Im far from an expert on all this, but I did wake up (come to?) at a Holiday Inn Express once, so here’s my opinion on the matter:

You will likely have issues such as headlight dimming on heavy bass notes trying to push 1700w RMS with an 180 amp alternator.

I have a 220 amp alt in my Charger(s), and the most I was able to push without issues was about 1500w RMS. Now, I have the halogen headlights, which isnt ideal, and I didn’t do the big 3 (that’s more difficult to do with the long run back to the trunk), but the one time I tried to push more (3 amps totaling almost 2000w), I had severe headlight dimming on the heavy bass notes.

I’m sure there’s a way to make the 1700w setup work, but it will have to be done right, I mean really right.

Also, I have a 220A alt on the shelf if you decide you want to step up to that size. It is used (came off my 2012 at approximately 150K miles), but it still works. I know shipping would be a killer, so I wouldn’t ask much if you want it. Let me know if you do and we can figure a price that will work when shipping is factored in.

 

The HC comes with at 220 amp alternator and HID headlights. The HK system is an 825 Watt system. I don't know how much headroom is left but you could simply get an even bigger alternator to make up the 800 Watt difference. I know alternators as high as 420 Amp exist.

 

mine is just a sxt with the amplified alpine system. The reason mine has a 180 is because of the cold weather group. Maybe ill hold off on adding until i can upgrade the alt. Money is the issue. 130$ for adapter $290 for box $300 for amp $380 for sub. If i add an alt and labor thats another $900.

Im far from an expert on all this, but I did wake up (come to?) at a Holiday Inn Express once, so here’s my opinion on the matter:

You will likely have issues such as headlight dimming on heavy bass notes trying to push 1700w RMS with an 180 amp alternator.

I have a 220 amp alt in my Charger(s), and the most I was able to push without issues was about 1500w RMS. Now, I have the halogen headlights, which isnt ideal, and I didn’t do the big 3 (that’s more difficult to do with the long run back to the trunk), but the one time I tried to push more (3 amps totaling almost 2000w), I had severe headlight dimming on the heavy bass notes.

I’m sure there’s a way to make the 1700w setup work, but it will have to be done right, I mean really right.

Also, I have a 220A alt on the shelf if you decide you want to step up to that size. It is used (came off my 2012 at approximately 150K miles), but it still works. I know shipping would be a killer, so I wouldn’t ask much if you want it. Let me know if you do and we can figure a price that will work when shipping is factored in.

Well i was considering LEDs but itll still put alot of stress on the alt. Money is the reason i havent considered an alt yet. Ill have about 1200$ into the system if i get a good alt plus labor thatd be around another $900 have to pay to play i guess. Might have to just wait and save up a bit more.

Im far from an expert on all this, but I did wake up (come to?) at a Holiday Inn Express once, so here’s my opinion on the matter:

You will likely have issues such as headlight dimming on heavy bass notes trying to push 1700w RMS with an 180 amp alternator.

I have a 220 amp alt in my Charger(s), and the most I was able to push without issues was about 1500w RMS. Now, I have the halogen headlights, which isnt ideal, and I didn’t do the big 3 (that’s more difficult to do with the long run back to the trunk), but the one time I tried to push more (3 amps totaling almost 2000w), I had severe headlight dimming on the heavy bass notes.

I’m sure there’s a way to make the 1700w setup work, but it will have to be done right, I mean really right.

Also, I have a 220A alt on the shelf if you decide you want to step up to that size. It is used (came off my 2012 at approximately 150K miles), but it still works. I know shipping would be a killer, so I wouldn’t ask much if you want it. Let me know if you do and we can figure a price that will work when shipping is factored in.

And from what I understand a big 3 on the challenger the main power wire isnt needed because its already 1/0 so its actually a big 2 😂

 

Well i was considering LEDs but itll still put alot of stress on the alt. Money is the reason i havent considered an alt yet. Ill have about 1200$ into the system if i get a good alt plus labor thatd be around another $900 have to pay to play i guess. Might have to just wait and save up a bit more.

Ouch. That is a chunk of change.

If you get to feeling industrious, $40 for my used one plus $30-40 shipping (my best guess, not sure there), and you doing the labor would come in a lot less than $900. Hint-hint 😉

And from what I understand a big 3 on the challenger the main power wire isnt needed because its already 1/0 so its actually a big 2 😂

I added another battery to chassis ground cable and separate engine to chassis ground cable on both my cars, and while that helped, there was still some dimming issues. I don’t know if upgrading the main power wire would have solved those, but it was always in the back of mind since I couldn’t ever do it.

 

A bit of a tough question to address without asking a lot of follow up questions. Car audio is interesting because it can be tackled in so many ways, depending on the money you are willing to spend.

If you are looking to have enough output so your car can be heard by the outside world - people typically ask questions much like what you've asked, concerning themselves too much on wattage.

If you are someone who just wants clean, great, balanced, powerful sound inside your car - all those upgrades you are doing to the car are not necessary at all. You can achieve that with 1000 watts if done correctly.

