I currently have a 400 watt amp hooked up to my 10" sub and it sounds great, no problems.

I'd like to install:
-1 farad capacitor ("raptor" - cheap off ebay)
-clarion apx4240 400 watt amp ([60 watts x 4] or [90 watts x 2])
-alpine sps-171a 6.5" component fronts (to match the alpine 6.5" coaxial rears I've already installed)

So I'm wondering:
-can I hook up both amps to the capacitor?
-should I run my new amp at 90 watts x 2 since my component alpine fronts say they take 250watts max? (and leave my coaxial rears just hooked up to the headunit)
-the best place to mount my new amp with a fairly large footprint (9"x12"?)? I already have my existing amp mounted onto my semi-stealth box in the hatch passenger side floor.


Thanks for any help you can provide. I know I can physically install the stuff, but any advice from you guys who know what's up will be greatly appreciated.

-Derek

 

yes you can connect both amps to the cap. just make sure you wire it correctly.

it all depends on the RMS of the alpine components in the front if you should amp them or not. try to match the rms not the max.

have you tried the cubby hole in the trunk on the right side? it may take some fitting and cutting but it might work.

 

You can go over the RMS of a speaker greatly.I had 250rms going to some Bostons rated at 100rms.no problems. The main problem is distortion levels. anywho, if you can try to mount the amp in the spare tire well. I put a piece of wood on top of the spare and mounted it thier.

 

depends on the driver. my guess is your amp isn't actually running at 250 rms

as far as a cap you can wire one in but its not really worth it just save you money and take that money to run a big three

just through your speaker amp behind a rear pannel

 

It is doing 250 rms its a Rockford 25 to life punch 75,birthsheet rated 252rms@4 ohms per chan.

 

well i had no idea. but not all speakers can take that much more power than they're rated for. there is a reason they're rated for what they are but with some brands you can feed them more power

 

^ thats true. i know bostons you can push alot more watts than its rated (ive experienced this with the boston g5). RF does too, i was accidentally pushing 400w RMS on a 400w peak RF and it worked for a while. then i found out that i was pushing it more than i should have and bought my kicker

 

you can give a speaker a lot more than its rated. Distortion kill speakers not to much/not enough wattage

 

Almost any speaker can take far more power than what it's rated for, provided it's in the appropriate frequency range for the driver in question and the interval is very brief. A 5" mid with a spec of 120Hz to 4kHz (+/- 3dB), rated at 50w RMS and 100w max may be able to handle 500w at 1kHz for 20 miliseconds with no damage.

Music is dynamic, and much of the time when listening at moderate levels, you're only using one watt or so to power the mids & highs, with lots of power in reserve to handle the peaks. Using an amp with more power than what a speaker is rated for won't hurt anything if the system is adjusted correctly.

For the OP, what you want to do is fine, shouldn't be any issues at all. The greatest challenge will be finding a place for the amp (left side of trunk, under front seat, behind rear side panels, in spare), you'll just have to decide the best place for you out of all the potential locations in the tC.

 

If you are bent and determined to put a cap in your car, you should only use it on the sub amp, where a lot more wattage is being pushed.

 

Not trying to be a ***** or anything, but after trying to get rid of some free Raptor 4 awg....errrr 0 awg, I can't recommend using anything from them.

Metra as a whole is a good company, Raptor seems to be their line where the unload crap though. If you really want a cap, please get something better.

Realistically though, unless you like the look of it, a cap really isn't needed for anything in your install. Even a stock tC should handle the power you're pushing to your system without a problem.

 

hey guys, I already had the cap (bought cheap off ebay), so I'd like to throw it in there connected to my two amps.

I wired everything tonight and I'm getting no sound. I've got my system wired as follows:

[battery+] to [cap+]
[cap+] to [amp1+]
[cap+] to [amp2+]
[cap-] to [ground point1]
[amp1-] to [ground point1]
[amp2-] to [ground point1]

one of my amp has its red "protection" light on, and the other doesn't seem to be doing anything. I'm not sure if it's the way I wired it or if I didn't charge the cap properly, but either way I'm hoping that one of you ICE veterans could help me out. Thanks.