audiofanaticz

That is normal, nothing out of the ordinary. The problem is you're just learning how your car operates now after installing additional electrical things and not before so you think there is a problem when there is not. Your car has the same 3.6L VVT 305HP engine as my 09 Cadillac minus the flexfuel sensor that I don't have. These alternators are PCM controlled by the car, so when the additional amperage draw is not needed from the alternator the car essentially turns the alternator off to offer better fuel economy. When the vehicle is started you will see the high voltage until the battery replenishes its charge basically then it will turn the alt off and be in the low 12's. Since you have an LTZ model Im sure you have heated seats, so next time your in your car driving in the day time and you see the voltage drop down to the 12s turn on both your front heated seats, rear defroster, headlights, even your heat/ac and once your car senses that additional draw on the electrical system it will turn that alternator on almost instantly bringing the voltage back up to the 14's. The problem is your power wire is an additional add on and it's not being monitored through the cars computer so it doesn't sense the amperage load being used by your amp so it doesn't tell the alternator to wake up and work until the battery voltage drops below a certain setpoint that is programmed in the cars computer. There's ways around this but I'm not sure what's best since I never put a system in my car because I have my stereo truck, but this is common in a lot of newer 2000 and up vehicles from many manufactures!

Once you go DSP you never go back!

So if you have been building this for a few years, have you been using it that entire time, or now just trying to use it? If you have been using it then how did you have video output prior to buying a new video card then returning it and buying another and still no video output? I'm assuming you also have the 8 pin cpu power plugged in on the top of the mobo, right? Were you using another card that worked, or were you using the onboard video? Have you tried the card in all 3 of the different PCI-E slots? Typically the top one is default, but it could be a bad slot. I know the top 2 PCI-e are 3.0 slots controlled by your CPU while the bottom PCI-e slot is a 2.0 controlled by the mobo chipset. Have you plugged in the additional 8 pin power plug from your power supply to your video card? Without the additional power plugged in to the card it will not work, the most it will do if anything is make the fans spin and light up any possible led lights it may have. Have you entered bios to make sure that the PCI-e slots are not disabled? Have you tried to clear cmos/reset bios to the factory settings? Have you updated/flashed bios to a updated version? That board is a few years old and there maybe something goofy with the default outdated bios that is not allowing a PCI-e 4.0 card work. I'm aware that a 4.0 card should work, at 3.0 or even 2.0 speeds on an older board but sometimes bios just have strange glitches like that. These are a few things I would check/try that I can think of off the top of my head.

Yes, but if you're adding more than one diode you will want to run your sense wire to an ignition switched source under the hood instead of using a ring terminal and going right off the alt charge stud because the diodes will always suck juice and the more diodes you put in series the more they will suck which is why you charge higher. Heres a video of someone showing how. Actually a couple videos.

Since your tight on needed airspace for the subs, then you want to avoid a center port like that because that port will take up a bit more volume seeing as only 2 small pats of the box will be used for the port. Moving the port to one side of the box will use up 3 walls of the box as the port and allowing you to eliminate a bit of extra work while gaining some air space. Also its worth mentioning that woofers up and port back is typically drastically louder in suvs. This would be a bit better than what you have if you dont do sub up port back.

Buy a new one.