The issue I've seen (not assuming this is you), but just more of a generalization - is cheap audio equipment will rely on inefficient power, pushing things down to 1 ohm for subs and having large amperage requirements. On the other hand, the really efficient equipment, with low amperage - they arent cheap

I think the main question to ask really is what exactly are your intentions for your car? Because seriously, if all you want is good sound without worrying about being heard down the block, you can do it in steps if money is an issue without having to stress out the electrical system of the car.

 

no expert on stereos but a 180 amp alternator will produce 2160 watts. So at 1700 your only leaving 460 watts or about 4 amps to run the rest of the car. That is if your talking your 1700 is for all the channels of your amp. If its per channel your way undergunned. By the way with a 80 amp hour battery you sure wont want to run it more then a couple minutes parked. Id say the biggest alternator you can find and a bigger battery or even better two big batterys.

 

Stock alternators should provide enough amps to run the car and charge the battery and have around 40% of their rating leftover after that. This is a very general rule, but in the absence of more information specific to this situation, it's a good starting point.

40% extra from an 180A alt would mean about 72A is available for something like an aftermarket sound system.

Using the 1700w RMS number as a starting point, and assuming the peak wattage rating on the amp(s) is double the RMS rating, that gives us 50% to use in the next calculation for actual current draw from the amps.

Normally, the sum of all the amps' onboard fuses can be multiplied by that percentage above to arrive at a rough estimate of how many amps the alternator will have to provide to power the sound system. Since we don't any amp specifics, I'll use some fuse ratings I've seen for amps I've run in the past - 150A.

50% of 150A is 75A, which is slightly more than the 72A estimation of available power from the 180A alternator.

So given all this, assumptions and generalizations aside, we can predict that trying to power a 1700w RMS sound system with the 180A alternator will be very difficult to do without signs or symptoms of low voltage showing up somewhere on the car.

For kicks and giggles, if we plug in 220A instead of 180A to see if the upgraded Dodge alternator would fare any better, we get 88A as the reserve number from the alternator available to a sound system.

Using the 75A estimate for actual amps needed to power the system above, the 220A alternator would seem to be able to do the job for us, certainly it has a better chance of doing so than the 180A alt, all things considered.

 

Stock alternators should provide enough amps to run the car and charge the battery and have around 40% of their rating leftover after that. This is a very general rule, but in the absence of more information specific to this situation, it's a good starting point.

40% extra from an 180A alt would mean about 72A is available for something like an aftermarket sound system.

Using the 1700w RMS number as a starting point, and assuming the peak wattage rating on the amp(s) is double the RMS rating, that gives us 50% to use in the next calculation for actual current draw from the amps.

Normally, the sum of all the amps' onboard fuses can be multiplied by that percentage above to arrive at a rough estimate of how many amps the alternator will have to provide to power the sound system. Since we don't any amp specifics, I'll use some fuse ratings I've seen for amps I've run in the past - 150A.

50% of 150A is 75A, which is slightly more than the 72A estimation of available power from the 180A alternator.

So given all this, assumptions and generalizations aside, we can predict that trying to power a 1700w RMS sound system with the 180A alternator will be very difficult to do without signs or symptoms of low voltage showing up somewhere on the car.

For kicks and giggles, if we plug in 220A instead of 180A to see if the upgraded Dodge alternator would fare any better, we get 88A as the reserve number from the alternator available to a sound system.

Using the 75A estimate for actual amps needed to power the system above, the 220A alternator would seem to be able to do the job for us, certainly it has a better chance of doing so than the 180A alt, all things considered.

lets also not forget that amp ratings are tricky and not all amps are rated rms. then there is the fact that the amp only draws it's max current at certain events in the music not all the time so there is not the need to have the full capacity being able to be fed from the alternator constantly as that is where a capacitor and the battery come into play.

if i were you id start with making sure the amplifiers are wired with a large enough gauge wire and that wire is fused near the battery, add a cap if you have lights dimming during heavy base notes and go from there. most guys on this site dont have enough audio equipment in their cars to need a upgraded alternator, im sure some do but why throw money out the window until you know you have a problem

 

pretty easy to figure using ohms law. watts=volts x amps to figure amps you divide watts by volts. to figure volts you divide watts by amps. Nobody yet has beat ohms law. So at 12v an alternator thats producing a 180 amps is capable of 2160 watts. If you exceed that the voltage regulator will start drawing from the battery. If you ran your stereo at 1700 watts in accessory mode with a 80 amp hour battery it would be drawing 142 amps and your battery would last about 25 minutes and would be flat dead at that point. It would probably be drained down to the point it wouldnt start your car in half that. BIG battery or TWO big batterys and the biggest alternator you can buy. If you want to play you are going to have to pay. im no stereo expert but was a lineman and do understand electricity but my guess is this is exactly why high end stereos usually have a second battery dedicated just to the stereo. That way the worse that happens is it goes flat and you can still drive your car.

 

I wish I had taken pictures of the Chevy Corsica that came into the GM dealer I used to work at in the 90's. He complained of it stalling at stoplights. He had the biggest Amp and speakers I have ever seen in his trunk. He also had a monster alternator about twice the size of stock on that poor little 2.2, when we cranked the stereo there wasn't enough HP at idle to run it. He didn't like being told it wasn't the cars fault and that he had to rip all that crap off.

 

thats another good point a heavily loaded alternator will sap hp.