Who Has Done the "BIG 3" On a Gen 5?

Hey everyone! Ever since I installed my system i' have had problems with my lights dimming. Before i go and get my alternator beefed up i wanted to know if anyone has done the 'Big 3" on a gen 5 and been successful in fixing this problem. Or really i just want to know who has done it at all. I read a crap load of threads on this topic and pretty much know how it should be done. Only thing i don't understand is why the stock wires should be kept. What size is the stock wiring does anyone know? Because i was thinking of getting new battery terminals and im not sure which ones to get. The ones im thinking about getting are these : http://www.millionbuy.com/bosbt4p.html. They accept (1) 8 awg and (2) 4 awg. Does anyone else have a better suggestion for which battery terminals to get? Thanks in advance!

Reply 1 : Who Has Done the "BIG 3" On a Gen 5?

What are you running...i have no problems of dimming ligths at 3/4 volume(clipping point). How ar eyou wired up?

Reply 2 : Who Has Done the "BIG 3" On a Gen 5?

You should look into getting an Optima Yellow Top battery.

Reply 3 : Who Has Done the "BIG 3" On a Gen 5?

Webb, I got a 12" volfenhag 1000w peak about 600w rms. 1600w 2 channel amp which i have bridged to the one sub. (800w when bridged) A 2.5 farad cap. 4 awg wiring from the battery and ground. 150 amp ANL fuse. Stock alternator and battery. Fog lights.

Reply 4 : Who Has Done the "BIG 3" On a Gen 5?

It seems i'm running more power than you are according to your car domain..i could be wrong..but regardless i don't have any dimming. Ihave upgraded some wires and it also helped....i haven't been able to change the chargeback wire yet..which would help lots. Depending on what wires you are running it could make a difference. What AWG size ar eyou using? How many amps you running? I would at least recomned replacing the one ground wire that might help you. That would be the negative to chassis wire. upgrade to at least the same awg as your stereo power wires.



Epsilon he has a yellow to well according to his cardomain he does, lol.

Reply 5 : Who Has Done the "BIG 3" On a Gen 5?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Webb26 It seems i'm running more power than you are according to your car domain..i could be wrong..but regardless i don't have any dimming. Ihave upgraded some wires and it also helped....i haven't been able to change the chargeback wire yet..which would help lots. Depending on what wires you are running it could make a difference. What AWG size ar eyou using? How many amps you running? I would at least recomned replacing the one ground wire that might help you. That would be the negative to chassis wire. upgrade to at least the same awg as your stereo power wires. Epsilon he has a yellow to well according to his cardomain he does, lol.

Yeah i don't have the yellow top anymore i sold it on ebay cause i thought it was going to help with the dimming and it didn't. This was before i did my research obviously. It won't hurt to use 0awg in doing the big 3 would it? Becuase the battery terminals im looking at have (1) 0awg (1) 4awg and (2) 8awg outputs. And if the stock is 8awg then for the positive ill use one of the 8awg inputs, the 4awg input for my amp wire and the 0awg input for my new wire from the alt to the pos terminal.

Reply 6 : Who Has Done the "BIG 3" On a Gen 5?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Webb26 It seems i'm running more power than you are according to your car domain..i could be wrong..but regardless i don't have any dimming. Ihave upgraded some wires and it also helped....i haven't been able to change the chargeback wire yet..which would help lots. Depending on what wires you are running it could make a difference. What AWG size ar eyou using? How many amps you running? I would at least recomned replacing the one ground wire that might help you. That would be the negative to chassis wire. upgrade to at least the same awg as your stereo power wires. Epsilon he has a yellow to well according to his cardomain he does, lol.

Just looked at his cardomain and he does have a yellow top lol.



You should also make sure your battery doesn't have a bad cell. If all fails, get a battery from the Kinetik line.

Reply 7 : Who Has Done the "BIG 3" On a Gen 5?

Also, make sure when you buy a battery for the Camry that the terminals aren't the wrong way or you'll have to extend your wires.

Reply 8 : Who Has Done the "BIG 3" On a Gen 5?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Epsilon Also, make sure when you buy a battery for the Camry that the terminals aren't the wrong way or you'll have to extend your wires.

Thats another reason i got rid of the damn thing. You can see in the pic on my cardomain that the terminals arent connected up top. I did some ghetto half ass thing where i used the side mount posts and criss crossed the wires in the back to connect it. I was to lazy to extend the wires.

Reply 9 : Who Has Done the "BIG 3" On a Gen 5?

BUt what are you running for power to the amps? If you have a high guage number its useless....for you app. you should at least use 4awg. And if you use 4 awg you need to change the negative to chassis to at least 4 awg...Think of it as a loop. pwer from battery to the amp. goes to ground to chassis and fromchassis back to battery negative...If you have the stock wire ground chassis wire then its useless. i"m runnning one jbl 1200 rms and another jbl 4x123 rms with a w7. So i know for a fact you shouldn't be dimming..if not there is something wrong with your battery as epsilon said. Let me know what wires you are running of ryou power from bettery to amp and ground wire from amp to chassis. from there we can fix things.

