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installing an amp and 2 12"s. do i need to use an inline fuse holder and fuse for power cable near the battery? my kit didnt come with one, would it be bad to connect without a fuse for near the battery?

 
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Yes, you do need a fuse. It would be bad if you had a short.

 
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yes you do!!! make sure its within 18" of your battery. and dont run your ground all the way to your battery.

 
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aight thanks

 
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+rep would be greatly appreciated

 
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always use a fuse anytime you hook a new power wire to the battery. make sure the fuse is properly rated to the wire size you have.

 
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as other's said, yes you need the fuse and yes, it would be VERY bad to install without one. if an 8ga cable shorted, it would burn off the insulation and start a fire. even a 16ga wire can carry enough current if shorted to get red hot and ignite and combustible material it touches. fuses should be sized to protect the smallest size wire of the circuit. that's why you never want to put a bigger fuse in if one blows out. if a fuse blows, there's a problem that it just protected. if you put a bigger fuse in, you're allowing even more current to go through the problem area and you'll have a bigger problem

 
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word. kinda bullshit my kit didnt come with one, it has all the cables, a fuse, but no holder. thats wat i get for buying a cheap all in one package..

 
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the truth is, ur amp has a fuse, and the rating on that fuse is usually smaller than the one on the wire, thus the amp fuse will blow first. so the amp fuse will usually blow before something shorts in ur amp. the fuse on the power wire from ur battery to ur amp is jsut another precaution that is highly recommended.

 
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the fuse on the amp will protect the amp, but not the wire coming from the battery. say the power cable gets pinched near one of the doors and shorts to ground. current will flow, unlimited without a fuse, from the battery to the shorted area. it won't even get to the amp because the path to ground at the short has less resistance than the amp provides, so the amp is out of the loop. this current will flow, unimpeded, until the insulation burns off and catches something on fire, the battery explodes from excessive current draw, or another catastrophic failure. the fuse at the battery is to protect the power cable and the car from excessive current, not the amp. the amp has it's own protection, as you stated.

 
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^OHHHHHHHHH ic
ever though of that.



since we're on the topic, someone on here said that you shouldnt run the ground wire for the amp ALLLLLLLLLL the way to the battery. why? or is this wat ever.

 
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its more of an inconvenience i guess if you have thick wire. i ran my deck ground all the way to the front radiator support ground and no issues. i couldnt find anything good inside the car to attach it.

 
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It's not for convience, well it is but if you are already running one, why not a second one? It's more because with a longer wire you have more resistance. Just like if you use only 3ft of power wire, battery is in trunk, then you actually can run one size smaller wire as opposed to running 20 ft of power wire, battery is under hood, the same applies to grounds. The current system is only as strong as the weakest link and the further you run the ground, the weaker the cable becomes. That is why I say it never hurts to have a 0awg ground for your amps even if only using 4awg for power.

 
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Oh yeah, OP I have an inline fuse holder from monster cable, i think, that has a 50A fuse, again I think, that you can have for the price of postage. It's easy to install too. You can replace the fuse with any rating you need too.

 
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our kicker sales rep during a training stated that power actually comes from the ground wire and is the most important connection. the main reason for not connecting ground from an amp all the way to the battery is so that you dont get alternator hiss.

 
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i already ordered a whole new wiring kit from sonix, but thanks tho

 
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part number/website?

 
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The vehicle's chassis is a larger size (and lower resistance) connection than any wire. (Although some unibody vehicles could have poor chassis ground paths between certain areas depending on the design.)

 
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Not to change the topic to far, on the grounding issue with my carpc I could not get my hissing noice fixed. I tried all kinds of grounding spots and even with a GLI is wouldn't go away. I actually considered running the ground back up to the front but maybe I was just picking bad grounding spots. What would be the best spot in the trunk to ground it? I don't understand how Head units work, they are grounded off those like 28gauge lines and no hissing noise at all.

 
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ntx-5570 dhd power cruiser 1000 wat from sonicelectronix.com
its a cheap pack too but has nice rca cables and has a fuse holder