Does anyone know how to wire multiple stiffening capacitors? I know I have to wire the capacitors in parallel (+ to +), but I'm not sure what to do for the ground. I'm going with two 1 farad capacitors which is 1 capacitor more than I need, but I just sold a car and yanked the system before sale, so I have an extra capacitor lying around, and I figure it can't hurt to have more juice on tap.

(1) Does each capacitor need to be separately grounded or can I just connect the neg terminal from one capacitor to the neg terminal of the other capacitor, which would then lead to a single ground for both capacitors? (2) If only one capacitor gets grounded, which one? The one wired closer to the battery, or the next one in the parallel setup which is wired closer to the amps?

(3) Last, are the lugs underneath and around the factory Bosh*t amp a good place to ground (after grinding away paint from the lugs and surrounding area and after sh*tcanning the Bosh*t amp, of course)? I'll end up testing the ground potential against the battery ground, but I'd sure like some practical advice if you have it. Any other good locations to ground in the rear quarter panel area of the trunk?

I'm slaving away on my install (Dynamat Xtreme; Kicker Solobaric S10L7 in a custom pain-in-the-a$$ to build enclosure; MTX 801D & MTX 564 stealthily stowed; Audiocontrol EQS; Fans on relays; Boston NX67 in back-sides for 20%-on-fader-fill and Diamond s500s in the doors for good love; and yanking the rear deck 6x9s to get more boom boom). If there's any interest, I'll post pics of each step of the process, which is much easier now that I have the factory technical manual. And for any flames on the Kicker/MTX combo--hey, you know what they say, you can take the boy out of the ghetto but you can't take the ghetto out of the boy. Bass in your face, Shlomo!

Thanks in advance!

 

Both caps will need to be grounded, and all grounds should lead to the same place. I don't think it really matters if you run separate ground wires or just jump the ground from one cap to the other. Some companies actually make brass buss bars to parallel caps with no wiring. This type of system parallels both the positive and the ground leaving only one + wire and one - wire to hook up.

Any spot near the aftermarket amps should be sufficient for grounding, if you scrape the paint around the chosen location. Amp ground wires should be less then 3' long, and the shorter the better. Hope this helps.

 

KPierson-

Many thanks for your reply. This website and its members are such a great online community, and a treasure of knowledge to boot! I've never really undertaken a project like this, and without the info on this site, there's no way I'd be able to even attempt the things I'm now doing.

For the ground, I'm going to use a non-fused distribution block with a 1/0 AWG wire feeding four 4 AWG grounds. I'll probably use one of those studs that are surrounding the stock Bosh*t amp as the single ground point for the dist block for the 2 amps, one cap ground (probably use a 2 AWG for this since both caps will be using one ground--thanks again), and the EQ. I'm planning on using the factory amp harness ground for the fans-on-relay system to isolate any noise--I have no idea if this is even a factor, but I'm pretending I actually know what I'm talking about here, so it sounds logical. I've mocked up the amp rack, and I'm hoping to get the power, amps, and EQ in by tomorrow so that I can put in the Diamond components on Monday. The stock system's soundstage and dropouts in the bandwidth are killing me.

Thanks again!!!