Who says that? I've never heard it before. My 3 DC Power alts are about 10 years old now. 1 had failed a couple years ago with a bad voltage regulator and I tore all 3 down and replaced all voltage regulators all brush housing assemblies and a rectifier on one of them. Since I'm running cmax now I also added 2 diodes per alt sense wire, I will add a 3rd probably yet when ever I work on it again. I have no issues but the alts are basically like new now so who knows on this decreased lifespan and said wear. The only thing to really wear on an alternator are bearings and brushes from the alts spinning, this is going to wear no matter what. Then things that can fail would be your rectifier and voltage regulator which normally fail due to excessive heat with no real air movement in the engine bay. So being parked at a competition revving your engine to 2000rpm and demoing non stop is hard on the alts since the vehicle is not moving brining in fresh air to the engine bay. The proper way to increase charging voltage is to buy an external regulator, send your alternator in to have your internal regulator removed and wired for an external regulator, and then buy an external regulator. XS Power had a some PCM thing years ago to increase alt voltage but it was discontinued, I know mechman had a thing with a resistor and a potentiometer to increase voltage years ago. I think Brand X has something iirc for this currently as well. One thing to mention whether you go the brand x route or the diode route, you will want to change your sense wire from the charging stud of the alternator to an ignition switched 12 volt circuit. Adding diodes makes the alt thing the voltage is lower than it really is, but when the vehicle is off these diodes will still be pulling power continuously from the alt charge stud when the vehicle is off. So it can very easily drain your battery to nothing in a few days. So swapping your sense wire to ignition switched will stop that from happening.

How long are you hammering on the system for before this happens? The wire from the alternator harness plug to the positive stud on the alternator is most likely the sense wire, if you look at the voltage regulator on the alternator (where that harness gets plugged into) there should be a S on the regulator. That is normal. Have you tried recreating the problem when parked but holding your foot on the gas for a steady'ish 1800-2100rpm which would be similar to the rpms when driving instead of just being parked and idling and not being able to recreate the problem? If it would do it parked with a higher engine rpm like that then you might have an issue with one thing or another such as the alt, ultracap, or amp. If there is still no problem parked with the higher engine rpm then I would definitely say something is lose and the vibrations caused by the road when driving are wiggling something around enough for a bad connection someplace or another! Regardless I would go through every connection with a fine tooth comb and check to make sure everything is tight (even though you said it is). You have no idea how many times I was told things are tight by a customer only for them to bring their vehicle by and I will find a loose nut holding on a ring terminal, a piss poor solder or crimp job on a ring terminal, wires falling out of fuse blocks, melted fuse blocks, and so on. Also was the serpentine belt replaced when the new alternator was installed? Due to the smaller diameter pulley on the alternator you need to run a belt that is typically 1/2 inch shorter than the factory size, if you don't then the belt tensioner will be pretty much maxed out and not allow for it to properly tension the belt throughout the rpm range and will cause massive slipping issues. So if it wasn't changed, look up your car online for a belt number, and see the length listed, then find a smaller belt size, then proceed to get a new belt from your parts store of choice and give them the belt number and not your vehicle info or you will end up with the factory length belt which will be too long again.

He runs a shop that makes install products and tools for the audio industry and is not an audio shop that does installs and builds for the public. The builds/installs that you see are for his own vehicles, family members, close friends, etc.

Though I will say its not worth going batshit crazy for nice nice cables like some that are sold that cost crazy amounts of money (like these home theater guys be foolishly doing). There is a point where you hit that wall of cost to performance. I probably wouldn't spend over $75 per long set of cables, and shot for something in the $25-$50 range. Anything more at that point Id just buy the materials to make them myself because it's rather easy to do, and then you can make them to the actual length you need without access being coiled up.

Rather drastic, the higher the impedance the more voltage drop you will have from the front of your rca cable to the rear. So say your deck puts out 2 volts on the preout and you have a high impedance cable that 2 volt signal may only be 1 volt by the time it makes it to your amp. Where as with a low impedance cable it may only be 1.7 volts by the time the signal makes it to your amp. Now these numbers are just for an idea, you would actually have to test the voltage drop from cable a vs cable b in the car hooked up to see the real world difference. I tested a new 1.5 foot Certified Bassheads rca cable at 0.12 ohms against some well used 3 foot SMD rca cables that came in at 0.05 ohms, vs a well used 6 foot SMD rca cables 0.09 ohms. Longer wire typically means more potential for voltage drop but the 6 foot SMD cables that came in lower than the CB cables that were 4 times shorter was rather interesting. I have some longer 18 foot SMD cables that only read some where around 0.18 ohms iirc as well. Not only will the wire length and gauge be a factor in the results, but the type solder being used to connect the ends to the wire (ideally silver solder), and the actual rca plugs being used as well. Some brands don't even solder the connections and just use a generic crimp, I bought some a 2 channel and 4 channel sets of Knukonceptz Karma cables a long time ago and the plug fell off the cable once I took them out, I didn't even bother using them even though the other cables appeared to be fine. I'm sure they fixed that issue by now though, or so I'd hope. Here is a short live video I did in 2016 testing the above 3 cables. https://www.facebook.com/audiofanaticz/videos/1265875193446793/?l=4871178961006316123

