Big Three Upgrade - S550

[Tamahome0723]

Has anyone performed this in their S550 already? I'd like to see how these were ran. In particular if anyone did the ground room from the negative post of the battery to the chassis. I'm not entirely sure where is best to do,this, where to grind and drill, etc.

I have a 5ft 0 gauge for this run and am hoping it helps a bit with my dimming lights on overall efficiency during periodic hard loud listening. The 0 gauge power is already running to the trunk distribution to feed the two JLs (HD1200 and HD600), so hoping I can get buy with firming up the ground.

One other thing, I see mixed answers regarding what the stock alternator is in the GT premiums. Is it really 200 or something else? Trying to determine if it will hold up for a while or burn a quick and fiery death. ;)

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[Tamahome0723]

A fresh bump for the new day - I'm hoping at least one of the other members has already run a ground from the battery to chassis and can point out the best method/location to do that (within the 5 ft reach of the cable that my kit provided).

 

[vnzbd]

I ran a 4ga from the battery negative to the passenger side strut tower. There is already a spot there being used as a ground so the attachment looks factory. Not sure if it does anything for me as I am only running a JL XD 700/5 but I had the wire on hand so it cost me nothing. I would say it was about 18" of wire. My amp is in my spare tire well and it is grounded to the lug between the rear seats.

 

[Pesti13nce]

Does this even work? I did something like this back in the day on a 97 Maxima i had, and just as many people said it helped as they did saying it was a waste of money.

 

[15RRGT]

I didn't redo the battery to ground in my 15 but I did run 0 awg to the trunk to power soundstream reference 700 and 500 amps and at full volume I don't have dimming issues..... I haven't measured the alternator output but it's up there.

 

[vnzbd]

I like the idea of running it all the way from the amp to the battery. I don't no if there are any cons to it. My understanding is not that the chassis can't carry the current but the factory battery to chassis connection is the weak link. You run a proper sized power wire to the amp and ground the amp to the chassis while the factory battery to chassis connection is a 8ga or less. And everything else electrical in the car rides that as well. Weak link.

 

[Tamahome0723]

Passenger strut tower seems to make best sense so far. Though I am curious as well to hear what the cons are of running ground directly from battery terminal to rear amps - aside from the obvious cost.

Anyone able to chime in on the OEM alternator in the GT premium?

 

[Decible]

Hate to revive an old thread…but has anyone upgraded all 3? I talked to JS and they said it was absolutely necessary with the output. 2015+ Mustang Alternator I’d rather do this then run caps or an extra better.

@LethalPerformance Have you done it? KMJ have a kit for the s550?

 

[Evolvd]

Hate to revive an old thread…but has anyone upgraded all 3? I talked to JS and they said it was absolutely necessary with the output. 2015+ Mustang Alternator I’d rather do this then run caps or an extra better.

It’s not absolutely required. JS is in the business of selling parts so of course they’ll push you towards upgrading. How many watts RMS is in your system? I currently have 2K and I’m using an XS Power SB500 supercap. I have zero dimming or electrical issues. The only under hood upgrade I did was add a second 2 gauge battery to chassis ground run. I used flat OFC welding wire so it would still fit through the hall-effect sensor.
Keep in mind the BMS in our cars is very finicky, who knows what issues you’d run into if you start generating more voltage than the system is expecting.

Here’s how I mounted my supercap. I’ve not tripped the breaker to see if it creates light dimming. Also keep in mind the OP has JL HD amps which are notoriously power hungry due to the RIPS system is uses to push its full rating regardless of final ohm load.

 

[Decible]

It’s not absolutely required. JS is in the business of selling parts so of course they’ll push you towards upgrading. How many watts RMS is in your system? I currently have 2K and I’m using an XS Power SB500 supercap. I have zero dimming or electrical issues. The only under hood upgrade I did was add a second 2 gauge battery to chassis ground run. I used flat OFC welding wire so it would still fit through the hall-effect sensor.
Keep in mind the BMS in our cars is very finicky, who knows what issues you’d run into if you start generating more voltage than the system is expecting.

Here’s how I mounted my supercap. I’ve not tripped the breaker to see if it creates light dimming. Also keep in mind the OP has JL HD amps which are notoriously power hungry due to the RIPS system is uses to push its full rating regardless of final ohm load.

