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ok, well i will email the 3 large alt companies and see who can best each other then. i highly doubt that a 9 groove belt is going to slip from a full load alt so im not to worried about that. i think i may want a slightly smaller pully on my alt tho to help with the idle, i have a high idle switch that puts the engine at 1100RPM and it also does this when the engine temperature is below 40F to warm things up. i am looking at the 370A model, is that over kill for what im doing or will i actually use this power?

hmmm, i have seen some 250 amp alts and some 275's but i just cant justify replacing my factory alternator with such a small alternator. a difference of 55A is not worth 500.00 to me. that said i would spend 6-700 on a 400A or so alt.

this is good news then, my fear was that buying a HO alt would be a waste due to my idle speeds. i idle at 550rpm, red line at 3K, and average cruising rpm is about 1850@75MPH. city streets i average more around the 1500rpm mark so i want my max output to start at around 800rpm

hmmm, so the alt just gets some new charging system and then its good?

the factory alt is a 223A and the batteries are semi truck batteries. AGM are much more expensive and from what i read can not be used on a normal charging system and must be charged slowly so i would have to plug them in each night. if they cant charge from a the high output of an alternator im not sure i want ot go that route or even need to. i would think that 2 or 3 975CCA batteries should be able to handle a meer 2500W stereo. i am just not sold on the idea of spending 2200.00 on 3 kenetic batteries.

so the dust cap getting hot when at max power is not a concern? it gets very hot. i never felt my BL dust cap as it was a rear firing so i never had access to it. i do smell the sub but its the same smell ive had from all my speakers when i push them for as long as i can remember, home audio or car audio alike. that new sub smell i suppose.

i have 0ga grounds from both factory batteries to the frame, 8ga to the body and 4ga to the block. soon to be 0ga alt to battery i think. i built a copper distro block out of 3/8" plate that both batteries connect to and then fuses off of that to all my parts. i wounder if i should run the alternator charging wire to the batteries, to the factory fuse block location or to my custom fuse block? idk what alt im buying yet. batteries are 2 group 31 975CCA with 140CA reserve and 120AH. sub amp is 0ga ground/power, tweeter amp is 8ga power/ground, and mids amp is 4ga power/ground. all terminals soldered. battery terminals are 5/8" brass bolts and flat washers with all wires bolted down via ring terminals to teh battery stud. pic:

its here!!!! so happy! http://imgur.com/a/iGRS4

1997 and 1918 on the same day. order numbers dont seem to follow any sort of pattern

i had a BL 18 hooked to a 2500.1 kicker and it held the power with out issue for a year until i sold it for a SP4 (wich arrives in 3 days ). i made sure there was no distortion and the amp never got below 12.2V. a SP4 playing rated power on a system that is properly setup will not blow due to excess power playing music. if you pump a spl tone through it for extended periods sure you can blow it but there is no reason to do that in a DD. if you put rated power into a xplode or pyle they would melt before they reached 'rated' power. if you put rated power into a kicker it would last for short periods but play it on a road trip and its toast. (dont this a few times to me with L7 12's and 15's).

http://imgur.com/a/lNcLR#0 i have two sets of images its this album. a 33hz tune and a 36hz tune. i intend to build the entire box minus one side (leaving it to be held on by only screws) and change out the port as i test the subs volume. once i have things set ill glue on the final side. i would greatly appreciate it if someone would check my math and offer and criticism on what i have laid out here. thank you very much.

1918 shipped today . no update on Fi's website that its shipped but i have tracking from fedex.

you speak of there being a problem, perhaps that problem is me going deaf? ill make a thread once i have a real question to ask. i think i want to get a DB meeter so i can have some real numbers instead of "well it sounds quiet"

i see what you are saying. to be clear its less about the cost difference and more about the general idea of a single amp that i was asking about. lets say the 50W is actually 75W. with that you could run a single speaker on each channel or a set of small components i suppose. ive got 400W going to each door speaker and i still dont think its loud enough. maybe im trying to compare apples to oranges here? most component sets i have owned were around the 150W rms range. seems to me that the speakers you would have to sue on the all in one amps would have to be pretty small.

amp looks sick! ive never really understood the idea behind a single amp to power everything tho. i suppose for a mom or dad to have a rounded slightly upgraded from factory system it would be nice? it lists 50W rms per channel, seems very light for any kind of real system. or am i missing something here?

well ive been successful with wood glue but thats about it. every epoxy i try to use to attach broken metal parts, die cast, plastic bits, it all just fall apart again. these days i try to weld things back together or melt them back together with plastics. maybe what i need to do is invest in some high grade glue, the type they glue auto body shells and decals on with. edit: im pretty good at gluing plates to my desk with jelly

im curious as to how the back end functions at Fi. do orders come in, get qued, and built one at a time or batch jobs? are orders saved up until there is sufficient quantity to make it efficient for construction to begin or is it just on the fly?

it blows my mind to think about how so much is glued together and stays together under such force... every time i glue something it falls apart >.<

i found that how its made video, a poor quality one but i got the jist of it. so in those pictures there are semi circles on the inside face of where the coil would go. thats for cooling yes? in the bottom picture there are 4 layers of plates. are they all magnetized and if so do they all hold the same field? anyone know of a video that explains in detail the mechanics of magnet fields inside of a sub?

i need visual references, im not sure what pole pieces are compared to a normal voice coil? i would love to see some company post a video on the entire processes in high def.

Fi does not reply immediately nor do they seem to have the most reliable tracking information but i am very happy with both the purchases i have made through them. they have answered a good 50 emails full of questions and have even offered to modify orders after i have placed them to better suit my needs. they may take a while to build but the wait is what you pay for, the quality of build. an added advantage is on the resale we can ask for more a used sub because people do not need to wait to receive it.

they generally reply with in a week or so

from Fi, email updates. i am leaving on a road trip on the 20th so i asked them last week if we expected it to arrive by then so i could budget my build time and materials for the box. they replied 2 days ago.

1918: ordered may 11th, as of yesterday i am 3rd on the build list. estimates place it after june 20th for delivery although i hold hopes it will arrive sooner.

i read the first few pages of this post, when my BL came it was in a 1/2" plywood box with like 8 inch screws.... i don't understand how that could be damaged in shipping. as for a shipping company i have worked at many jobs and the single rule is you want to make as many rules as possible surrounding any handling of items that are not your own. that way you can reduce profit loss as most people violate a rule or two.