Dafaseles

I feel like without totally removing your seat, doing a blow through, or doing a crazy center console build, your at your max with the 4 square subs. One thing about those L7's are, for whatever size, they are loud. Mostly because of the extra cone area you get from being square instead of round. With that amp wired at 2 ohm, I don't think your over driving your subs. The enclosure might be a tad small, making it a little harder for your voice coils to cool properly. Or, maybe you just got a hold of 2 duds, though with kicker, that's hard to believe you got 2.

Well, usually, when you bypass that ring, it causes drastic fluctuations because it's kind of confused and not quite sure what it needs to do. With it fluctuating before the big 3, you hadn't messed with or added any ground wires anywhere? The RVC will tell the truck to sometimes charge upwards of 15.3v, and also be that high on a cold startup. After it warms up, that can drop into the low 13 volt range when it decides it isn't needed. The fact that you unplugged the sensor, and it charges fine with no problems, leads me to believe that the sensor was bypassed in some way, or it was operating normally, and you just weren't used to the drastic changes in voltage it can tell the alternator to do

That's why your voltage is fluctuating so much and acting crazy. But, if you've found a work around that will work, then go for it. I can't tell you if it'll cause problems or not, I haven't tried it ever. But if it works, great!

Yeah, that plug is plugged into a plastic ring that goes around the ground wire from the battery negative and the block right? When you upgraded the wire going from the battery negative to the block, did you pass that wire through the ring?

Going from the battery negative to the engine block, you went through the RVC ring, correct? I had Stinger sp1500dc batteries. But others like XS and full Throttle are great batteries as well. I've read that same thing about just unplugging the alternator. The only thing is you have to look at a battery light. Some black electrical tape can take care of that 🤣 here in California though, we have to get our cars smogged, so any dashboard lights, it'll fail. I had to go about actually bypassing and fooling the system

The belt should either be the same size (if the tensioner can accommodate the smaller alternator pully) or just a little smaller than the stock belt. It should go into the same space as it did before, so I'm not understanding how all of a sudden it's hitting hoses. The engine in this hybrid trucks is the 6.0 v8 correct?

Nice!

I have the same truck. When I had a 1000 watt mono block, and a 400.4, I just upgraded the battery, did the big 3 in....I think it was 4 awg.... upgrade to a deep cycle AGM battery and never had a problem. Upgraded to 4 1000 watt mono blocks, and 2 400.4's, I went with a mechman 370 (not bypassing the RVC) and 2 80 ah deep cycle batteries under the hood with the big 3 now done in 1/0. Held up well (aside from corners cut by the car audio shop, but that's another story). A little bit of headlight dimming, but that's mostly because of the stock halogen lights. If/ when I upgrade to LED's, they shouldn't dim any anymore. Because LED's don't use as much energy, they're not as prone to dimming because of quick changes in voltage. Now, I'm in the process of upgrading again. Let's just say.....a decent amount more power. To bypass the RVC, I bought a Mechman 400 with a 4 pin plug instead of a 2 pin, then just tapped into a switched 12v source to power the alternator on. Mechman also has a bypass plug that uses a certain impedance to "fool" the stock 2 pin plug into thinking it's still controlling the trucks charging. As far as the voltage meter (in the dash in assuming) fluctuating, how did you do your big 3? On those trucks, it's more like a big 2, because you don't want to bypass the RVC ring with any grounding. So, basically, adding upgraded wire from alt positive to battery positive, then adding upgraded wire from battery negative, through the ring, to the engine block. Then also, from the battery negative to the vehicle chassis if that's how you grounded your amplifiers, though best practice is actually grounding to the chassis and all the way up to the batteries negative post. Pain in the ass....I know! 🤣

If they seem ok,I wouldn't worry too much. I'm sure they're a bitch to get in and out. Even with a USB, I still wouldn't max out my phones volume

Looking on the mechman website, who sells dual alternator brackets and whole setups, and watching a couple videos on YouTube, I've yet to find a solution to running 2 alternators with the 2 pin plug. It seems either they run 1 alternator with the 2 pin plug, and the second with a 4 pin plug with exciter wire, or both alternators with the 4 pin setup. That's not saying you absolutely cannot, and there's no solution, but at least I have not been able to find one.

Only way to tell is to put a DMM on each voice coil and measure the impedance, and visually inspect everything. How are you listening to your music? Through the phone? If so, I wouldn't turn the phone up all the way, if you are. That could be where you are running into problems. Just guessing though

That's good lookin' right there!

Well, before you go a completely different route.... How did you go about setting the gains on your amplifier? Those sound digital amps will do their rated power easy, and with those subs only being about 450 watt RMS, if you're sending too much of a clipped signal to those subs, they won't last long. How do you have your crossovers set on your amp? Do you have any electrical upgrades on the truck? Do you have an aftermarket head unit? Or are you using a line out converter? What are you using as a source for your music? A phone or something else?

