Installing a Car Audio Capacitor

This post will explain how I installed my Maxxlink 1.5 farad capacitor into my car's stereo system.
The capacitor:
http://www.amazon.com/Maxxlink-VDC1-5V1-HYPERcharge-Value-Capacitor/dp/B008PM5WM6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366054717&sr=8-1&keywords=maxxlink+capacitor

To start off you have to charge the capacitor. In order to do this you have to remove the fuse in your power wire. This ensures that the fuse doesn't blow while charging. The capacitor should come with a resistor, attach that onto the positive terminal of your capacitor (set up in the picture above). Make sure to charge the capacitor in the location that you want it, because as soon as you disconnect the ground it starts to drain it's charge. Ground the capacitor to it's own location (not the same as your amp). If your capacitor has a digital display, as soon as you touch your main battery lead to the positive terminal, it will begin to charge. It will digitally display the capacity of the unit. Once it gets up to around 12 volts (if not higher), you can reconnect the fuse and it will start to do its thing! Your main battery lead should go strait to the capacitor, then have a shorter power wire(no longer than 18 inches) going from the capacitor into the amp.

Here's a diagram from Sonic Electronix showing how the installed capacitor should be wired:

Tuning my Subwoofer Amplifier

To start off, my system is a JL Audio W3v3 in a JL High Output wedge enclosure. Powered by a Hifonics Brutus BRX1100.1D amp. My sub is wired at 2 ohms and runs at 500 RMS, while my amp is  capable of 800 RMS @ 2 ohms. So to ensure that I don't blow my sub, I have to set my gain carefully. To do that I followed the directions given by Kyle Duffy at Sonic Electronix:
 http://knowledge.sonicelectronix.com/car-audio-and-video/car-amplifiers/how-to-adjust-amplifier-gains-using-a-digital-multi-meter.html

After setting the Gain your left with; phase, bass EQ, subsonic filter, and low pass filter. When it comes to setting the filters, it depends on the kind of music that you listen to as well as personal preference. The low pass filter acts as a ceiling, and subsonic as a floor for the bass frequencies. Meaning the sub won't hit notes that are above the low pass filter or below the subsonic filter. I listen to mostly Rap and Trap music so I have my filters set around 120Hz and 27Hz. Bass EQ or Bass Boost really just turns up your gain, be careful not to turn that up to high, unless your sub can handle it. I'm not exactly sure what the phase knob does, i've messed with it and it's really hard to notice a difference in the sound of the bass.

Hifonic Brutus BRX1100.1D Install

A couple weeks ago I received my Hifonics Brutus BRX1100 super D class amplifier from Amazon:
 http://www.amazon.com/Hifonics-BRX1100-1D-Vehicle-Subwoofer-Amplifier/dp/B00BHSTTLU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1363636067&sr=8-3&keywords=hifonics+brutus+brx

Because I already ran my RCA and power wires for the amp, I'll be showing how I went about mounting , and connecting the amp.

To start off I had to connect the power wire to the positive terminal on my battery. I also had to cut out a section of my positive terminal cover to feed the wire through (below).

(The terminal cover isn't needed, but I chose to keep it)

I decided to mount the amp on my backseat. So I pulled the wires up from under the seat and fed them under the carpet on the back of the seat. To give it a cleaner look I cut holes in carpet on the back of the seat and ran the wires through there and into the amp.

The next and definitely one of the most important steps is connecting the ground wire. The ground wire needs to be connected DIRECTLY to metal. Which means you either need to find a spot on the chassis without any paint, or sand off the paint around a bolt in order to get the best connection. I used the seat mounting bracket in my car.

Here's a photo of the wires coming through the carpet with the amp screwed to the seat (I used self tapping screws).

Since my amp came with a remote bass control, I had to run the cable for that down the middle of my car. In order to remove the center console, there are two screws inside the center console and one more that is accessible only after you remove the E-Brake boot.

(You can see how I ran the wire in this picture)

(2 Screws inside Center Console)

(You can see the wire ran from the middle in this picture)

I'll be following this post up with a post on how I tuned the amp.