glenyoshida

If your lights are dimming when the bass hits is not likely the factory cables that are the cause of the problem. If you replace them with larger wires it's not going to hurt performance and theoretically it will help but the main cause for the dimming lights is your batteries inability to deliver that much energy that fast. Adding a second battery will also help a tiny bit but your lights will still dim, your alternator will have to work harder, and you will likely introduce engine noise in your audio/CB system

The best solution to keep the power in your system from sagging is to add something called a Power Stiffening Capacitor or stiffening cap. Capacitors allow for a huge amount of energy to be released in a very short amount of time. Lightening in a bottle is a good analogy.

Depending on the size of your amplifier you should look for a 500 microfarad capacitor or larger. It's hard to get a capacitor that is too big. Your wallet will stop you from doing that long before the size of the capacitor becomes an issue. If you go with a 1 farad capacitor (1000 microfarads) you will have a large enough capacitor to cover 99% of the audio systems in the market.

When looking for a capacitor you should look at the discharge rate of the capacitor. The lower the number the better. It means that it takes less time to deliver the power. For example a 5 millisecond discharge is fast.

When you wire the capacitor in the best place to install it is near the amplifier. If you do install it next to the battery that is still OK just not ideal. You want to wire the capacitor in parallel. That means you connect the positive wire from the terminal to the positive terminal of the capacitor and then to the positive of the amplifier. The negatives are the same, Neg of batt to neg of the cap and then neg of your amplifier.

I'd also like to make a quick note that larger cables will allow for a larger amount of current to be delivered but if you only have so much power to begin with then you still only get what your alternator and battery can deliver.

Whitey13

I hate to be the one to tell you this after your very thorough explanation, BUT, this thread is nearly 2 years old.

glenyoshida

lol I know. I saw that after I was done writing it. Figured it still might be useful for others down the road.

Whitey13

I absolutely agree. My install is right around the corner...