well i have been chasing power problems in this car ever since i put the stereo in it but i have got it now. i was told caps where the way to go that the recharge fast enough to keep the lights from dimming blah, blah.......BULLSH!T!!!! all it did was give me 2 more beats before the battery started to drain. i have yet to find a alternator for this car so i started looking at muti battery setups. i decide to go with 3 optima red tops with a 200 amp battery relay separateing the car battery from the 2 stereo batterys which are wired together. i went ahead and left the caps for kicks becase they have volt meters on them. well they read 14 volts plus when car is just running and go down to about 11 volts under EXTREME conditions. now the big surprise here is the sound diffrence. the sub is hitting WAY harder. the dash reads right at 12 volts when under the same conditions and over 14 most the time. seems to work really well. i drove for about a hour today checking it out and i am the only one worse off...ears ringing big time!!!!!....next week new box will be done so will have 2 12w7 in ported box!!!!!

Just out of curiosity why did you choose to go with 3 batteries? DId you try to upgrade your wiring.

did you do the "Big three" yet

here is 160 amp.. i believe that the grand prix should fit.. http://mralternator.com/alternators/pontiac.html

i have 0/1 gauge every where possible and 4 everywhere else. i have probably spent 200.00 on power wire alone. works great now. i went with three for simply one reason and that is when they get my box finished next week it is possible i will be adding a 2nd 1000/1 to run it. if i do that 2 would not have been enough. oh and i had one red top in the car already. to simply run 2 which is what i originaly intended to do i had to buy new ones and install them at the same time. works great now....except i have no head lights or fog lights for some reason??????? any ideas on that??

so you have 3 batteries and a stock alternator?


good luck with that..................................

works perfect. can play full tilt all night long with NO dimming what so ever. before it took about 3 seconds to go into battery safty mode what ever that is. i thought the same thing and pklanned on getting a new high ampalt but so far so good and with that much power in reserve the bass hits like a mother.........................

Works perfect? For now. But as stated above, good luck with that! It'* not a question of IF, but WHEN you kill your alternator. It will happen. And a 160 probably isn't enough. I'd go to www.mralternator.com and get a 200 amp. If he doesn't have it listed, he'll build it for you.

Let me clarify.....you WILL kill your alternator, and it will very likely take a battery out with it when it goes.

i plan on getting one. i did not know they would build one for me.

SSEi95 is running their 200 amp alt, and I'm running the 160.