I'm putting in a new alpine deck (in the middle of the install right now) which requires a line directly to the battery. I cannot find a good place to run the wire through. Where can I run this power line through my firewall? I know people have done this before.

 

The best place would probably be to the right of the brake master cylinder, right above the little ledge. Before you do it though, check on the inside of the car to make sure there is nothing in the way of where the hole is going to be.

 

Isn't that way too high? That's top of the engine bay on the driver's side right? Do I have to take off my dash and drill a hole or what? I thought there would be a rubber seal around somewhere i could punch through. Could you describe what needs to be done in more detail?

 

ummm, there's no need to drill a hole in the middle of the firewall...

http://www.mattblehm.com/pics/car/alarm/MVC-002S.JPG

(this is inside the driver's side fender, btw)

Look just above the large hole for the engine bay harness and you'll see a hole & grommet for the hood release cable. you can use a small screwdriver and poke a hole in it for any cable smaller than about 2 awg. I've used it for 2awg before also, but it was a PITA. This time, I just drilled a separate hole for the 1/0 cable.

 

Yep do what matt says ^^^

I just ran a 4 gauge through it with no problem. You probably will want to jack the front end of the car up and remove the wheel in order to easily access the screws that hold the plastic fender cover on. There's a bunch of plastic clips/pins holding it on too, take your time if you don't want to break any, like me

Poke a hole in that rubber grommet, and feed the wire through. It will come out under the dash near where the hood release puller is. From there just run it under the carpet to the center console to the head unit.

 

I just went through the hood cable hole and it worked great. Thanks! Now for the rest of the install. I hope an extra 5 Watts rms is worth running all this power wire!

 

Unless you got an amplifier I doubt it

 

It isn't, you should have just used the battery wire that is there from the factory.

 

I couldn't use the stock power wire. The deck is an alpine 9813. It's got the "V-drive" amp which requires a line straight to the battery, because it draws extra amps and ups' the voltage to 17 giving it higher output. it's entirely possible that i could have gotten by with the stock power, but I thought I'd better not risk it.

Plus I can use the old stereo positive and negative to power other toys!

 

they like fooling people. unless you're pulling over 15 amps I'd have stayed stock

 

The in-line fuse that comes with it is 20 amp. Don't know how close to actual draw that actually is. As I said, just being cautious and doing stuff right....mostly.

 

I highly recommend running a separate line from the battery, even if you're running amps in the back for the main power source. the power lead going to the HU is only about a 20awg wire. good for about 4 amps before you start suffering from voltage drop on the line. it's crap.

Even when running my HU that's a dead head (only has RCA outputs, no internal amp), I ran into voltage drop problems when I had the system cranked... replaced the line from the battery to the head unit, and the problems went away.