They way i had my gxl setup was rockford 3 way system up front with powerbass (awsome speakers) 6 1/2 in ther rear towers with a 640 watt kenwood powering those. And for Subs I have 2 alpine type s 10's facing the rear of the car with an 800 watt mtx amp powering those. I had all the amps and wiring mounted on the back of my 2+2 seat and i could still fold it up too. The whole thing was wired with 4 gauge wiring. sounded awsome.

i just got 2 15inch pyles from a repo yard and a earthquake 1125watt amp out of a 4 runner, how would i possibly fit all my goodies in my car?

theres no need for that much bass :D... mount them isobarically.. youll need a box half the size he speakers advertise.. ie less trunk room wasted

You could also just install a single 12'' sub. In a hatchback its plenty.

tried that today. it sounded pretty bad: deep bass became soggy and exaggerated, and high bass almost dissapeared. it did, however, take some of the "edge" off, which was good. but overall accuracy suffered way too much.

gave it a shot, though :D

I've got a Kenwood Excelon 828 deck with 600 watt Kenwood amp to a 10" Kenwood sub in a Q logic box.

I mounted the amp to the bin wall behind my seat and the sub is strapped down by the luggage straps. I've gone through some fun stuff and that sub never moved or bashed my head in.

Wanna know why that happend... cuz to get any bass facing it forward you have to turn your setting up further than you would facing it back... turn down your settings and you'll hear nice clean bass... Either that or that settup just sucks and you just cant hear the distortion with it facing forward

86GXL:

what settings should I turn down?

it sounded bad because that's a full range box.. your bass got louder and your highs got muted down from the sound having to bounce back to the front of the car. Bass is somewhat non-directinal while highs are directional.