How much battery cable should I need to do the big 3 on a first gen dime? 4.3 S-Blazer...thinking about 5 feet should do it?

 

I've been thinkin' about this one for awhile pepsibottle1. During my usual salvage yard pickin' I have been accumulating heavy cables. I'm just not sure how I am gonna tie all 3 to the ( - ) Battery. An extra long bolt, I suppose. I think I have all OE for what I need without having to make them up. I just have to look at the "recipe" again.

 

6 ft will be good, all 3 do not go to negative
Big Three (Big 3) Upgrade How-To - S-10 Forum

 

My Bad

Thanx newguy. I forgot about the Alternator +. Now I remember. As soon as I get a DR44G I plan to do the BIG3.

 

Take the studs out of the stock connectors and replace them with something like this...

WirthCo 30400 Battery Doctor Side Mount Long Stud Terminal Battery Bolt

Then reconnect the stock wires/connectors as normal and add your new wires on the ends. Make sure you still do all the positive wires first, the do he negative ones

 

Easy route would be a dual post battery (has side and top posts). I'm using a yellow top Optima with side and top posts. All original connections go to the side posts as factory, then I have a distribution on the top + post that has 0 gauge back out to my stereo, a 4 gauge that jumps over to the alternator, and a pair of 8 gauge leads to my dual electric fans. I have yet to do the grounds though... I need to... But yeah 6 foot should do it. Best to keep the runs as short as possible. 4 gauge is perfect (huge upgrade over stock and small enough to manage bends), 2 would be a little more heavy duty, 0 gauge would probably just be overkill and bragging rights if you want to call it that (your single alternator is never going to push enough current to need 0 gauge wire for the big 3, and if you ever put a beefy enough alt under the hood that does, you should know everything you need to about wire lengths and wire gauges and amp draws and resistance and voltage drops lol)

 

So I do not necessarily need 0 gauge then, I'll just run with 2. Awesome

Thanks for the help. My AD244 is going in this morning as soon as I run over and grab the battery cable. Excited to be able to work on sound and lights finally

 

Yeah with the shorter lengths, 0 gauge is not necessary. It's needed when running long lengths from front to back of the vehicle that are going to be running high AMP systems like stereo equipment, rear winches, etc, but for the shorter 2-3 foot runs, it's overkill.

These amp/feet charts help a lot with stuff like this

As you can see, honestly with a run up to 4 feet, even if you did the AD244 alternator upgrade and got a 145amp alt, 4 gauge would still be sufficient.




When I first hooked up the stereo in my Blazer, I was pushing a pair of 12"s with a 2400 watt amp, thus the 0 gauge I ran for the roughly 10-12 foot length. Now I only have a little 300 watt amp pushing a single 10" and it's WAAAY overkill lol, BUT, I have plenty of headroom to expand