Wires, Part 2 'THE BIG THREE'

Wires, A Part Two

Following our post on wires, it has come to my attention that a lot of you guys are running your systems with your stock batteries. Although these batteries may often somewhat restrict your system, to replace it with an aftermarket battery might be out of the question for some which is why I have an alternative solution for you! 'The Big Three'! You may recall that in the Wires Article, we touched upon the subject of 'The Big Three' and this resulted in us looking deeper into a car’s stock wiring and to put it simply, they are not up to scratch for handling the needs and demands of a decent car audio system.

All of us car audio guys (and girls!) need as much power as we can get and upgrading The Big Three will be your best bet at trying to get some good clean power to your amplifiers. As you may know, and hence the name, ‘The Big Three’ involves three wires. One from the battery’s negative terminal to your car’s chassis, one from your engine’s ground to the chassis and from the alternator positive to the battery’s positive terminal.

For the upgrade, I strongly recommend using the best quality wire you can afford. Essentially you want to have one piece of 1/0 gauge wire however if for whatever reason you choose against one wire, you can double up slightly thinner wire, maybe 2 gauge wire or 4 gauge wire. I know that after upgrading each wire, I did it in stages, and after the upgrade of the first wire, my voltage (using the built in volt meter on my power capacitor) went from fluctuating between 14.2v and 13.6v to a steady 14.7v while the system is playing. As a result I have noticed a significant increase in my system’s voltage and after seeing direct results for myself, I strongly recommend that everyone carries out the upgrade too as part of the installation of their system.

The actual upgrade process is pretty simple as a concept, I mean, how hard can it be to swap 3 wires? The answer is quite simple, however if done incorrectly, you potentially stand to run into some serious problems! It is advised that only qualified professional undertake the upgrade as there are multiple risks involved, such as the protective insulation becoming damaged and potentially coming to contact with some other part of the car which may result in the car’s electrical system shorting out!

The verdict?

If you are a skilled DIYer and know your way around electrics, then you may want to give this one a go, otherwise leave it to the pros. Either way ‘The Big Three’ upgrade is a very small but incredibly effective way of increasing the performance of your car audio system, if you didn’t know, now you do...

Neil