An amp that makes 2,000watts rms at 1 ohm would be fine, it will be crucial to have the gain set properly so that it is matched to the radios rca preout voltage, after all the gain is NOT a volume knob (this goes for any amp). Over powering a speaker with more than its rated rms power typically never hurts anything as long as the gain is set correctly and you have your crossovers set correctly, and not being stupid when it comes to listening to the stereo, the woofers will start to stink a little to a lot when they get warm to hot and that is your warning to turn the volume down before they blow! 1000 watt rms worth of woofers will take extra clean undistorted unclipped power fairly well, but 1000 watt rms worth of woofers can easily be blown on 1000 watts of dirty distorted clipped power rather easily all because it wasn't as loud as you expected and decided to turn up the gain and use it as a volume knob to make it louder. Just know that you can still blow the speakers by feeding them too much power if you ignore the signs of them getting warm/hot and stinky!

As you turn up the volume the subwoofers should get louder and stronger, that is normal, but if they are being indecisive that really sounds like a signal issue and a common problem when using factory radios (especially in newish vehicles) due to the factory preprogrammed eq curves that you can't change and sometimes as you turn the radio up past a certain volume the radio and or factory amps are designed to cut or lower certain frequencies while boosting others. In some vehicles that is done actively by listening to the interior sounds of the vehicle with a mic. A bunch of Dodge vehicles have something calle ANC (active noise canceling) and will send out of phase signals through the stereo to drown out unwanted interior noises. So it really depends where they got the signal for the LC2i. I came across that issue in a fairly heavily modified 2018 Jeep Trackhawk that I put a single Alpine Type X 12 and a 1200 watt rms amp in. I mad a couple trips to this customer to hear the problem that he heard but never could reproduce it until I drove it myself because the problem was only there when the doors were closed and the mic was picking up the loud straight piped exhaust and sending an out of phase signal through the now louder system. Why I didn't come across it sooner is because when I was troubleshooting and in and out of the vehicle with doors open the ANC system is disabled. Unplugging the mic fixed that problem.

Most likely not, your factory size is a group 47 so I'm sure the additional spot for a 2nd battery is also a group 47. I know the previous generation body style was a group 34 for both locations but since they changed the current size chances are high that the 2nd spot is a 47 too, all you got to do is measure the 2nd battery try and compare those measurements to your main battery tray and you'll have your answer. I mentioned the 34 and 31 because people can't look at your picture to realize that the group 47 battery has recessed terminals that sit below the top of the battery case so why they are suggesting bars for batteries that have a flat top like a 34/31 is beyond me because they wont work unless you want them hanging out away from the battery looking like a hack did the install is beyond me. Like I said, do what Steve did for his sons Yukon XL in the video I posted, or like Steve did on his Escalade with the multi fuseblock and a distribution block, these 2 vehicles are virtually identical to yours under the hood right down to the same battery and battery location. This is going to be the best way to do it for your vehicle without having a bunch of ring terminals being piled on top of each other, so I guess I really don't understand why you're trying to make this harder than it is. No, unless you want the battery terminals sticking out away from the battery case to not be used as they are intended for..

They have designs right on their site, just adjust the dimensions to suit your needs while keeping the sizes the same and you should be good. https://sundownaudio.com/index.php/products/subwoofers-2/u-series-1500w#