gurot1

I have a JL 300/4 and an old rockford fosgate bd1000.1 (something like that...it's an old monoblock amp...very old, but way more power than I need...I don't need the car rattling...the car rattles without the help of a sub now, it's 8 years old and this is one massive run-on sentence!), that I would like to hookup in the my CL. I already have an 8 guage(G) power wire running to the trunk where I used to have a sub and I have a distribution block that takes a 4g input and outputs to 2 X 8g wires sitting in my basement. The JL is rated for a min of 8G power wire and the RF is rated for a minimum of 4 G. I am going to run a 4G power wire to the trunk regardless. My question is should I run the 4G straight to the RF amp and run the 8G to the JL or can I run the 4 G to the distribution block (located in trunk) and then have two short runs of 8 G to both amps. I'm not sure if it makes a differnce, but I won't have the gain turned up much on the RF (I think the amp is rated at 1000W, I won't even need half of that, but the amp was free!). Just wanted to keep the wiring as clean as possible.

Thanks

tangsauce

Should be fine running 8awg off the block to both amps. 500w draw is fine for 8awg. If you're really concerned buy a block with one 4awg and one 8awg output. But yea no need to run both 4/8 from the battery to the back. Keep it clean.

my.daily'tl'

x2 I would find a block that would take the 4ga. inputs and have 4ga. outputs as well. But thats my preference. I would do it right once.

Here's a good resource: http://www.the12volt.com/info/recwirsz.asp

on1wheel01

If it takes 4 then send what it was designed to take

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

fourthmeal

Actually no, as long as the amp itself can snug down onto 8 gauge perfectly fine, there is no harm in doing this.

It all comes down to voltage drop.

IF the wire was quite long then the voltage drop may be pretty intense, but I would venture that a short run (less than 3-4 feet) would only lose .1v with 8ga over 4 ga... if that. also consider that voltage drop is relative to the current passing through, and normally an amp is working at less than 1/10th of its RMS max when playing music, even at high volumes.

In fact, there's a calculator on bcae1.com to this very type of calculation.

There are very nice distribution blocks with multiple gauge "adapters" out there, one of my favorite being Scosche, another is Stinger. Both have 1/0 gauge to 4 gauge slip. And on the other end, 4 gauge to 8 gauge slips.

gurot1

The RF is able to clamp down onto an 8G wire...I had attached it to the 8G power wire that's already running from the battery b/c I wanted to make sure the amp was still working. I only ran it for about 20mins though and it wasn't at a terribly loud volume. I will have to see if it's possible to fit a 4G wire in the block, i'm pretty sure it won't fit b/c it's rated as 2*8G outputs. I initially bought the block for a different amp that I had that only needed 8G, but then I was given the RF 1000W amp and figured may as well use it if I have it!

fourthmeal

Yeah you are safe, again it depends on actual current draw (not maximum the amp can produce but the actual you are using which is not near maximum I promise), and further it depends on distance.

If you think about it, a fuse is a TINY wire, but it happens to also be a very short distance. Its like a tiny footbridge on a superhighway, but the way electrons work allows a tiny wire to work just fine provided the distance is short.

The actual calculation is: www.bcae1.com/images/swfs/wirepowercalculator.swf

http://www.bcae1.com/images/swfs/sys...nassistant.swf

gurot1

I was thinking that internally the RF amp probably isn't 4G wiring...thus a short run of 8G should be OK. Notice I didn' t say optimal! Thanks to all those who have posted thus far.

fourthmeal

This is a 1001BD internally:



This is the newer T1001BD




Safe to say no 4 gauge inside.

gurot1

LOL, I can't say I had been expecting to see the guts of the amp LOL