Power for the 3500D

[ibanender 2]

I've never understood, when people say when your seeing voltage drop add a battery.

Let's start by saying, voltage drop is when your alternator is at say 14.5volts and drops to say 12.5 volts, that's because all the current it is producing is used.

Now adding a battery isn't going to help your alternator produce anymore current, so therefore still going to drop to 12.5 volts.

Only way to stop voltage drop is produce more current, and the alternator will still have current to charge.

A battery stores energy, it doesn't produce it. Why doesn't people understand this.

To the OP, install the amp, then decided if you need anything else. As long as your not draining your batteries with everything your running. Your fine.

VERY well put!!

Now, for this particular question we have done a lot of testing so we have a good bit of experience.. That said, a 180 amp alternator in this car is going to give him about 120 "usable" amps over what he normally has, and with a couple of "good" batteries he should have plenty of adequate power under normal circumstances. The main thing to consider with a big amp like the 3500, is how is it going to be used. Is it in a daily driver that just bumps alot driving around, or is a comp vehicle. Kyles 3500 never pulled more than about ~100 amps at .5 on music at say 3/4 volume. On tones at .5 at high volumes, it may touch 180 BRIEFLY. In hours of testing, we NEVER saw over 200 AFTER we put a 270XP with a 15.1v regulator in it no matter how hard we pounded on it.

Remember, music is dynamic and even though you may have a 3500W "RMS" amp, your dynamic load of the amp will almost NEVER exceed 70% of its rated power. If you calculate it to the letter for power consumption, 3500/15 15= 233 amps. 233/.8 (effiency) = 290 amp max power input required to make an actual 3500w of output power. Now, take 290*.6 (dynamic avg MAX current requirement on music) 174 Amps, which is the absolute MAX necessary for 3500 actual produced watts, which you will only see MAYBE 25% of the time.

Will a bigger alt power it better, absolutely, no question about it. Will a 180 amp alt power it ok 90% of the time, no question...

I'm trying to make sense of these numbers... I blew a 350 amp fuse with a 3000D at .5, at full tilt with 4 yellow tops the power wire from my alt was clamped putting out 170 amps of current and I still had voltage drop into the 11's on the amp inputs.... not doubting, just seeking information

crazy...i ran a 200amp fuse with the same amp and nominal load AND voltage, and never blew the fuse{never have}. that was on a 75 amp stock alt and one 100ah batt awhile back. i now have an h/o alt and 2 of the batts and dont go lower then 12s now, still on that same fuse haha

Not all fuses are created equal, and I'd put money on you having a higher impedance rise.

[BigBodyLexus 3]

3500 "can" do 43-4500 @ 10.5-11v. You just have to wire at .25, i've done this a few times with good results but don't expect a warranty if you pop an amp lol. There are also a few modded 3500s around that at .5 will do 4400ish @ 12v which if ken got arik's amp it is ******* but rob is right about dynamic power 100% these are burp numbers and you cannot clamp an amp playing music. I ran 2 3500s on my 300 amp and only dropped to 13.5ish at full tilt, but i have 2 3100s and 2 6500s in back also, 2 2500s does not drop below 14.

I did get Arik's amp so I will get the 180 amp alt, the Deka 9A31 and we'll see what happens. I'll be competing but not every weekend, I'm more concerned about the daily driving.