Upgrading from 8 gauge to 4 gauge, what is needed?

hey guys,
I recently installed a power distributer so i could run another amplifier. Currently, it has my main 8 gauge wire splitting to 2 more 8 gauge wires. It doesnt seem like a very stable setup because every now and then, my sub will go into safe mode, or my speakers rattle when the bass hits to hard. I have a 1000 watt pioneer amp for my sub and a 250 watt amp for my rear speakers. Exactly what is required to upgrade my main 8 gauge wire to 4 gauge? 4 gauge main wire, 4 gauge ground, terminals, and a fuse block is all i can think of, any other items or precautions?

 

I don't see upgrading the wire to help with speakers rattle, but on to the question:

There is normally a fuse on the amp(s) - this is to protect the amp. The fuses I will address in following are to protect against an electrical fire due to inadvertent short. You should have a fuse block for the 4AWG wire within 18" of the battery sized to protect the wire - that fuse should be say 125 Amps or less. Then when you split into two 8 AWG wires, each of those wires should be fused to protect against the possibility of electrical fire - this would be 50 Amps maximum each. There are dual fuse blocks available, or you can use two fuse blocks doesn't matter.

Seems to me you have a handle on the rest, ground wire, terminals, etc.

An excellent source for this sort of info can be found at Basic Car Audio Electronics. For example: Use the scroll bar on the right side and move down to "fuses", click on the topic, read the article and look at the tables for wires sizes.

 

The difference between the brands isn't huge but some brands will used CCA (copper coated aluminum) while others use real copper and that makes a difference in terms of resistance on the wire. also not all brands are equal in terms of rated wire gauge vs actual conductor diameter.

0 gauge is nice but it can also take up a lot more room in the narrow spaces you have to run wires and it's harder to work with and more expensive.

$1 a foot for 0 gauge seems too good to be true IMO.

 

Amen!

Tired of people getting a "deal" on 4 gauge that is actually more like 6 or 8 gauge and "coated" copper instead of solid.

$1 a foot for 0 gauge? I want some?!?!?!

 

2020...10 years later and they're still getting away with this blatant false advertising.