Reply 10 : Who Has Done the "BIG 3" On a Gen 5?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Webb26 BUt what are you running for power to the amps? If you have a high guage number its useless....for you app. you should at least use 4awg. And if you use 4 awg you need to change the negative to chassis to at least 4 awg...Think of it as a loop. pwer from battery to the amp. goes to ground to chassis and fromchassis back to battery negative...If you have the stock wire ground chassis wire then its useless. i"m runnning one jbl 1200 rms and another jbl 4x123 rms with a w7. So i know for a fact you shouldn't be dimming..if not there is something wrong with your battery as epsilon said. Let me know what wires you are running of ryou power from bettery to amp and ground wire from amp to chassis. from there we can fix things.

From the battery positive to capacitor positive: 4awg fused with a 150amp ANL Fuse.



From the capacitor positive to the amp positive: 8 awg



From the capacitor negative to the chassis: 4 awg



From the capacitor negative to the amp negative: 8awg



From battery negative to chassis: whatever the stock wiring is.



I have already tried wiring it with 4 awg wiring and not using a capacitor and i was still dimming. The yellow top didn't help for shit from what i remember. Might of made it worse.

Reply 11 : Who Has Done the "BIG 3" On a Gen 5?

HOw many amps you running? 150 seems a bit high just for a sub amp. Yea man i think it would be a wise idea to to rewire your system. Extened your battery wires and make them at least 4 awg. Replace the negative to chassis to a whatever awg you will use as your power wires. HOnestly man, i never had that problem. Like i could faintly tell that my lights were dimming so i went ahead and re did my wiring. I replaced and extended the battery wires with 4 awg, negative to ground with 1/0awg, possitive to amp with 1/0awg to a distributor block that split up the wires to 4 awg. i don't think its a good idea to keep switching around your wires from 8 to 4 awg....keep it consistent.

Reply 12 : Who Has Done the "BIG 3" On a Gen 5?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Webb26 HOw many amps you running? 150 seems a bit high just for a sub amp. Yea man i think it would be a wise idea to to rewire your system. Extened your battery wires and make them at least 4 awg. Replace the negative to chassis to a whatever awg you will use as your power wires. HOnestly man, i never had that problem. Like i could faintly tell that my lights were dimming so i went ahead and re did my wiring. I replaced and extended the battery wires with 4 awg, negative to ground with 1/0awg, possitive to amp with 1/0awg to a distributor block that split up the wires to 4 awg. i don't think its a good idea to keep switching around your wires from 8 to 4 awg....keep it consistent.

Ok Webb, today i changed the wiring from the cap to the amp from 8awg to 4awg to match the rest of it. So now all the wiring is 4awg except the stock battery wires. I bought all the necessary parts today to do the big 3, including more 4awg wire, new battery terminals and a fuse and fuse holder. I will be doing the big 3 next week. I noticed that my voltage went up from 12.5 to 13.75 after i changed out the 8awg wiring. Do you know how many wires are connected to the stock negative and positive terminals? I think there are (2) 8awg wires on each terminal.

Reply 13 : Who Has Done the "BIG 3" On a Gen 5?

HEy i'm not sure what size the battery terminal wirs are but i would recomend using 4 AWG. As for power wires i would recomend using 1/0 AWG but if you don't want to thats totally fine. I've done parts of the big 3, whihch i think include batter wires and negative to chassis. My last one is the chargeback wire ( alternator to possitive i think). BUt i have no idea how to locate that one. well i know where it is, but i like to keep the clean oem look so i'm trying to find out how toyota routed this wire. It seems as if it goes to the side of the engine block then right under....i have no way of reaching that one so i might have to leave it alone.

Reply 14 : Who Has Done the "BIG 3" On a Gen 5?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Webb26 HEy i'm not sure what size the battery terminal wirs are but i would recomend using 4 AWG. As for power wires i would recomend using 1/0 AWG but if you don't want to thats totally fine. I've done parts of the big 3, whihch i think include batter wires and negative to chassis. My last one is the chargeback wire ( alternator to possitive i think). BUt i have no idea how to locate that one. well i know where it is, but i like to keep the clean oem look so i'm trying to find out how toyota routed this wire. It seems as if it goes to the side of the engine block then right under....i have no way of reaching that one so i might have to leave it alone.

Yeah, your right about about the location of the chargeback wire. It is routed in a hose that runs underneath the engine cover more towards the left side and then behind and around to the battery terminal. Im going to keep the original and route mine in a new hose and zip tie it above the radiator under that lip and then fuse it and connect it to the battery. It should look pretty clean afterwards, pretty much hidden from sight. Are you looking to remove the old wires completeley or simply just looking to route the new wires the same way as the originals? Where did you connect your wire from the negative terminal to the chassis and also the negative chassis to engine?