2010 or newer Tahoe Big 3 upgrade question

[hayabusa boi]

i have a 2010 Tahoe with a pretty simple system that consists of:

Head Unit - Pioneer AVIC - Z130

High Amp - Audiopipe AP-2004

Bass Amp - Audiopipe AP-15001D

Door Spk - Boston Acoustics PRO60SE 6.5

Woofers - planet Audio BB215D

Question is, The ground wire from the engine block to the battery has some sort of plug around it near the battery and it don't look like a 0 gauge wire can go in it to replace that wire. Would it be ok to just run a 0 gauge from the block to the main battery along side it or do the wire need to go through that plug for proper charging. I plain on adding a second battery under the hood to help my system.

Anybody did a big 3 on a tahoe with this plug or climp whatever you wanna call that can advise. thanks

[08tahoe]

I have my 0 gauge running through that ground clamp. It will fit.

[JR2011bu]

OP can you post pics of said clip or plug?

I have never seen a plug on batt (-) terminal, seems odd to me. Also when doing big three just run a 1/0 wire along with factory wiring. And remember use fuse for run from alt to batt(+).

[07denali]

Mine has a bolt that fits a lug terminal on the negativ eclamp. I think there's a bolt on top of the clamp that you can just screw a terminal on. I currently have both the factory and 0 gauge going to the block on the passenger side. However, I bought a shuriken 80 and will be using RF batt clamps and will remove the factory ground and keep the batt to block zero gauge and add another 0 gauge ground from a bolt on the strut to that same block bolt to complete the big 3. I know of a great forum that shows you a step by step instructions on how to do the big 3 on a new body Tahoe with pics. Pm me and I'll get you the link bc I'm not sure if I can post the link here. BTW, I have a Denali so same basic wiring.

[windowtinter]

best way to handle it is to remove factory wire going through clamp and replace with 1/0 it also makes a big difference if you run the negative terminal of the system all the way to the front instead of body ground the more current you pull directly through the ground clamp up front the better the ecu sees the loadand keeps the college up on the alt.

[hayabusa boi]

thanks guys for the info i should have some time off from work this weekend to work on my system. need to do this big 3 bad, can't really bump my system to it fullness cause i'm getting enough power. at night if i try to push it a lil to much, my headlight damn near cut off and if feels like my truck wants to kill.

[hayabusa boi]

here is a picture of it didnt have a chance to take one. found that Merzbow had the same problem with his tahoe build

OK, with my GM service manuals in hand I've been reading up on the charging system in this vehicle in preparation for the immense amount of work I have to do here. Guess what this is:

That's the "battery current sensor" clamp. It fits around the negative cable from the battery to the frame. (Actually, there are TWO negative cables, a big one to frame and a small one apparently just for the headlight assembly return path, but whatever.) This sensor feeds into the BCM (body control module), which also measures voltage. Using these data, the BCM controls the alternator (by adjusting the field current supply, I think).

So what's the big deal? Every high-output aftermarket alternator company recommends replacing ground cables from the alt and battery to the frame with 1/0. Great idea, except that if your car has some bullshit like this current sensor hanging off the battery negative cable, and you DON'T migrate that to the new cable, your charging will be FUBAR. Just keeping the OEM cable connected and running a new 1/0 cable is NOT sufficient because the clamp will NOT see the current running through the new cabling. [EDIT: fixed paragraph for accuracy]

So what to do? Luckily, it appears this clamp will fit around a 1/0 cable. (The OEM cable is apparently 4-gauge.) So I think I can just do a straight-replace on that cable.

Note that there is no way this clamp would fit around MULTIPLE negative cables, nor is there any way to have the BCM control more than one alternator. This is why, if you do a multi-alt setup in this vehicle, it appears best to completely isolate the extra alternators and their batteries (which is what I'm doing).