I’ll be running 1 JL HD1200 and possibly 2 helix p six ultras. So about 2500 to 2700 watts. Yeah the BMS issue is why I’m asking.

I was thinking of doing the JS 370 and I’d be good with no caps or extra batteries

 

[Evolvd]

I’ll be running 1 JL HD1200 and possibly 2 helix p six ultras. So about 2500 to 2700 watts. Yeah the BMS issue is why I’m asking.

Another member on a GT500 forum is running more watts than me, I wanna say around 2400 and he has the same wiring setup I do (he actually sent me the welding wire I used for the extra ground). He built his own capacitor bank and has no issues either. From my discussions with JS all the GT/350/500 use the same alternator so I’m gonna venture to guess you could get away with a cap bank or supercap.

 

[Decible]

I might have to go that way

 

[Ben James]

Kudos for finding and reviving an old thread instead of just creating a new one .

I had to be mindful of adding weight when I considered my car audio install. Being an aviation tech I thought I’d test whether I’d need to upgrade the big three and found that it’s quite sufficient as OEM for most needs.

Ill try not to burst into a thousand paragraphs on it all I’d thought I’d just share a bit of info on my setup which may help with your Planning.

I have a Helix Pix Ultimate and two Alpine XA90Ms which provide just under 3000wrms capability. The Lithium battery is 24ahr (70Ahr Pb equivalent)

I left all OEM earthing and power cabling as is, but I did re-terminate the battery connectors and I added a second run of 4AWG to earth (less than one foot long).

The Helix P Six is mounted in the footwell and has an 8AWG earth lead less than one foot long terminated to the firewall, which is terminated on the other side direct to the battery. The positive lead is 8AWG and 3 feet long and goes through a grommet in the firewall.

Each Alpine amp (1000wrms on the birthsheets) has a dedicated 4AWG positive wire and earth wire. I avoided using a single 0AWG positive wire to the trunk to be redirected in order to avoid possible safety issues if the wiring was grounded (in case of rear end accident). Each 4AWG has a 100 amp fuse which I think is better than a single run of 0AWG which would have a 250amp fuse.

People get caught up in having super thick wiring, but sometimes it’s better to keep the wiring runs as short as possible which can achieve the same results electrically.

Digital amps are awesome for their efficiency!

I can’t seem to find the reference, however I did find that the OEM alternator for 2018 Mustang GT was 250amphr. It’s actually can outperform some of the ‘alternator upgrades’ due to the OEM alternator being capable of providing 250amp at idle, whereas aftermarket ones show their outputs at much higher rpm’s that would be hard to consistently provide (unless you like cruising around town at 3000rpm plus constantly).

I have a single lithium battery in the OEM spot and I watch the OEM alternator charge it at around 150amp on first startup for about 30 secs at the same time it provides all of the other electronics (air on etc.) with ease.

even though I have a 3K rms system I don’t use all of it all the time, and I usually see 30-60 amps RMS avg drawn on high volume music (130db-140db peaks) with up to 150amps peak draw on a dedicated SPL run (no more than 5-10 seconds). Haven’t had any issues at all. The highest Db I’ve achieved is 141.2db which is nothing really impressive but it’s a sealed setup that’s for SQ so I’m happy

I hope some of this info helps!

 

[Evolvd]

@Ben James just reminded me something I meant to mention. RMS is max continuous and even if it’s an SPL build your looking at maybe using 80% of that for more than just a few seconds. You’re more likely to use 55-65% rated wattage for continuous music which is also an average since music is dynamic and has peaks and valleys of wattage use.
I only added a supercap just to be sure I was keeping the load off of the charging system when getting down lol. I also installed a blue sea circuit breaker at the supercap so should an accident happen it’ll protect the wiring and the car from sudden discharge. Along with the main fuse at the battery and individual fuses for each amplifier.

 

[Ben James]

I think the super cap is a great idea

I had to justify a lot of my install as a tech report (for third party interests) which were more vehicle performance oriented than car audio orientated, which meant a lot of design had weight implications as a deciding factor.

The whole system had to weigh under 100 pounds

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