New alternator or Double battery

Hi all,

i have lurking on this forum for ages and never posted because i never had the need to as i got most solutions for ere. Anyway onto my problem.

I have a bog standard L plate micra with a lot of electronic stuff. i have got 1 Kenwood Amp which is powering 4 of my 6*9's rated at 500W RMS but am on about 360W RMS (90W*4). The second amp is a Rockford Fosgate 551x which is running 2 12" Rockford Fosgate HX2's rated at about 600W RMS.

Plus got loads of little things Kenwood headunit, DVD player, TFT, Tv tuner etc.

When i am running all this stuff by my dodgy calculations i am taking about a 1100W+ of power which is about 85Amps. I red somewhere that the micra alternator is rated at 55amps or something along them lines.

Would it be best to get a new alternator or a dual battery config. I asked a guy who makes alternators on ebay he quoted me £210 for a bolt on 150Amp alternator.

Any ideas? sorry for the very long history, just my first post on any forum ever except DFI street.

Have attached a pic of my front let me know your feelings and any improvments.

Oh and another question any idea of how to get rid of the rattle that comes from the boot, roof and vibrating number plate when the bass is turned up.

Cheers,

ZeD

Dual Battery setups can be pricey. And new alternators can be pricey too. I suggest getting both. That is, if your current Alternator cant keep up, but really, it can. Ive run a stereo + tvtuner + LCD screen and put hardly any drain on the alternator. As for >1000W, not idea. grab a multimeter and test your battery while its all running and see what kind of drain it gets. Better yet, start the car turn everything on and test the battery. Let it run for 5 mins on idle with everything on then come back and check the voltages again. If theres a slight drop, then you might have cause for concern.

If worse comes to worse, dual battery would probably be the way to go.

Right now im running a stereo, power invertor, Gamecube and 7" TFT screen with no problems with charge at all.

i would run with the larger alternator and a capacitor for your amplifier. as well as the highest output battery that you can fit in the current position. in my car this is what i will be running. i have a similar setup to you and at higher volume the headlight dim under heavy bass notes. the capacitor fixes that problem and doesn't put as much strain on the alternator.
so bigger alternator, larger capacity batter(more cca), and a capacitor.

with the vibrations you are going to need alot of sound deadening

if i left my car for more than 2/3 days i would have to jump start it. since i have changed the alternater belt i have had no problems. simple solutions first before looking at £200+ solutions. worth a look, cost me about £5.00.

what i run on standard battery and alternator:

1 screen
dvd player
head unit
DQ 10 equalizer

dragster:

2 front speaker inc tweaters
2 600W rms each subs
1 huge amp
1 smaller amp running the front conponents
1 power cap

leds in vents.
led kit under footrests etc.
had undercar led kit(not any more but still ran on standard stuff 0k)
road angel
sat nav
6 gauges: oil temp, water temp, volts, air/fuel ratio, boost and tacho.

will your lights on and air blowing etc, it runs fine. theres probley more electrical things that i fogot aswell, like the switch pannel i have.

hope this helps, a bit long winded but you get my point.

Try running one of these Optima Batteries if you have got a lot of ice etc, Most of the modified car mags I read Redline, MaxPower etc swear by them.

Just an idea

www.optimabatteries.com

Picture (Below)

thanks all for the responses,

Gonna give the multimeter idea tommrow or when i have some spare time. I am checking the Volts yeh? or is it Amps?

Jaxx you got more stuff than me in your car and you got a standard batery, very nice. My battery is the same one i bought it with about 5 years ago. So that could be the cause of the problem.

These optima batteries are supposed to be real good as they are deep cycle so they can get constantly drained without dying BUT wont your battery be charged at the rate you alternator can charge it? so still the same problem?