If I'm not mistaken, Steve used 2/0 all throughout the escalade build. Maybe some 1/0 as well. I think maybe the stock wiring is or looks like 4 awg? I think he just added to it. On GM vehicles 2006 and up, you have a voltage regulator controller (VRC). It's a plastic ring around your ground wire from your battery, to the engine block. So your "big 3" is more like a big 2. You don't want to bypass that ring and ground the frame to the block. That can cause many problems. Is the stock battery under the hood the same chemistry as the XS batteries you have? If so, and you don't want to mess with the stock wiring too much, just keep it and throw the 2 batteries in the back.

Well, how much power are you looking to throw at this new system? What's your budget total? (Subs, amps, speakers, electrical upgrades...) How much space are you willing to give up? (In cubic feet) Can you build a custom enclosure for the new subwoofer(s)? There's a lot to know before we can start throwing out suggestions. I mean, you want to be the loudest? Drop $10,000, take out your backseat and wall 3 18's on 20k watts. Or, do you want to do something way less extreme (which I'm guessing you broadly do)? The best way to go about it is measure the space you're willing to give up, making sure you can build a box and get it into that space, then match the subs and power to that space. You're enclosure is really what can make our break your system. The best 12's in the world will still sound like crap in a crap enclosure.

I'm going to have to look into that for sure! Although.... we where doing something similar... the C pillar wall turned into a B pillar wall because of hight restrictions in his crossover. It's built very funky!

I say go with the bigger voice coil. It'll deal with heat better. Though you're not going to be running crazy amounts of power, so either I'm sure would work well

Well, as long as you figured out the problem and are happy with the sound, that's all that matters bud!

Just seems like you expected too much. Voltage drop is going to happen. It just does. Unless you want to get multiple alternators and more batteries, it is what it is. As long as you're not dropping down into the 10's really, you won't damage anything. With the Taramps, when that yellow clip light flashes, that's where you want to be. That means you're about to clip, not clipping. When the yellow light and the red light both come on, that means you're actually clipping. Also, soft clipping usually is ok. You just have to make sure you're not constantly clipping over and over again. Where is your amplifier grounded to? The battery? If so, I would add another ground to the frame, and maybe double up the big 3 runs. Probably won't make a huge difference, but worth a try. That smart 5k eats! How close to the back hatch is the port? It might be too close and not letting the port breath efficiently. It doesn't look like you have much room, but try moving it away from the back of you can. Maybe try port forward? It could improve if you find the sweet spot for your enclosure. Unfortunately, it's never enough dude. You could be running 8 15's and after a month or two, you'll get used to it and want more. That's just the way it is bud.

Looking really nice! If you don't mind me asking, what foam did you use? I'm doing something similar in a buddies car

If you wire 2 speakers per channel at 2 ohm, the speakers would be splitting the wattage. So 100 watts at 2 ohm would be 50 watts a speaker

Mechman makes a sort of bypass for it. I did it on my truck. Right now, the stock plug for your trucks alternator is a 2 pin setup. GM hasn't changed their alternator mounting bracket since I think '86, so you can put an older model 4 pin plug alternator on the truck no problem. You purchase a 4 pin plug with exciter wire, then just tap into a switched source with that. They also have a 2 pin bypass module you plug into the stock 2 pin plug that makes the truck think it's still in control of the charging. No battery light, and it makes grounding a lot easier. 1 thing is that these mechman alternators are internally regulated. So on start up, you'll 15v, then it will decrease to about 14.5-14.7. So if you need more, you'll need to talk to Tony about getting a specialty built one that can be externally regulated, or have a higher charging voltage. I don't know enough about LTO banks to know what charging you'd need to keep those cells happy, but I'm sure you do. If you just simply not use the ring, I've read (I haven't tried it) that the vehicle doesn't respond well at all to it and you'll end up having a ton of problems with charging and the truck doing stupid things. Hope this helps

Well, either amp asks for 1/0 gauge, so you should use that size to your amp and for your ground from your amp. If you use car audio cable such as Sky High Car Audio cable, Knukonceptz cable, or Full Tilt cable (there are other quality brands of car audio cable, these are just the ones that came to mind), make sure to use OFC (oxygen free copper) not CCA (copper clad aluminum).OFC is quite a bit more conductive than CCA, making it able to safely transfer more amperage. Welding wire is pure copper, so as long as you protect it, it should be fine. One thing to know when using welding cable is the size. Car audio cable is oversized, and welding cable follows the American wire gauge standard sizing. So 1/0 welding cable is a true 1/0 size, but car audio cable 1/0 is more closer to 2/0 welding cable (AWG) size. So take from that what you will

From the looks of it, I'd say the only way your putting 2 high RMS 18's in there is a wall and that might be cutting it close. But again, I'm notdon't have much experience in box design, so hopefully someone with more experience can chime in. The wall gives you about 16.5 square feet gross and the trunk build gives you about 10.5 gross

Basically, yeah